R.O.

You just paraphrased something stated often on FT. All I'm saying isn't we shouldn't just accept that advice just because it's given frequently. Believe me, I don't care about your nationality or how often you fly LH. Those are things I cannot verify anyway. I care about the virtue of an argument.

And as for the LH lawsuit: We are all aware of it. I commented on it upthread. If there is something to be learned from it, then it would be something in favor of hidden-city ticketing. I don't see how one could construct an opposing argument from LH dropping that case. If you can, please explain step-by-step.

Often1

I would not read much into the LH lawsuit. It was dismissed by the Berlin court on procedural grounds and LH dismissed its appeal. It is neither precedential in Germany nor the EU nor does it say anything about German consumer protection law.

My suspicion is that LH dropped the appeal in order to find a more on-point case to make the point.

In any event, anyone who takes remote comfort from the LH tactical decision may well find herself out in the cold later.

thbe

The OP is located at MSP. The place of jurisdiction and the law to apply are usually not defined by the place of departure.

Your flights and the flights of the few people you refer to are not a sufficient base to assess the potential risk of a lawsuit.

I don't understand what you mean. Leaving out rail segments is a different issue anyway. But why you don't book ZWS-FRA-GOT-FRA-ZWS, fly two segments and collect miles for 4 segments? Why you start at FRA, but return to STR?

thbe

double post

R.O.

It is defined by the sales city which, in this instance, is most likely BRU.

One the one hand, LH likes it married-segments logic. On the other hand, I get the impression they're worried about people that try to exploit that logic in order to save money and have put in some barriers to "maximization."

In my experience, GF and the matrix often don't show prices or availability correctly when rail segments (which you can skip) or bus segments (which you can't skip) are involved. So using ZWS on one end and STR on another is just something that sometimes works for the best price on LH.com when using ZWS on both ends does not. Just what I get from experimenting on LH.com. YMMV.

R.O.

I agree with your interpretation of the lawsuit itself and why it was dropped.

But what I'm criticizing is something else. People point to the lawsuit and say: "See, you can get sued by LH for hidden-city ticketing. So hidden-city ticketing is risky."

The statement "So hidden-city ticketing is risky" doesn't follow. Who is drawing that inference is not thinking clearly.

What we know is that dozens if not hundreds of people in Germany engage in hidden-city ticketing any given day. Among those thousands and thousands of tickets, LH hasn't found a single one which it fought in court until the end. I'm also not aware of a case where LH reached a favorable settlement in such a case against a German consumer.

tl;dr That lawsuit in no way supports the claim that hidden-city ticketing is risky business.

Mr. LAU

What would happen if the OP traveled with checked luggage? Would you be able to just check the luggage to FRA or tell LH in the F lounge on arrival that you do not need the last segment anymore and have them offload the luggage?

sophialite

Short check the bag at check in. Have never had an issue doing that.

wfiring12

Yes, exactly correct. As the OP, I should note I've short checked luggage with LX F recently coming back from DAR to ZRH with a ticketed return to AMS. I just told the greeter who escorted on the bus/van upon arrival to ZRH that we would not be taking the last leg and she simply thanked me for letting them know.

As per my OP here, I'm now going to do the same in a few weeks upon my return to FRA with LH F. Or more likely will just carry on the bag since it won't be huge and inform the FCL agent (which we'll use as an arrivals lounge) that we won't be continuing on. On my outbound yesterday on the BRU-FRA-JNB with an F ticket we actually had two bags short checked to FRA and two smaller ones checked all the way through to JNB. We simply needed to store our big bags in FRA for a few weeks rather than lug them along in Africa. After a bit of head-scratching on the BRU agent's part, I simply suggested they put two bags under one passenger, and the other two under the 2nd passenger. She checked with her supervisor and they quickly agreed. Sure enough, two bags arrived in FRA where we collected and put them in storage and they other two duffles showed up in JNB. First to be off-loaded!

