Tchiowa

They don't say it's "illegal". They say it's not allowed in the contract you enter into when you buy the ticket. Therefore it's a contract violation.

If I don't care what the 7-11 down the street thinks can I walk in and grab a 6-pack and walk out?

denuaflier

Now that will be illegal and put you in jail. Hope you can see the difference between the two.

DarF2001

No, but you can pay for the six-pack, only take the four cans you want, leave the other two in the cooler, and they are happy to sell them to another customer. They won't attempt to sue you for the price of two cans, or refuse to sell you any more until you pay up.

And if some kid makes a website exposing that which 7-11s are selling Cokes for 99 cents a can or $2.99 a six-pack, they won't get sued for encouraging someone who wants four Cokes to buy a six-pack.

I gave the kid $10. I don't think he'll win, but with enough money it might just get enough media attention to expose this corrupt, greedy and irrational practice the airlines have been doing for decades to the general public.

seagar

...but that's my point. I would guess that the vast majority of people that use this practice are frequent flyers and if they are like me that UAL/$misek really pissed off by sticking it to the UAL million milers and I have spent my miles, they can't take my miles and big deal if they kick me out of mileage less-I now use UAL as little as possible. Now they have alerted the kayakers to this availability and do you think they care about this being "wrong"?

Do you really believe that a credit card company will allow a payment to UAL to go thru when I can prove I already paid for the leg they want to charge me for? Highly doubtful. Only UAL...please bar me from flying...that could be an interesting lawsuit which in this day are hundreds of ways to show discrimination...nasty slope for UAL.

MileageManager

I also thought he could've linked directly to the airline's own booking page (usually the home page, as you all know) - better yet, to the airline's FF join-now page - to actually teach his obviously naive audience about how flying this airline and earning these little things called FF miles can, once accumulated at certain levels, actually buy them nearly-free flights later on! And hotel stays! And rental cars! And elite status! And free upgrades! And free checked bags! I know this all sounds corny to us but OMG I've had to explain these simple facts to so-called world travelers at one of those pretentious travel community sites.

I wouldn't be surprised - but will be amused and disgusted at the same time - if Zaman himself is another 20-something "global traveler" who isn't a member of any FF prog or heard of them and how they work. I imagine his typical user demo are people who book, fly and land. And that's it - no sense of investment, nothing.

Again, just my theory. Generally speaking, I'm with those that think United is shooting him in error as the messenger.

perezoso

Never used the site but would be happy to make a modest contribution to its legal defense fund.

The mere fact that such ticketing practices are pervasive enough to create a market for such a service reeks of an under-regulated market to me.

Make the airlines price point-to-point (each flight) consistently, and kill EAS (and other public ticket price subsidies) in all but the most extreme cases. Then hope that robust regional markets and, eventually, larger competition ultimately result.... through elimination of subsidies but also new and more pricing regulation.

What is this thing that those lumbersexuals talk about? Disruptive technologies?

takeahike66

Safety or Security Concerns?
I read all the post poop pooping safety concerns like it all make up as false pretense but consider these operational concerns.

If a passenger is missing from the flight that he is checked in (count is off), the airlines usually has to determine who the person is, did he check luggage? if yes, the luggage may need to be pulled, depending on the circumstances (miss-connection, skipped last leg). If miss-connection or other unpublished reasons, the luggage will continue, if for unknown reasons, the luggage is pulled. That a lot of background work going on to determine action to take when a checked in passenger is missing from the flight.

Do posters that questions the fares really believes that it the fares to these small airports can be as low as they are, cheaper than flying to the hub. That if the fare to the small airport is the correct fare, then they are being ripped off for the flight to the hub, because the flt to the hub is costing them more. Do anyone consider that the smaller airport would not have any flights if the true cost were charged. Many of the smaller airport have such small number of flights as it is. True cost would drive the number down to zero. Do posters considered that the smaller airport can be receiving indirect subsidies?

