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what to do when airline warned me about numerous throw-away ticketing? ($95 vs $497)

what to do when airline warned me about numerous throw-away ticketing? ($95 vs $497)

Old Sep 21, 2014, 4:43 am
  #751  
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Originally Posted by LondonElite
Correct, there is no ethical issue here, but from the point of view of the airline, there is a contractual one.

The price from A to B is 200. The price from A to C, via B, is 100. The fact that you can get off in B is a happy coincidence (for you). This works in a hub/spoke system. I don't want to defend these pricing policies, but there is a very real (but not immediate, or immediately obvious) loss of revenue in hidden city ticketing.
As I mentioned a while ago, I believe the price from A to C, via B, only exists because the airline can't sell A->B and B->C at their regular published fares*.

If they could sell those individual sectors and fill their planes at the higher prices, there'd be no availability of seats for the cheaper connecting traffic.

So the airline is trying to off load unsold seats and at least make some money.


*there may be an argument against this for fares which are goverment subsidised for routes which form essential services.
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Old Sep 21, 2014, 4:52 am
  #752  
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That may be true, but not essential to the contract violation argument. I'm not taking sides on the issue, and I've dropped a final segment more than once in my life, AND I don't believe anyone is ever going to make a big fuss about it, but I'll reiterate...the airline is offering different fares to different cities. That this fare pricing may seem illogical to us is not relevant. From the perspective of the airline, they are perfectly within their rights to reroute you to get to the final ticketed city C in a way which avoids the traveller's intended destination in B.

From the consumer's perspective I can also understand the tempting argument that no one is getting hurt by only flying half of what was bought, but it is a circumvention of the original fare.
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Old Sep 21, 2014, 5:06 am
  #753  
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Originally Posted by LondonElite
That may be true, but not essential to the contract violation argument. I'm not taking sides on the issue, and I've dropped a final segment more than once in my life, AND I don't believe anyone is ever going to make a big fuss about it, but I'll reiterate...the airline is offering different fares to different cities. That this fare pricing may seem illogical to us is not relevant. From the perspective of the airline, they are perfectly within their rights to reroute you to get to the final ticketed city C in a way which avoids the traveller's intended destination in B.

From the consumer's perspective I can also understand the tempting argument that no one is getting hurt by only flying half of what was bought, but it is a circumvention of the original fare.
I was thinking it may be an issue regarding the contract breach if they assess a 'penalty' for not taking the connecting flight.

If the seat is one that is essentially unsold, a bill $500 for the missed segment may not be an actual assessment of damages? Therefore it might be an invalid contract term.

i haven't done the hidden ticketing, but i have purchased a round-trip fare when intending to fly one way only. This was just last year for an internal European flight where LH wanted E600 one way, but were selling the return for E129.

Bit of a no brainer.
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Old Sep 21, 2014, 5:20 am
  #754  
 
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If I pay the airline to fly A-B-C, but only fly A-B, I've still paid for the B-C segment. I've also let them fly that segment with less fuel consumption due to lower weight. Really I don't care what price they've evaluated that segment at, if I pay for it and choose not to use it, I've still paid for it.
For me its like buying a combo at McDonalds, its often cheaper to get a Big Mac combo, then to buy a Big Mac, Fries, and a Drink seperately. Therefore I will take the combo and throw out the fries. I still paid for the fries, so McDonalds can't punish me for throwing them in the garbage.
Its not my fault McDonalds chooses to the give me a discount for taking the fries over not taking them.
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Old Sep 21, 2014, 5:33 am
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Originally Posted by LondonElite
The price from A to B is 200. The price from A to C, via B, is 100. The fact that you can get off in B is a happy coincidence (for you). This works in a hub/spoke system. I don't want to defend these pricing policies, but there is a very real (but not immediate, or immediately obvious) loss of revenue in hidden city ticketing.
There is no loss. You can't lose something you never had.
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Old Sep 21, 2014, 5:36 am
  #756  
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Originally Posted by rstruthe
If I pay the airline to fly A-B-C, but only fly A-B, I've still paid for the B-C segment. I've also let them fly that segment with less fuel consumption due to lower weight. Really I don't care what price they've evaluated that segment at, if I pay for it and choose not to use it, I've still paid for it.
For me its like buying a combo at McDonalds, its often cheaper to get a Big Mac combo, then to buy a Big Mac, Fries, and a Drink seperately. Therefore I will take the combo and throw out the fries. I still paid for the fries, so McDonalds can't punish me for throwing them in the garbage.
Its not my fault McDonalds chooses to the give me a discount for taking the fries over not taking them.
You're mixing up a good with a service. When you buy the combo, you own the fries and can do with them as you see fit. When you buy the A-B-C ticket, you never own anything. You've purchased transportation from A to C, nothing else. It's the prerogative of the service provider to set he price, and yours whether to accept it or not. The airline, as I've said above, is free to fly you to C directly. What would you say then?
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Old Sep 21, 2014, 5:37 am
  #757  
 
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Originally Posted by LondonElite
From the perspective of the airline, they are perfectly within their rights to reroute you to get to the final ticketed city C in a way which avoids the traveller's intended destination in B.
Not without a notification and option for refund they're not.