A bot off-topic, but I should also note that unlike my last JNB arrival - this time an agent met us at the gate on arrival, escorted us to security, took our hand luggage, and met us on the other side where he escorted us to our bags and then to the SAA re-check desk where me made our flight to CPT. While there was no fast-track, of course, we were quite lucky to have only a 3 min wait at regular immigration (hit or miss at JNB clearly!). To be sure, we could have done all of that ourselves especially since we know the airport well, but it was nice nonetheless.

thbe

You obviously don’t understand the meaning of the world „risky“. Risky means, that there is a risk to get problems by doing that, not that you get problems for sure. And you don‘t have the data to say, that it‘s not risky.

And again: Already the risk to get sued by a large company is something, which make many people not doing it. Even is they could win the lawsuit. Don‘t forget: Some people has the money to pay the real price or have the time to fly all segments booked.

You are skipping segments, that is your decision. Maybe you have to tell yourself, that there is no risk about it, to do that. But at least when you start to tell others, that there is no risk, you are simply wrong.

Flying Lawyer

And with all due respect: The risk of being the victim of an accident is bigger than the risk of getting sued by LH because of skipping segments.

R.O.

True, but the poster obv has monsters under the bed syndrome.

thbe

First, that is your guess. But even if we know the number of people who have an accident when flying, at least you and R.O. don't know, how many people got sued or similar problems by LH.

Secondly, a lot of organizations invest a huge amount of money to decrease the risk of accidents in airline business. A lot of them just exist to lower that risk. For many of us flying belongs to the necessary risks. Here we are talking about the risk of getting problems by booking a different route than the one you really want to fly and not having the time to fly that different route. The reason for that is saving money. A risk based on not saving money is easy to avoid. It doesn't make sense to compare a risk, where organisations spend a fortune of money to avoid it, with a risk, which can easily avoided by not saving a few bucks or hours.

Thirdly, humans don't have a sense for risks. People are playing lottery and thinking about, what they do with the jackpot. And they smoke without thinking about serious diseases and earlier death. Even if it's very unlikely to win the jackpot and if it's very likely to get serious health problems and to die early caused by smoking. So especially in private life the assessment of risks is not an exact science and more about lifestyle.

Fourthly, people are different. Some feel good with something while other don't feel good with the same. You would have the wrong job, if the risk of a legal dispute worried you so much, that you try to avoid it at all costs. Other people try to avoid legal disputes if possible. And comparing proper bookings with hidden city bookings, we are not even close to talk about "at all costs". If you want to save money, you just have to invest a bit more time to avoid the risk coming with skipping legs on hidden city bookings by flying the last segment. So, people who not worry about the risk of skipping segments on a hidden city booking, are free to do that. But for people who feel uncomfortable with that risk it's a much better idea not to take it.

And with all due respect: Everyone should choose by himself which risks are worth taking for him and which are not. Skipping legs on a hidden city booking doesn't belong to the necessary risks for sure.

cfischer

Sounds like you are doing this pretty often, I don't think that is advisable. While most airlines don't go after you if you do this once in a while they certainly become less accommodating if it is a habit. Not sure where you are crediting your flights; if to M&M then I would be more careful. Quite a number of cases where US airlines have either threatened to or actually closed FQTV accounts in such cases.

wfiring12

I've done this once in my lifetime before. Last year on LX as referenced. This would be my second. Ever. I wouldn't see the need to do this in the US just to save a few bucks.

Quite frankly, I wouldn't be doing it this time other than our New Years plans changed to AMS. Flying back to BRU would normally not be an issue as I'd normally just jump on the Thalys for a quick transfer up to AMS from BRU. However, with the chaos in the French strikes affecting that rail line, I'm going to fly from FRA straight into AMS on KLM. Changing my F ticket with LH would be a ridiculous $6,000 USD change fee to a ticket I had already paid $7,000. Absolutely no guilt from me when an airline's ticket pricing policy punishes one for a change to that degree.