LeeAnne

Yeah but you've got FANS now! Anyway, glad I could contribute to your day in some positive way.

Actually I didn't say that. Here's what I said:

I also said:

There's a difference between saying I WILL do it, and saying I "probably" will do it. So don't put words in my mouth...that irritates me. I have made my intentions clear: I will tell them she is not continuing, if I need to...if they are looking for her, or paging her. But I expect they won't give a squat. And all of the posts I've read about this, here and elsewhere, have confirmed this. People miss flights all the time. Why should they care about this one little old lady missing hers?

And if I'm not mistaken, recording conversations without the other's knowledge is a crime in AZ. Sorry but I have no intention of committing a crime just for your edification. Remember, I'm the person who doesn't even LIE!

LeeAnne

However, I will do this for you, because I'm such a giver...I will provide you with a preview transcript of the conversation:

Me: Hi, I heard you paging for passenger Jones
Gate Agent: Yes, passenger Jones is ticketed on this flight, but hasn't checked in
Me: My mother will not be joining me on the flight to LAX
Gate Agent: Your mother will not be joining you on the flight to LAX
Me: She is not the old lady you are looking for
Gate Agent: She is not the old lady we are looking for
Me: Move along now
Gate Agent: Move along now

Delta Hog

So you're saying an airplane employee might object to a reasonable, logical approach to air travel? Color me shocked.

Getting an earful from an airline employee for one's actions, would not make one's actions unethical.

LeeAnne

By the way, a note to all of my friends...I'm up to THREE! That's three movie references in this thread.

One: The Godfather
Two: Wizard of Oz
Three: Star Wars
We'll see if I can squeeze any more in...if things continue as they are, I should be able to get in a at least a couple more.

LeeAnne

Tell me about it! I watched a young man get thrown off a plane once because an airline employee didn't like his perfectly reasonable behavior.

I was booked on a connecting flight from Vegas to JFK, traveling with my two young children. We boarded, sat for an hour, were off-boarded with no explanation, sat for a while, were onboarded again, then offboarded...this went on for something like 4 hours. The gate agents were exceedingly rude, giving us no information...at one point the gate agents were telling us to board, the FAs were telling us to get off, and we poor passengers were bumping into each other like lemmings in the jetway.

During this confusion a young man apparently got frustrated and mouthed "W T F is going on around here?" (the whole words) to his girlfriend while standing in the line. I didn't hear it, even though I was near him - he must have said it pretty softly! But apparently the gate agent saw this. We finally did get seated, and the plane fired up and was ready to back away from the gate, when suddenly we heard the engines power down. We all groaned, and then the door opened and POLICE came marching in! The gate agent led them to the poor young man, who was seated two rows behind me, and demanded that he be ejected from the flight.

I thought this was excessive and unfair, so I stood up and tried to reason with the cops, telling them that he had not done anything wrong. The GA LUNGED at me and screamed, LOUDLY, "I will not have anyone saying "F###! on my plane! And if you don't sit down and shut up, I'll have YOU arrested!" The poor young man pleaded with the FA and the cops, but no dice - off he went. I couldn't believe it, but I kept my mouth shut because the last thing I needed was to find myself cooling my heels in a jail cell in Vegas while my two small children were sent to child protective services!

What irritated me the most was that my children never heard "that word" from the young man...but they sure heard it from that irate GA!

I always felt bad for that poor guy and wished I'd had the nerve to stand up for him better.

Editing to add: Fortunately, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas! (That's for you, Dana...and that's FOUR!)

FMDXR

Assume you did send in a full report to the Airline and told everyone you possibly could about it.

Of course, nowadays, it would be Facebook and Twitter time.

emma69

Re: the bolded part - whilst the airline cannot make you take a flight, they absolutely can charge you more for not doing so. Whether they do or not is another matter, but they could quite legitimately charge your credit card for the flight taken (after the fact).

