scally

We have a flight to europe on Delta this fall. We live on the east coast, and the flight stops in the city we live in, but to get the better deal on tickets, we had to start our journey further up the east coast.

We are considering ghostsitting on the return flight so we basically don't have to fly two more legs up and down the coast.

if we get off early, what are the ramifications from delta? are our miles from the entire flight back not given to us? are we put on a blacklist of some sort? additionally are there any TSA ramifications or customs ramifications?

we want the miles because it is a european trip obviously, so we don't know if we should just bite the bullet and complete the flight as planned and book a flight from the originating city back to our home. or jump ship on the first stop for convenience sake.

thanks!

DLATL777

This comes up thrice a month or so. If you don't fly a leg of your itinerary, you will not get the miles. Period. If you have checked bags, they will continue all the way to your final destination. If the leg you skip has any proceeding legs (I.E. it is not the last leg in your journey) all remaining legs will be canceled. The consensus is if you do it often you might encounter a problem, otherwise, skipping the last leg is probably not a big deal.

NHFL9

I disagree, it's fine as long as it is the last flight of the itinerary. For example if you book ALB-JFK-LHR-JFK-ALB and skip JFK-ALB you will have no problem. You can even tell the agent at LHR on check-in that your plans have changed and you don't need the JFK-ALB sector any more and they will just cancel it. Even if the agent refuses, you need to reclaim your bags at your first point of entry so you can just go on your way. Failing to take a flight you were checked in for might be a problem; however, others here have reported getting away with it.

DLATL777

Never said it was a problem, so im not sure what your disagreeing with.

NHFL9

I misread your post, sorry. I thought you were saying OP would get no miles for the entire itinerary including flights flown.

AndyTLe

Actually, it is a violation of DL's Contract of Carriage. It could be seen by DL as circumventing of DL's fare rules.

https://www.delta.com/planning_reser...jsp#prohibited

DLATL777

No problems. Long night?

MarkXS

First, Welcome to FlyerTalk!

As others have noted, there shouldn't be any customs or TSA ramifications. And if you don't make a habit of it, DL won't notice or won't care. If you regularly do this, yes, DL's Revenue Protection Unit might take notice if they're still data-mining for this type of thing.

Which doesn't mean that it will be seen that way. Let's not scare the OP too much.

If you're going to take a literal "the rules are the rules" no matter how crazy or consumer-unfair they are, yes, it's breaking the rules. However the COC is so hidden (yes there are links buried on the site but the average "reasonable person" can't find them nor wants to wade through all of it, that people innocently do this all the time on the last leg. It's against a commercial company's rules for me to burn a CD to play on my MP3 player too. That doesn't make it a reasonable rule or a fairly negotiated contract. The idea that an industry can say in essence "if you buy a package of 4 tomatoes and throw out the 4th you've violated our contract with you and we will seek damages" is ludicrous.

However it is rulebreaking of the airline's rules. So if you have absolute honesty in all things scruples, don't do it. If you instead are driven by a sense of fairness and common sense, go right ahead, knowing that there is a tiny risk of DL getting upset. However you could always "play dumb" - because what "normal" person would think that if the end of their trip is, for example, flying Paris-Atlanta-Boston, that if they got off in Atlanta they'd be violating a contract. You could say, if challenged at ATL (in this example), you started feeling airsick and need to rest in a hotel till your stomach quiets down. You could say that a friend who lives in ATL heard you were coming through and invited you to visit for a few day.

There are some logistical challenges depending on the airport. You clear US immigration & customs at the first entry into the USA, even if you have an onward domestic connection. You have to reclaim your checked luggage in a special international arrivals luggage area after immigration but before customs. Then you can leave, depending on the airport. In some airports, with ATL and MEM (both DL hubs) among them, once you clear immigration & customs, you have to re-clear TSA to leave the airport at all, because the only exit from Customs is in the secure airside of the terminal. In that case you can't just pick up your large checked bags or anything checked with liquids, because TSA is planning to screen you by the carry-on rules. You have to re-check your luggage at the recheck desk after customs before TSA. In Washington Dulles (IAD), a UA hub, connecting passengers clear a different customs area still airside, with carry-on-type TSA screening, while terminating passengers clear at the main terminal and can walk right out after Customs. ATL has a DL re-check to "check" the bags from Terminal E Customs exit to the main terminal landside, but if you're ticketed by DL to BOS, you aren't likely to get DL to check them to landside ATL.

That's where the "I feel sick" (but not so sick that they call a doctor and don't mention that until AFTER immigrations and customs clearance!) or "my friend wants me to visit" might work.

SJC2AUO

I did this Saturday night at SFO and encountered resistance.

