You keep choosing to be stuck on something that wasn’t the primary point, and you also miss the point that is trying to be made that not all city pairs for hidden city have or carry equal risk, which is also the point I was making. BOS-LAX-SAN carries far less risk than say LAX-CVG-DCA because in IROPS LAX is going to be a reasonable alternate to SAN - a point that you and I have both made. But for the LAX-CVG-DCA example, maybe if the IROPS is bad enough and the lines or phones are slammed enough you may get an agent who may not care or just pushes through LAX-HUB-CVG-DC and moves on and enables you to get to CVG. But it cannot be counted on based on availability into CVG as well as an agent trying to figure out some routing through CVG for you when CVG has limited options, which emphasizes the point I and others have made about hidden city risks with IROPS. Certain hidden city ticket options carry more risk in this regard. You keep getting hung up on the SAN example specifically because you want to argue some point that wasn’t the primary point rather than recognizing the overall point that was being made by myself and others with regards to the potential risks of hidden city ticketing.

So the next time I have IROPS flying into SAT from Detroit, I can change my destination to HNL or OGG or if I have my passport, go overseas to Europe or Asia or Australia? Good to know.

Something tells me you’re a little wrong there, and DL is not just going to change your destination or routing to “allow you to reroute how you want” or “change the destination without issue”. There’s going to be a degree of reasonableness factored in. “Now reasonable” might still result in some funky routings because of availability or even the use of a not-that-close alternate because of the circumstances. I’ve done SFO-ATL-PHX when VDB’ed from SFO-LAX-PHX and I’ve used GSO for BWI when BWI got a hurricane weather waiver one time. But in those cases, those were reasonable options given the circumstances. But I highly doubt you’ll be able to switch your ATL-SAT leg to ATL-HNL and a Hawaii vacation if SAT is experiencing afternoon thunderstorms.....

Now that I think about it those may have been E170/175 flights which are operated by regional airlines (which is what I meant by RJ). One was a situation where they canceled CR9 from DCA-JFK and put everyone on Delta Shuttle to LGA then originally balked at providing transportation to JFK where vehicle was. Since it was 4 people going for a weekend to DCA it was cheaper to park than take Uber or public transportation.

my official ruling is that every couple months for a year is entering into risky territory.

an excellent strategy to reduce the risk is to get a refund for the unflown segment due to any flight delay or advance schedule change.

pretty much every flight booked 4 months in advance will have a schedule change.
high chance of a two-segment itinerary to have some delay in either segment.

i’d wage you can get the unflown segment refunded 3 out of 4 times, in which case your risk is then based upon a once per 8 months frequency of leaving a segment unflown. which is essentially zero.

It only works if the App returns that option. Or your hidden ticket strategy works if the App returns a LAX-CVG-DC Area flight for the next day and that works for your schedule. But even the rebooking tool in IROPS is going to return nonstops and 1 stop connections prior to 2 stop itineraries and it may not even list any routings via CVG as an option. And if it doesn’t, that may well take getting a human on the phone to try to get an agent to force a routing that eventually goes through CVG who may or may not play the game for you. Or the routings you could get to go via CVG are just full, especially since CVG has fewer frequencies than other hubs.

Again, all that’s being pointed out is the potential risks and pitfalls associated with hidden city ticketing. I don’t think anyone is denying that most of the time, right, wrong, or indifferent, it works out for the traveler with no issues. But it’s up to the traveler on whether they want to engage in it based on all the applicable risks and potential consequences of each risk.

With my family of 4 I book one to my destination and tag all the bags there. The other 3 then travel with no bags. As far as miles I value them as worthless today so I won’t claim those flights, and status means nothing to me domestically. At the end of the day a coach seat is a coach. All my years with status I didn’t feel any different then those without it. Now back in the 90s it had real perks. I would rather save $1000+ then have a few thousand miles. Now international just grab the bag and go.

I wouldn’t conclude that, but I would conclude that travel agents are financially most at risk if doing this a lot, and that most retail customers doing the hidden city/throwaway ticket/nested ticket thing don’t get hit by DL RPU or whatever it’s called. But that doesn’t mean DL can’t or won’t go after some individuals just because they can and want to send a message/set an example of sort to percolate around.

I know way more people who have done dozens of hidden city or nested tickets with DL than

I do it all the time but I don’t claim miles. Who cares about miles with $300 flights to Europe and Asia. Status is garbage unless your employer is paying for your flights.