Flyer1M

At the end of the day, he exposes a loop hole in the airline pricing structure. United is clearly the bully here.

Tchiowa

Legally? Yes. Ethically? No. Neither is ethical.

But if you open up a box of popsicles or something like that and take four and the others are marked "not for individual consumption" they couldn't sell them to another customer. Instead they have additional work to clean up the mess you made. And their computerized inventory tracking system now has bad information which could cause them losses in the future.

No matter how you try to slice it, the airline is making you 2 offers. Itinerary A for $X or itinerary B for more than $X. You pay for itinerary A and fly itinerary B you are dishonest. Simple as that.

mahasamatman

Ethics discussions are well beyond the scope of this forum, and could get this thread moved to OMNI.

WineCountryUA

Very true. Additionally the classical problem with analogies on FT, they tend to drive the discussion off topic.

TOPIC REMINDER

As a UA MP Forum thread this thread is on UA (& Orbitz) suing "hidden city" search site Skiplagged.com -- as the title forumulated. Lots of peripheral / related issues -- but let's keep the discussion related to the original subject and how it might relate to us as UA flyers and not wandering off into OMNI discussions (such as six-packs or popsicles at 7-11 or broader subject of HCT).

WineCountryUA
UA coModerators

raehl311

And they are welcome to do so, but that is completely irrelevant to the topic at hand.

United isn't asking a flyer to pay a bill for an increased fare before doing business with them.

United is asking for a legal remedy against a 3rd party for interfering with their contract. One of Skiplagged's defenses will be that the contract terms United is alleging Skiplagged is interfering with aren't enforceable to begin with, at which point United will have to argue that they are, and the court will have to rule whether they are.

If the case isn't settled, it will be.

They can't possibly be doing that, since no contract exists to violate.

It is by definition one sided - one side got to write it, the other side doesn't get to change it at all.

Of course it's not rocket science, it's law.

Not all rules are created equal. There's the Constitution. There's acts of congress. There's rules made by federal agencies. There's state constitutions, acts of state legislatures, rules made by state agencies, and depending on the circumstances, somewhere below rules made by federal agencies and the bottom of that list is Rules Made by United Airlines.


United doesn't get to write any rule they want. Well, I guess they can write it, but that doesn't mean anybody else will necessarily enforce it.

ONLY if that term of the contract is a legally enforceable term.

In the extreme case, if I contract with you to sacrifice my son in exchange for $100, and my brother comes along and convinces me not to sacrifice my son, you won't have any success in taking my brother to court for interfering in the contract because the contract was never an enforceable contract.

Taking property is a violation of a criminal law made by the state, not a term in a contract of adhesion promulgated by a business.


If you own a store and post a policy that any customer has to pay for their beer before removing it from the cooler, and they must do 10 jumping jacks before they can take the beer they just paid for from the cooler, and after they pay I tell them we're in a hurry and just take the beer and we leave, do you think any court in the land is going to determine your contract was violated?

Of course not, they're going to tell you your terms were silly.


You're really grasping at popsicle sticks here.

You staked out a position. It's obvious it's not correct, cut your losses.

Or is it dishonest to sell someone a set of items (in this case flights), then when you learn they did not use all of the items you sold them, come back and demand more money?

traveller001

Google here's your chance to step in for the little guy buy him out for a couple thousand and position yourself to overtake all other OTAs....

No Airline has the available resources to challenge Google's bucks.

CAL PHL FLYER

UA is going to win this one..When you purchase a ticket you enter into a contract to fly from point A to B..If you try to scam and get away with violating the contract it will catch up with you..UA has every right to sue and close MP accounts of those it identifies as scammers..Jmho :-::-:

doug68

they have the right to cancel MP account indeed but not sure you are violating any contract and not sure they will win in court
what if you find out at the hub that your meeting at destination is cxxld? what if you have to turn around and go home due to an emergency? what if you have diarrhea of biblical proportions at the hub and can't fly onwards?
trying to prove in every instance that this is done that the passenger is a scammer is practically impossible