It's not the only example of having to take more to ensure the cost remains the same. Take clearance sales. Someone has a container they want emptying, the buyer agrees to pay $100, not for the one mirror he thinks is worth that amount, but for emptying the entire unit - he can't just take the mirror and say 'you can't make me take more stuff', because the contract says they can (either by voiding the entire deal, no mirror, if they got wind before the action, or applying additional charges afterwards).

It's also common with auctions - the term 'job lot' - you take it all for the price agreed, whether you want all of it or not. You attempt to leave the thin, dying cow behind at the livestock auction after purchasing a job lot, and the auctioneers will charge your for its disposal.

orthar

The high-horse approach that several of the posters are taking here is puzzling. A big part of frequent flying, especially the type usually featured on FT, is using loopholes in airline programs in order to get better deals/upgrades/award tickets/etc. How hidden-city is less 'ethical' than buying obvious mistake fares (just an example) is beyond me.

The original posts were about any potential issues that might pop up when pulling a hidden city, not the complete and utter lack of morality and ethics that the OP must have to even consider lying to the airlines like this

So let's just stick to the facts, I'm sure the OP is a big girl and can make her own decisions according to her own moral code.
Sorry, pet peeve

LeeAnne

LOL! More analogies. Love 'em. Okay, here's where your particular analogies break down:

1. I already took the container home at the clearance sale. They can't MAKE me wear that horrible purple jumpsuit! I threw it in the trash. And there's nothing they can do about it.

2. I already left with the sickly cow and brought her back to my farm. No way was I going to drink her skeevy milk or eat her crappy steaks! I euthanized her and buried her in the woods. They can't now charge my credit card for a higher price.

But thanks for the exercise! Good try. Got any more?

Just FTR, I did some research last night, and I learned a few things:

1. Millions of people have done "hidden city" ticketing. Happens all the time. Some do it practically WEEKLY! The airlines don't like it, but there's not much they can do about it. And nobody, not one person, can report a single instance of an airline trying to charge them the higher price after-the-fact. Not one. Just like the TSA can't show us a single terrorist caught by their absurd molestations. Not one.

2. My brother is a lawyer, and I asked him about this last night. Here's what he told me: Hidden city ticketing is NOT illegal. No laws are being broken. The only legal aspect that might come into play is contractual law, but breaking the provisions of a contract is NOT illegal. The only recourse is a lawsuit in CIVIL court. So, if an airline wanted to get more money out of me, they'd have to sue me. And if they did, this particular clause in the contract is so one-sided and onerous that they would lose.

Here's a bit of contract law trivia: Contracts are not "laws". They are agreements between two people or entities that can involve the legal system to enforce them. But the reality is that anyone can put anything they want in a contract, and even if I sign it, if the contract doesn't meet some basic standards of fairness, it can be voided. Happens all the time. Think about pre-nups: how many socialites have taken their rich husbands to court to get out of their pre-nups when the marriage fails? Hey, she signed it, she agreed to it when she married the bum...but now she wants more of his money than the contract allows. Well, yeah...if a judge rules that a provision of the contract was unreasonable, BOOM - out it goes. But this has to GO TO COURT. That's the part that's not gonna happen. Can you imagine US Air taking my elderly, disabled, cancer-survivor, war-veteran-widow mother to court and telling a judge that they want her to pay more money because she...<GASP>...didn't take a flight in order to save some money? ROFL! They'd be laughed out of court.

3. Should the airline attempt to charge my credit card the fare difference (and again, there are no reports of this EVER HAPPENING), all I would have to do is dispute it on my credit card. I would win, because I paid for the portion of the ticket that I used. The airlines may WANT me to fly the whole route, and may WISH I'd paid the higher price for the ticket, but I bought it legally, and was ticketed for the legs I flew. The fact that I managed to get my ticket for a lower price is nothing but smart consumerism.

4. The only real risk of doing a hidden city ticket is if you are a frequent flyer and get caught, they could take your FF miles away (There are scattered reports that this has been threatened, and 2nd-hand reports that it's been done, but no actual first-hand reports of it ever happening to someone). Travel agents do have more to worry about - if they issue hidden city tickets on a regular basis, they could be hit with a debit memo from the airline.

