Hello there...

A co-worker of mine has a son who is passing through town and has a four hour layover. There is no time to leave the airport to have a decent meal and visit, so I suggested to my co-worker that he purchase fully refundable Y tickets with a late deprture, clear security, then cancel the trip.

For what it's worth, I did call CO Reservations and posed the question to them and the response was a little amusing in that the agent stuttered and was at a loss for words and went silent over five seconds; she then said it was not recommended, but did not say it should not be done.

So, how bad/unethical was I with my advice? Are there any other ways to accomplish this? My co-worker has no status with CO. I guess I would feel guilty if someone wanted a Y fare, but could not get one. I did check availability with KVS and there are Y seats.

Regards

I have done it a few times before I got my Presidet Club membership. Now I dont need to buy a Y ticket just to see my parents or a friend connecting in LAX...

I dont think your advice was unethical... I think is a good advice, specialy for a ther to see his son for a few hours. Besides, CO is not really losing money. not even in the AUS route... they always have plenty of seats and in less then Y fare.

CO also has late flights to MSY, LAX, PHX, LAS, etc, so you can "spread out" your family a little. Just means a few more dollars on your credit card temporarily.

Call CO and cancel/refund the trip as soon as you clear security.

Book a roundtrip...decreases the chance that you'll get flagged for secondary screening at shoe carnival.

There are certain things it's best to just do, and not call the airline and ask about...

I tend to agree; my co-worker is a nervous, older gentleman who wanted assurances he would not get into any trouble and wanted to ask, so I put the phone in conference mode and made the call for him. He has no idea about our world and did not beleive he could do this.

He is very happy at the moment. The problem is he is not too savy when it comes to booking trips; in fact, he has a fear of flying and rarely ever does, so I had to write up an email for his Blackberry on how to pull this off. I'll post if he has any stories to tell on Monday.

I sure hope a SPOTer doesn't notice him in the airport, though that would probably make for a more entertaining story for the rest of us than his order at Pappadeaux's.

I think the OP should remove from the original post the date and time and flight he's planning on purchasing.

I did not consider that, thank you!

BTW, I've never heard of SPOTters. Was that joke, or is there such a thing? If so, what do they do exactly?

Sadly, not a joke. They're another "layer" of TSA who hang out in the airports looking for nervous people, because everyone knows that terrorists are always nervous. Head over to the TS/S forum for more details.

Another option is to have his son come out of airside and they go over to the airport Marriot and have a bite to eat in the restaurant there. Four hours is plenty of time to do that.

here are two very effective and simple methods to clear security HOWEVER, be warned the first will result in some serious paperwork if caught:

Method 1

1. merely do OLCI and copy and paste the entire page to a blank Word file.
2. in the word file change the flight details to match those with a flight departing within 3 hours of the son's arrival.
3. change the pax name to the friends
4. delete the FF# (or better insert the friends valid number)
5. print the Word file (for best results print in B/W)

and, voila! your friend has his own BP to clear security with no charging / canceling tickets.

Remember to save the original OLCI webpage for future use.

Method 2: go to the main check-in counter and politely explain the situation and ask the checkin attendant for a non-passenger pass through security.

I prefer method two - but method one is very effective (for the non-nervous types).