I booked ATL-SFO-ATL-JAX to save at least $100 off of ATL-SFO-ATL. So i asked the agent to short-check my bag to ATL (which has been done numerous times from both SFO & SJC). He said he required a supervisor. He goes in the back, then returns to the counter and snatches my ID off the keyboard and disappears before I realize he'd taken it. Sup shows up and says she won't do it cause it violates FAA regs. But could reprice my ticket to just ATL. I believe something happened in the office where my name had been flagged (dooms day scenario, blah de blah) and she took it upon herself to show me my place. So I didn't check my bag despite her telling me my laptop case was too large and wouldn't be allowed by TSA. (Again doing all she could to make me travel to JAX). I respectfully, but with authority, told her she was wrong. I then made a call to a colleague who gave me instructions. I was to have a supervisor show me in FAR Part 121 where it states you cannot short-check a bag. So I returned to the counter to find the original supervisor missing. Another supervisor (I assume as he was not in uniform) approached me and I eventually got it out of him that it was a DL policy and not the FAA's. So we went round and round about RPU, etc. We ended courteously and I got on the flight with both my bags. Needless to say I will refute any additional charge DL puts on my credit card. And as a business student I don't think making up federal regulations or threatening the loyalist of customers is the best approach when having just filed a near $200 million quarter loss.

Buster CT1K

In ATL, can't you just rip the tags off your bag and when you go to re-check them to landside, just drop them off on the landside belt?

CarolDisney1

But you think it's OK for you to "circumvent" the rules to save money. Hmmm. As a Business Student you should understand that Delta needs to make money. By doing this you are not fufilling YOUR part of the contract. Since you are a business student I assume you have had a business law class. Any complaint to the credit card company is going to have to be based on the "rules don't apply to me" defense. (which is generally considered pretty weak)

Honestly, they don't like to short check and don't have too. It's wrong to use the FAA, but it is IN the Contract of Carriage you agreed to (and they filed with the FAA) so......

It appears to me that you have no basis for filing a complaint if something does happen on your credit card and while I expect the OP won't have any issue you are proably risking something happening to you. Continued abuse does tend to be caught. One time only.. not likely. And you just managed to draw a LOT of attention to yourself in the DL system.

mersk862

You entered a contract with Delta to transport you from San Francisco to Jacksonville, not Atlanta. That's what DL based the fare on - that they would get you to Jacksonville. They could have rerouted you over CVG or wherever and have you avoid Atlanta if there was a need to do so (flight cancels, etc.). Hence the fare - DL is competing with more carriers on SFO-JAX than SFO-ATL in terms of offerings - SFO-JAX everyone has to connect. DL is competing with UA via ORD, AA via ORD/DFW, US via CLT, WN via wherever, FL via ATL, CO via IAH, etc. All are pretty equal in that there's no premium for a nonstop.

With SFO-ATL, it's either DL or FL - they have the (more attractive) nonstop option. Less competition, so more of a premium price.

Not that difficult to understand - competition and product appeal does a lot to price. And the matter of the contract (to transport you to Jacksonville, not Atlanta) just makes it a lot easier.

Sorry, but the original DL agent was right here and should not have short-checked the bag, and any revenue difference that was charged is justifiable for you trying to break the contract.

MikeMpls

They have no business charging anything to his credit card. He has not authorized any such charges. The fare rules & so-called "contract" is buried in garbage pages that nobody (with the possible exception of a small number of FT diehards) ever bothers to read. Good luck finding a judge that will enforce the "contract", especially if it concerns unauthorized credit card charges.

Delta & other legacy airlines keep digging themselves in deeper & deeper with complicated rules that relatively few travelers understand and nobody likes and -- surprise -- they keep losing money.

Meanwhile, over at the airline that's cranked out profits year after year after year:

Treating people decently brings its returns (profits), but in this area especially Delta has yet to get the message.

To the OP:

(1) Don't check luggage if you do this.

(2) If you value your SkyMiles account, don't do it often. Although Delta won't have a leg to stand on when it comes to collecting any fare differences, they can mess with your FF account.

The original DL agent LIED TO HIM by claiming non-existent FAA regulation prevented him from short-checking the bags. He then LIED FURTHER TO HIM by claiming his laptop bag was too large to get through the TSA checkpoint. Zero integrity there. I really can't stand people who lie.

In most cases, however, an airline simply isn't going to short-check backs. They can't have them piling up mid-trip when people turn out not to have enough time to claim them, recheck them & reclear security. They will check them according to your itinerary. Period. End of story.

Never, ever, let anyone run off with your ID. Copied ID's are a major source of identity theft.

mdb

Actually that is not correct. Once the agent said it was an FAA regulation - one can say they violated the contract by LYING.

Frankly I am getting tired of all the riteous indignation about the "contract of carriage" and how disonest it is to violate it. These are unreasonably impossible contracts that are implied by purchase not actual signed contracts.
These are stacked against the traveler and this is one of those times when the rules are not so clear as per the OP's reference to the short check-in luggage rule.
These convoluted fare rules help create and enviornment where we as travelers have to enforce and create "fairness" for ourselves. Being a smart and educated consumer is not dishonest!!

scally

thanks for all the replies and the warm welcome.
what makes this more difficult a decision is that if we did the full flight and took all legs, there are NO other flights on delta or airtran back to my home city that night and the flight comes in around 7:30, so i'd have to stay the night someplace and THEN get the first flight out in the morning, which seems like a big pain in the butt.