Getting off flight early
 

I wanted to fly to Miami but the tix were $1100. I ended up getting tickets to Fort Lauderdale then I noticed that the flight has a stop in Miami.

Is it illegal (or against rules) to get off of the flight in Miami instead of the ticketed destination?

This is a round-trip flight. Will they not allow me to get on the return flight if I've skipped a leg on the arrival?

Thanks.

My understanding is: It's against the rules, but not illegal. However, they will definitely cancel your return flight if you've skipped a leg on the arrival.

If you get off in Miami
 

The airline WILL cancel the rest of your ticket. Whenever you skip a leg on the outbound, the return is cancelled.

Someone flies a segment from MIA to FLL??? That's less than 30 miles.

What airline is this?

This is called a hidden city flight and it is against the airlines rules. This will not work with a round trip flight (as others have stated).

However, if you are going one-way and not checking any baggage...

Shoot, if the price difference is huge, just hop on a bus or shuttle or something. It's only 30 miles away, right? Fly all the way to Miami and then just get on a bus back to FLL. You play within the rules and save your money. Cruise passengers take that trip all the time.

Similar (but hypothetical) scenario. What if you skip a segment on the return leg with no intention of continuing on? e.g.

Out: A -> B -> C
In: C -> B -> A

but you skip the B->A segment entirely. Will that have any repercussion on the ticket such as fee penalty, the airline take away all the miles for the trip, etc? Just curious

The general wisdom is that if you do this "once in awhile" the airline won't ever say anything - in fact, I once had a CS agent tell me to do it. When I asked "what about the last segment since I'd already be checked in for the flight", the response was "just get off the plane at airport B and keep walking."

In the olden days, my travel agent used to actually get cheaper fares by booking A-B-C-B-A and then cancelling the B-C-B portion of the ticket, this kept the original fare. But, I think the airlines have long since caught onto this little trick. I know she was always a bit worried that the "overnight audit" would catch it, but I never had a refare happen.

But, back to A-B-C-B-A. In theory, walking away from the last segment (B-A) is against the terms of the ticket and they can come back to get you, but the odds of this happening seem low. As others have said, skipping B-C will almost certainly cause the cancellation of the rest of the ticket.

Thanks. I asked because I was seriously considering this. Being actually in SFO, it would be great if I can skip the last SFO->YVR segment :D

I've walked away from the B-A segment in the A-B-C-B-A scenario above. It has always been due to a change in my plans after I bought the ticket and ended up costing me money (buying a new B-A ticket to get home later). I think most of the tariff violation rules are written with an eye on people looking to circumvent high fares.

In my case, my common "B-A" is ORD-MCI. We have family/friends in Chicago, so in the past if I've had a business trip route through there on a Friday, I'll hop off for the weekend. Usually I end up with a MDW-MCI one-way home on Sunday or whatever. It's never been an issue...

The other one I would have done is DEN-MCI, but United actually has a nice (but not well-known) feature that most fares allow a DEN stopover for a flat $50 fee (or at least they did as of 2007). I've taken advantage of that one in the past. Sadly, the same does not seem to apply to their other hubs.

If one isn't checking in any bags, how would the airline know you've disembarked prematurely?

That's my question. Obviously a change of plane requirement means they would know you didn't board the new aircraft with your boarding pass. If it's the same continuing aircraft and you're not required to deplane at intermediary stops, how would they know whether or not you did? The crew doesn't exactly check the manifest name by name to make sure they're aboard.

Of course you'd still have to go to the originating city for the return flights.

I'm sure this varies in other countries, but my understanding is that in the US the airlines cannot legally "come back to get you." That is, they can ask you to pay some fare difference, but they have no legal means to enforce this (and if they tried to sue you, would lose). I vaguely remember the airlines attempting to lobby congress for laws allowing them to collect fare differences in these situations, and being shot down. I could be wrong though, would appreciate if anyone knows the law on this for sure. And of course this doesn't prevent an airline from coming after a travel agent by threatening to no longer sell tickets to that person if they don't pay up.

I think it comes down to the burden on the airline to prove that you didn't fly the last leg, which is very difficult to do.

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8703e/4.1.0 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/104)

I'm still trying to figure out who flies MIA-FLL these days. :D