traveller001

They are also offering point to point bookings inside 24hrs travel time... at some really cheap fares. But when I click on the link it forwards to cheapoair.com a company that has left several of the Customers I've dealt with stranded with non-payment after confirmation. Customer is made aware of that at ticket counter on a now full flight with no recourse.

I've also seen cheapoair.com book stupid connections with different airlines that could not possibly be made with no interline baggage agreements.

I thought cheapoair.com was done for good several months ago when the domain went dormant. And it's alive again. Could this be a ruse to resurrect cheapoair.com in a different way with it's GDS access? My apologies if this time around they prove responsible.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CheapOair

LaserSailor

There is no loophole in pricing products to market vs cost plus basis.

This is industry wide practice and has saved consumers $$$$$ since deregulation.

Even if the lawsuit is dismissed, hidden city claw backs will continue, and I suspect will be more aggressively pursued.

woolfson

THE WEBSITE HELPS THE AIRLINES.

1. Most flights are oversold.
2. When I enter into a contract for carriage with an airline, I am basically entering into a contract for transportation.
3. When a flight is oversold, that means my contract has been sold twice.
4. When I book a one way flight and skip the final segment, I am leaving a seat empty.
5. Chances are, I have just opened up a seat on an oversold flight.
6. The airline has profited by having already sold someone else my seat (overselling);
7. The airline now doesn't have to pay someone Denied Boarding Compensation because of my actions.

How does my skipping a flight HELP the airline? Simple the airline saves the cost of the fuel not spent to transport me (on a non-oversold flight) , and they still have the revenue. And on an over-sold flight, the airline may have simply had to NOT pay denied boarding compensation under DOT250.5 et.seq. The website HELPS THE AIRLINES.

Bear96

Err, you lost me at # 1.

Cite?

This type of analogy is way off base. With a plane ticket, you are paying to fly from AAA to BBB, not for the privilege of traveling through a certain hub.

A more apt comparison is taking a six-pack of Bud Light to the counter, paying for that, and then going back and exchanging it for a six-pack of Sam Adam's Utopia before leaving the store.

What's the big deal? I paid for a six-pack - why should it matter which one? *I* think they should be the same price.

LarryJ

Nesting tickets is generally on prohibited if it is done to circumvent ticketing restrictions such as minimum stay requirements. If that is not the case then you're free to nest tickets just as you did.

One of the reports on this story used an example of buying a ticket from EWR to CHS with a connection in MIA in order to get from EWR to MIA at a lower price. EWR-CHS is significantly shorter than EWR-MIA so it makes sense that that ticket would cost less however, not all airlines will have EWR-CHS flights so to provide service they must offer connections through their hubs. At least one airline does offer non-stop EWR-CHS service. That airline also offers non-stop EWR-MIA service competing with the airline the airline who's EWR-(MIA)-CHS price they quoted as the hidden city oppertunity.

Please tell me how more regulation would result in these two airlines offering competative fares on both the EWR-CHS and EWR-MIA routes without hidden city fares being created? The math just doesn't work.

Bouncer

$32000+ and climbing in the legal defense fund. That's over 15K in contributions in one day.

United's smartest move at this point is to buy the site out. It might have been chump change to defeat him legally before, but now, it's gonna cost a penny.

Granted, 30k is still chump change to their lawyers, but the dynamic has changed and he can now make the litigation draw on for quite a while. More to the point, he could actually get it to court now without bankrupting himself, and he might *gasp* win!

Fundamentally, United and Orbitz are demanding that a website be held responsible for providing information that some individual used to violate a contract that did not exist at the time the information was provided.

It's entirely possible the court will rule:

"Nope, you can't enforce a contract before it exists."
and/or:
"You can't hold someone liable for providing information before a contract exists after the contract exists."

At which point, all the other airlines and booking sites are giving United the serious frowny face since UA just hosed them all and hidden city becomes a ton more common. Hell, Orbitz will start showing it because why not?

Plus he's eliciting huge sympathy, and likely more donations of financial or other nature. This is becoming a PR headache for United/Goliath vs WebDude/David. In the realm of the unlikely but side-splitting, maybe Google will come along and buy his algorithm for google.com/flights and then just give UA and it's lawyers a "What, punk?" look. That'd be hysterical.

UA needs to now make this go away. The fastest way to do that, is buy the kid out. It'd probably be cheaper than litigation, and definitely cheaper than the PR nightmare and it might be a ton cheaper than if they lose (which is actually possible).

Regards,
-Bouncer-

787fan

you can only use these excuses if you bought the ticket in good faith, then a scenario arose that prevented you from completing the itinerary (i.e. fulfilling your end of the contract). that's why airlines don't go after flyers who only have the rare occasional no-show.

Skiplagged is entirely different because the website encourages customers to book these tickets with malicious intent and bad faith to begin with. the website directly provide instructions on "how to get off at the middle".

Also, this website provide directly bookable links through to Orbitz, so just because they don't act as a ticketing TA themselves doesn't shield them from liability.

yocea

Can I book an airline round trip fly from A to C with stopover connection at B, but only want to use the portion of B to C returning fly ? Will the airline refuse me boarding at B (or at C when return) as I am not flying from A ?

leonidas

Under the current FAA regulations, "bags must fly with you" is not required for domestic US flights anymore. If you don't fly the last leg (missed connection, VDB to later flight, or missed connection), your bag WILL fly without you. They WILL NOT pull the bag off the flight. So the "safety concern" is utter BS.

pinniped

I did as well, long ago. Mine was MCI-LHR and LHR-MCI ten months apart on AA, with tons of EoE and traditional nesting back to MCI in the middle, some of it on AA ticket stock and some of the short-hop EoE on BA stock crediting to my AA account.

My hunch is that since I wasn't circumventing a minimum-stay fare rule, their queries didn't flag me. (The original MCI-LHR-MCI ticket was actually a bit on the expensive side of things...) Or maybe it did get flagged, somebody looked at it, and decided there was no trickery taking place. Who knows...

I'm still curious why Delta objected to a DFW EoE inside an R/T that originated in Detroit. I don't understand what their beef is with that. I might understand it if the embedded ticket had gone back to GRR or something, but Dallas?

787fan

If you're describing A-B-C and only want to fly B-C, then no it won't work. the ticket would've been long cancelled the moment you no show at A.

pinniped

Generally speaking, no-showing anything is bad. That usually cancels the rest of the entire PNR.

If you have specifically ticketed a stopover (multi-segment itin as opposed to a normal round-trip with a standard connection), look at your specific fare rules, which may or may not differ by segment. You may have greater ability to cancel one segment and leave the rest intact. But even if you do, I'm pretty sure you'd want to take the action to cancel unwanted flights ahead of time...not just no-show them.

(I'm honestly not 100% sure which flight you want to cancel.)

CREN

That's brillant!

Reindeerflame

Perhaps I am also violating an airline's policies if I purchase a ticket from AAA to CCC via BBB and don't show up for either segment.

After all, just because I chose not to use something I paid for doesn't mean I am free to avoid the flight altogether.

yocea

1. Return fly from A to C stopover at B cost 370.00.00,
2. Return flies from B to C cost 530.00 (all in Canadian).
In no. 1 the B to C portion is using the same airplanes as in no 2. How ridiculers.
I am flying from another place X, just want to visit B and C.
Year 2012 when I wanted to visit A, B, and C , the airline allowed me (I ask, they emailed me back suggesting me to do that.) to book the A to C ticket and forfeit the last leg B to C. (instep of one way A to B, + B to C return, costing 300.00 more). My whole trip was: X to A, A to C, C to B, and B to X.