nd2010

I did this once, Tampa to Philadelphia via Washington DC. There was a snowstorm that affected Philly and not DC. I flew to DC and took a bus from DC to NYC.

In this case the airline couldn't get me from DC-Philly because of snow. I live in NJ. I didn't let the airline know that I wouldn't be flying DCA-PHL and just forfeited that segment and the associated miles. I did not want to rebook a flight to PHL from TPA because the next available flight was 2 days later. So I took advantage of the fact that my originally scheduled flight was connecting in DCA.

lazy_flyer

Again, disregarding the law, I think what you did is very different, ethically. You didn't deliberately set out to skip a segment, the airline could not provide the service in a timely manner (through no fault of their own). There is a need for people (edit: and airlines) to be reasonable and distinguish between deliberately entering a contract under false pretences and making the best of a bad situation.

rjque

That's a much more complicated question that is probably better directed to an antitrust lawyer.

yamaka

When you buy a ticket to the movie or game you do not agree, through an explicit CoC, to stay in the seat to the end. By agreeing to the CoC when you buy the ticket to EWR, you did. Thus, your argument is flawed.

SQ421

Besides the obvious price gouging by the airlines, how is booking A-B-C and not flying B-C semantically different to booking A-B-C and not flying it at all (without refunding the ticket).

In both cases, a "contract" was made to fly from A-B-C and and in both cases the "contract" was not fulfilled by the person buying the ticket.

On a similar note, can any other company force me to use a service that I've paid for and don't wish to use?

cordelli

They are not forcing you to use the service, they are trying to get you to pay for the service you are using.

It's not unique to airlines, you can not rent a Hertz car for a week at a weekly rate of $120 instead of three days of $60 a day and just return it. They will charge you the higher daily rate.

If they publish a fare from A to B and you fly from A to B, it's not all that insane for them to expect you to pay their fare.

chandi

Actually you can. I have done this a few times and the agent even suggested I do this once when I booked for 3 days as booking for a week and dropping off early turned out to be cheaper.

peersteve

A thought comes to mind that hidden-city tiks are the flip side to airlines being allowed to overbook flights.

Airlines are allowed to sell more tiks than seats, then "compensate" the involuntary-denied-passengers some small amount of money.

A passenger who doesn't complete a full itinerary may save the airline the cost of compensating a bumped passenger, especially to a hub?

lg10

another thought is - remember when you had to do Sat. night stays and/or round-trips, and people would do "back-to-back" tickets to avoid that...perhaps airlines will just realize that the hidden-city price-fixing is just another foolishness that is too hard to police.

--LG

ralfp

When one returns a rental car early the rental agency may bear an extra cost: parking the extra car for a day (or whatever time period), labor (cleaning, processing, etc.) during high volume periods, etc. When one does not board an aircraft, the airline incurs no additional expenses.

Should I worry if I rent a car for 4 days (96 hours), park it in front of the local agent's office after after 3 days (72 hours), and call 12 hours later to say the car is out front (using the after hours return)? After all, I did not use the full 4 days.

Which brings up (not begs) the question, why have theater owners not put this in a contract to which one must agree when buying a ticket?

rjque

Actually, the airline does incur additional expenses - the airline lost $400 that it would have earned if you had told it that you were only flying A-B, and it also could have sold the B-C segment to another customer. That's a pretty significant expense.

And as for your theater example, the theater owners could try to put that term into their ticket agreements, but there is no commercial reason to do so. Nobody is willing to pay anything (let alone more) to see half a movie, whereas plenty of people are willing to pay to fly A-B, or the flight wouldn't exist.

trooper

The airline has agreed to carry you for the trip you booked.. and charged you accordingly.

The fact that the flight is actually AAA-BBB-CCC is not relevant to the contract you entered with the airline to fly you AAA-CCC.

Thus you have NOT actually paid to be flown AAA-BBB.... which is demonstrated during irrops of course.. when they will get you to the destination you booked... too bad if that is now via DDD - or even direct.. nicht war?

Works for me....

CarolynUK

i wouldn't be so sure on the car hire one....

When my dear old mum was dying - I had to fly home and hire a car and as I didn't know at the time of hire how long I would need the car - I hired it for an initial 5 days.......

I ended up keeping the same car (keeping the hire company fully informed) for 14 days - and they charged me for 14 individual days hire - not the much cheaper option of 2 weekly rentals (even though on my first extension - I added a full week's hire).

They ended up quids in and wouldn't relent even though I explained the sad circumstances at the outset of the rental - and informed them that there would be at least one extension.... they had every opportunity to tell me to take a weekly rental at the beginning to save money....

weblet

Back-to-back would be caught, and is also "against the rules."

I would suggest checking out the roundtrip fares. If the fares require SA stays, pony up for a one way to point B, then do roundtrips from point B to point A. At the end, do another one way...

lg10

But my point was this: eventually the airlines realized (re Saturday night stays mostly, but to some extent one-way trips) that:

1. Customers found ways around the foolish rules (wait, I just begged a question (*) heh heh thanks for that education btw) in droves
and
2. They should make a more reasonable pricing scheme to keep up with carriers like WN that already had rational prices.

(*) "are the rules foolish?"


In other words, we are no longer strangle-held by the Saturday night rules, and one can hope that the hidden-city rules would follow.

--LG