Often1

This isn't about ethics, it's about either agreeing to a contract or not. Nobody can force anyone to fly any given segment. The question is what the fare ought to be. People here aren't concerned about cancelling a segment, they don't want to cancel and pay more.

For those who want to go back to the bad old days of airline regulation where the government approved all airfares, bear in mind that in today's dollars, it is a heck of a lot cheaper to fly today than it was back in the early 1980's and before. Be careful what you wish for.

Tchiowa

Actually, by law they are required to throw the extra one away because they don't own it and can't resell it.

Pretty much true, and I don't think we want government regulation.

Yes it is.

And if you agree to the contract and violate the terms, that's about ethics.

No, the question is about what the fare *is*. If you don't think the fare is what it should be, don't buy it. If you buy it and agree to the contract, honor your side of the agreement.

^ Amen to that.

Ber2dca

I don't see it as an ethics issue, I see it as a "they are screwing you as much as they can get away with, so you screw them as much as you can get away with" issue. Obviously if they start telling you to stop the practice you've reached the limit of what you can get away with..

pinniped

Lots of talk of free-market concepts and the state of regulation of the industry (do we want more or less, etc.). My only struggle with some of those traditional arguments is that the airline industry in the U.S. has effectively become an uncompetitive, price-setting cartel, with that status firmly empowered by a complicit DoJ.

So while the government doesn't regulate or set the fares, it has certainly enabled a decrease in competition that lets the airlines set them themselves and effectively move them in lockstep with each other. True on fares and also true on many of the underlying policies about garbage fees and the like.

So for that reason, plus the fact that airlines generally treat their customers like crap across the board, I have a hard time blaming anyone for a hidden-city ticket. If that's your one little way of sticking it to The Man, good for you... If we want to delve into ethics, there are hundreds of places we could do so within the client relationship between an airline and a traveler that *don't* involve the traveler trying to slip through a fare loophole.

milepig

Oh my. By extension this means that if you think a store is charging you too much something its OK to steal it? Same thing.

al613

By COC do you agree to fly at all or to fly all segments or you just agree to the penalties if you don't fly the whole thing or certain segments? I doubt any court will enforce you to fly any segments you don't want. They might however agree on penalties for not flying if you sign such a contract. The question is if you agree to these penalties and the penalties are not actually coming, should you offer extra money to the airline on your own?

Sometimes its cheaper to park illegally and to pay a ticket (if you get it) then to pay for parking. Is it unethical?

channa

No, back to my Buy 2 Get 2 free example, if you did that, and walked out of the store with 3 and left 1 behind in your cart, are you stealing since you paid for 4 (less), not 3 (more)?

The difference is at the store, you didn't click an agreement to some lengthy T&Cs that require you to take all 4.

artemis

Here's a question/thought experiment: if I buy a ticket A-B-C and only fly the A-B leg, the airlines get upset. But how is this different from buying the same ticket and not flying on that ticket at all (which the airlines don't care about)? Either way, the airline got the money for the purchase. Why is using all of the purchase OK, and using none of the purchase OK, but using only part of the purchase is not?

ROCAT

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sethb

What does that have to do with hidden-city?

Suppose you charge $100/hour, but for some slow days you charge only $300/day. A client hires you for next Thursday at $300, which you agree to. He has you work from 8 AM to noon, then tells you he doesn't need you for the afternoon. Did he steal $100 from you?

Ber2dca

Like airlines themselves do, I consider this industry to be quite exempt from the standard practices of normal business.

I'd like to see another industry try to argue that taking *less* than you paid for is theft.

milepig

And that is a huge difference!

FlamencoE

Think about it as a time-share presentation deal. The time-share company sells you a pair of tickets to Disney World for $15 if you agree to spend 2 hours at one of their presentations listening to their marketing material.

Obviously they wouldn't let you just "throw away" the free presentation and keep the Disney tickets.

They are only selling you the tickets for $15 because you agreed to do something THEY wanted you to do.

Similarly for plane tickets, the airline sold you a package deal you either agree to it or you don't. But they wouldn't let you stop at your transit airport in disney world, and throw away your promise to show up at your final destination - because that's the part they wanted. If they wanted to send you to Disney world, they'd have charged you more.

nsx

You are if that 4th one diminishes the value of the other 3. Try this with my T-shirt example. The crucial fact you evade is that the last segment DECREASES THE MARKET VALUE of the trip. None of the analogies to physical items has this characteristic except my T-shirt example.

milepig

Except the whole thing is moot. When would click "purchase" you agree to their terms. If you don't like them the option is to not complete the purchase rather than to complete the purchase and violate them. You've voluntarily entered into an agreement you have no intention of keeping. That's unethical. Whether or not you can come up with a single other example of a similar situation doesn't matter. They set the terms and when you click purchase you agree to them. Period.