So in the end, we have all you people all up in arms crying "unethical! unethical!" about doing something that is a) not illegal, b) not immoral, c) common, and d) trivial. But questioning my morals seems to be an obsession to some of you, so I'm happy to continue the conversation, if it gives you Something to Talk About.



(By the way, that last line...yeah. It's a movie. With Julia Roberts. PWNED!)

LeeAnne

I know, right? It's hilarious! I mean, isn't the whole POINT of FlyerTalk for frequent flyers to figure out ways to manipulate the arcane, bizarre system of air travel for the purpose of saving money? It's practically a science - how to wrangle more travel out of the airlines for less money. It's no different than people who will fly thousands of miles on "mileage runs" - there's a whole FORUM for that! And if you click on the forum, there's even an explanation from FlyerTalk:
Look at that, all you pollyannas crying foul over my "ethics!" People, LOTS of them, will do all sorts of things, including "creative alteration of trips" in order to maximize their travel dollars! And nobody thinks we are akin to bank robbers and rapists! (Well, nobody but cbn42, but what can be said about that, really.)

stifle

You've bought a ticket to PHX but are making a journey to LAX, which costs more. Why should you be entitled to stiff the airline for the cost of the journey you're making? Comparisons with milk, doughnuts, etc. really are meaningless.

LeeAnne

Hmmm...methinks somebody hasn't read the thread, or at least struggles with reading comprehension. I'm tempted not to try to explain this to you, because you got it SO wrong that I'm not sure you could get it even if I did try. But I'll take a stab.

I bought a flight from LAX-PHX-SJO, and returning SJO-PHX-LAX. That's four legs of a flight:

LA to Phoenix
Phoenix to San Jose
San Jose to Phoenix
Phoenix to LA

I am not making any journeys for which I didn't pay. I paid for all four flights. I have tickets for them. But I'm only going to take the first three. I'm going to remain in Phoenix, and not continue on to LA. (Well, my mother, actually). We are doing nothing wrong.

And your point was?

Now, back to my breakfast of donuts and milk...

LeeAnne

Another comment: I'm really curious how you think I could buy a ticket to PHX, and make a journey to LAX that I didn't pay for! That would be quite a feat. I'm imagining the scene at the gate:

Me: Here's my boarding pass for my flight to PHX
Gate Agent: But this plane is flying to LAX
Me: I know, but I want to get on THIS plane
Gate Agent: You want to get on THIS plane
Me: I am not the droid you're looking for
Gate Agent: You are not the droid I'm looking for
Me: Move along now
Gate Agent: Move along now



(Okay, okay, I acknowledge it's re-using a movie, but it still counts!)

stifle

I got the return leg backwards. You paid for SJO-LAX, not SJO-PHX. You did not pay for four separate flights, they are all part of one journey that just happens to be connecting en route. In particular, if your SJO-PHX flight suffers irregular operations, they can put you on a flight to LAX and you will have to suck it up.

It is certainly not illegal, but it is against the airline conditions of carriage, and is, in my opinion, morally wrong.

And quit with the smart-aleck remarks, they're against the TOS and could lead to you being interpreted as a troll.

LeeAnne

If there are any trolls in this thread, they are the folks who are irrationally crying "immoral" over someone who is doing nothing but finding a good deal on a flight. If this is "immoral", so is any effort in any situation to find a better deal on anything. Smart consumerism is not "immoral". Attempting to stretch your travel dollar has nothing to do with morality. That's silly, and in the context of this discussion, it is nothing more than an inflammatory red herring.

As for the "one ticket" concept, you are wrong. There are four flights. Four separate flights, each on a different plane, with a different flight number. I bought them together, and got a great deal by doing so. You could argue they were a "package deal", but not "one ticket". You can call it anything you want, but the basic fact is that there are four individual flights, and I'm ticketed on all of them. I will have four separate boarding passes.

I will use the ones I want, and not use the ones I want, at my discretion.