caphis

Yes, but in JetBlue's case, consider the following scenario:

OAK-JFK-BOS
The first leg is irrelevant; the customer will travel that regardless.
JFK-BOS -- sold to 150. If the customer has no intention of making that leg, it's good in terms of revenue that money will still be made, BUT that's also a Y fare that could be sold instead. Say that leg was just $40; the customer doesn't take it, a standby customer does. Everyone's happy.

Except, if JetBlue knew ahead of time that the customer had no intention of taking that leg, they know that it's really sold to 149. The potential exists for another Y class fare to be bought for the flight -- which is a bit more revenue than the $40 cost.

Like I said, I can see both positive and negative sides of airlines officially speaking on this policy.

Khabibul35, the best I got was from the Contract of Carriage posted herein. That said, a couple of things to be mindful of if you're going to go through with this-

1) Getting there won't be a problem. You can get off at JFK and no one will question you.

2) The crewmember checking you in doesn't have an option to short check your bags. When you check in, your tags will come out for your final destination and if you want them short checked, you'll have to ask for them to manually tag them. This may prove to be the most difficult task for you, as crewmembers are advised repeatedly to make sure to NOT short check bags. If you explain, though, that your travel plans are preventing you from making the second leg, it shouldn't be a problem. Best advice for you, though, would be to carry on or gate check, if possible.

3) Your return trip will be unaffected, assuming you have booked a direct flight on the return. I know that the reservation software won't touch your return trip if you book OAK-JFK-BOS and JFK-OAK, but if you book the return as BOS-JFK-OAK, you will be declared a No Show in BOS, which will also uncheck you from the second leg. What effect this will have on your being able to check in for the JFK-OAK leg... I don't know. I've never come across this scenario, and the couple of Airports crewmembers I've spoken with haven't either, as far as they know.

Ergo, if you're going to do this, it's going to be very hit or miss and YMMV with what you encounter.

magiciansampras

Sure, but they'd be more happy to get you to pay more to travel to JFK (your destination) than Boston.

j3823x

You're reading too much into this.

One step at a time.

"Fares apply only between the points named"
This part means a fare for OAK-BOS is good for going between Oakland and Boston, maybe with a connection someplace, maybe not. It is not meant to be for OAK-JFK.

"and via the routing as shown in Carrier's current schedule"
This part means the routing you paid for.

"and are not applicable to or from intermediate points".
Still talking about the fare/routing combo you chose, this part means you cannot transform aaa-bbb-ccc-bbb-aaa into aaa-bbb-aaa. This is the hidden city clause in plain English.

We all know B6's reservation system leaves a little something to be desired and maybe B6 won't even know. If you ask B6, the answer you get should be in line with the CoC.

However I still say give it a live shot with real travel and let us know how it goes.

j3823x

In such a case, it is probably best to book the outbound and return trips on separate reservations. Whatever happens with the outbound trip won't affect the return trip.

As for TrueBlue points, would the jfk-bos leg have to completed to get credit for the oak-jfk trip?

PDXPremier

First of all, most of the time, I doubt there is going to be a huge fare diff between OAK-JFK vs. OAK-BOS....we need to look at routes where this is ALWAYS a huge fare difference...take SJC-JFK vs. SJC-LGB....you can snag a $79 ow fare from SJC-LGB and get off in JFK which is far better than buying the SJC-JFK...unless you have bags to check, who cares whether or not JetBlue "allows" it...you just get off at JFK and don't fly the JFK-LGB portion...it's also a ow ticket so it's not like they are going to cancel your return...

dinosims

B6 doesn't sell tickets from SJC-LGB via JFK, so there would never be that big of a fare difference. Also, usually if there's an option to connect somewhere as opposed to flying direct, there's often in increase in price as well, which would often eliminate the savings that hidden city ticketing would provide.

PDXPremier

You can almost always buy a one-way $79 fare ($84 if you include the $5 booking fee) on orbitz.com...the routing provided allows you to connect at JFK which is definately cheaper than the SJC-JFK one-way fare....so, yeah, maybe B6 doesn't sell the ticket but orbitz does

somedude24

WOW. I just checked this out for myself on Orbitz, and it's evidently true (I found $69 pre-tax...through Boston). What are they thinking? How does this fare even end up in the booking system? No, really, what are they thinking? Not only does it not make any practical sense whatsoever, but the airline would literally lose hundreds of dollars for each one-way ticket sold this way. This is a rare instance in which they'd probably be better off leaving the seat(s) empty (I imagine that the marginal cost of transporting one additional passenger 5,500 miles or so, including ticketing, fuel, baggage handling, snacks, etc, has to be more than the $60-some-odd that JetBlue gets for these fares, pre tax).

Incidentally, searching other city pairs turns up interesting routings on JetBlue and other airlines (example: NYC to BOS by way of several Florida cities), but at least in those cases the fares seem to reflect the absurdity of such a routing. Why does Orbitz sell these crazy itineraries when JetBlue directly does not?

sbm12

Are TrueBlue credits issued by segment or by origin/destination pair? This seems like something close to a B6 mileage run for a pair of trancons at $84. Of course, no double points for the jetblue.com booking, but still way more points than some of the other routes you can buy for similar prices.

Khabibul35

All this hoopla about SJC to LGB via JFK/BOS isn't really worth discussing... it shows up on Orbitz but it's unbookable. It comes back at $500 like the way it should be in the first place once you press buy.

dinosims

They issue them by origin/destination pair, but if Orbitz books it as two seperate legs/tickets, then it might count as by segment....

dinosims

I actually was able to get all the way to the final purchase page without it repricing.... ~$94 to leave SJC at 10 PM, and arrive in LGB at 11:30 AM the next day with a stop in BOS. If this tickets as two seperate legs (it seems it would, because you can only find it when you search for a one way - presumably because it takes up 2 legs, and B6 tickets don't allow for more than that one one itin, AFAIK), then this might be the first ever B6 mileage run!

Now, who wants to be the first to pull the trigger and test this out? LOL

Igotmybigboypantson

Don't waste your time. The reason why Orbitz shows LGB to SJC via BOS is because fares have been filed on routing 900 and it is a valid connection in ATPCO, however this is not the case in the Open Skies system. Any OTA/GDS booking has to be valid in Open Skies also otherwise you will receive a booking error or it will price point to point. If JetBlue cleaned up their fares & route map in ATPCO you wouldn't see this invalid option in Orbitz.

justageek

Who cares what the "official policy" is, or what the ethics are? The only question is, will JetBlue's computer system cancel out the rest of your itinerary (and possibly blacklist you for the future) if you get off at an intermediate stop. The legacy airlines do. JetBlue either does or doesn't. This experiment really just takes one try, I think...

Khabibul35

By the way, I'd like to point out this is no longer a hypothetical but is actually happening.

davidmay has pointed out here at least one instance where there's a hidden city at a cheaper price.

Anyone from Jetblue want to weigh in on this?