Jumping off the flight halfway to pay less aside, a passenger might be planning on using that layover in B specifically to meet with family, conduct business, etc. Changing the interim stop represents a quite significant change in the agreement - infinitely more than a passenger not flying all segments.
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Old Sep 21, 2014, 5:56 am
  #758  
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You'll probably be successful in getting a refund if you choose not to travel, but from a hidden city ticketing perspective it rather defeats the purpose if you do this again and again.
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Old Sep 21, 2014, 9:05 am
  #759  
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Originally Posted by drsmithy
Not without a notification and option for refund they're not.

Jumping off the flight halfway to pay less aside, a passenger might be planning on using that layover in B specifically to meet with family, conduct business, etc. Changing the interim stop represents a quite significant change in the agreement - infinitely more than a passenger not flying all segments.
That's not my experience. Often (OK, once a year or so) an airline has changed a flight AAA-BBB-CCC to some other routing.
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Old Sep 21, 2014, 9:12 am
  #760  
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Originally Posted by drsmithy
There is no loss. You can't lose something you never had.
Sure there is. How do you know that the traveler would not have booked A to B at the higher fare? Let's not get stuck on the semantics of 'loss'.
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Old Sep 21, 2014, 10:07 am
  #761  
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Originally Posted by drsmithy
And, consequently, equally arbitrary and irrelevant whether or not the passenger decides to alight at point B.
Wrong. The price of providing that service is not what the passenger paid.

Originally Posted by drsmithy
There's no ethical issue here. I purchased a service from a vendor and only partially consumed that service.
You are again making the essential mistake that shows up again and again in this endless, repetitive thread, e.g. measuring the value of air travel services in terms of volume. The amount of the service you consume is not relevant to the price paid. If you pay for one service and consume another, higher-priced service, you are in ethical breach.

Originally Posted by LHR/MEL/Europe FF
I believe the price from A to C, via B, only exists because the airline can't sell A->B and B->C at their regular published fares*.
No, absolutely incorrect. The service of getting you from A to B and the service of getting you from A to C are two different offerings, with different prices. When it flies A-B-C, the mechanical device used to deliver those two services happens to be providing both at the same time, but from a service-pricing standpoint that's irrelevant. The A-to-B price may be higher than A-to-C. But that is a function of local competition, supply and demand for the A-to-B service. Buying A-to-C and availing oneself of A-to-B is essentially theft of service.
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Old Sep 21, 2014, 10:18 am
  #762  
 
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Originally Posted by FlyingMBA
It's a bit of a moving target, and I think might depend on local legislation. In my understanding of Canadian law, a BOC is a tort if it wasn't due to negligence, but that could be a outdated.

Any lawyers in the readership here that could shed some light? Just out of interest.
Breach of contract is not itself a tort, however, you can have concurrent liability in contract and tort. Such tortious liabilities would arise from such things as negligent misrepresentation, negligent supply of shoddy goods/services, tort of deceit, etc.

A key distinction between BOC and a tort is that BOC does not, absent an independent cause of action, bring about non-pecuniary damages, where tort actions can.
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Old Sep 21, 2014, 2:25 pm
  #763  
 
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Originally Posted by LondonElite
You'll probably be successful in getting a refund if you choose not to travel, but from a hidden city ticketing perspective it rather defeats the purpose if you do this again and again.
I would disagree, every airline has a policy covering this situation, in general:
a non-stop to connection regardless of time you can get a refund, if it is a connection then you usually have to have the flights arrival time moved back by 2 hours before you can get a refund.
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Old Sep 21, 2014, 2:37 pm
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Originally Posted by LondonElite
Sure there is. How do you know that the traveler would not have booked A to B at the higher fare?
I don't.

But that's the point. Neither does the airline. How do we know the passenger didn't have a fixed budget and A-B was outside of that, so they never would have flown at all ?

"How much we might have made" doesn't pay the bills.

Let's not get stuck on the semantics of 'loss'.
It's not a matter of semantics at all, it's a matter of correctness. The airline made X. They might have made Y, maybe. Or they might have made 0. But they haven't lost Y-X, or Y.

If they really think they're losing money, they'll be claiming it as a loss in their accounts. Do you think they are ?

It's like record companies claiming music piracy costs them money. It's not semantics, it's flat-out wrong (not to mention dishonest).
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Old Sep 21, 2014, 2:44 pm
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Originally Posted by sethb
That's not my experience. Often (OK, once a year or so) an airline has changed a flight AAA-BBB-CCC to some other routing.
I'm making no comment on what the airline will do, I'm saying what they _should_ do.

Airlines are allowed to get away with these sort of shennanigans all the time. Cancelling an entire ticket if someone missed the first (or any other) segment is another example of the difference between what should happen and what does.
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