jsloan

Additionally, I've read of cruise operators being fined if a passenger booked, say, a Caribbean cruise in and out of Fort Lauderdale but got off in San Juan and didn't resume their trip.

Air Canada would be fully within their rights to deny boarding to a passenger who was trying to circumvent the law in this way.

raehl311

Circumventing what law?

There is no law against a person flying from the US to Canada and back to the US.

There is a law against a carrier marketing/selling a ticket that connects in a foreign country. (Or is it a FOREIGN carrier selling such a ticket? Could United sell JFK-YYZ-SFO on UA metal?)

Either way, a carrier isn't going to deny you boarding. It isn't even going to be aware of your itinerary.

jsloan

UA could sell JFK-YYZ-SFO on UA metal if Canada were to permit it. And nobody would complain about a mixed-carrier itinerary, JFK-YYZ-SFO, with AC on one leg and UA on the other -- that would be legal by both Canadian and US law.

And the law is the same. The distinction that you're trying to make here is invalid. If it's illegal to sell something, it's also illegal to buy it. It doesn't mean that the passenger would face criminal charges, but it's still a violation of the law.

Well, the original suggestion was to try to get UA credit, which implies attaching a MileagePlus number to the itinerary, so they certainly could be aware.

Anyway, the point is moot given the additional costs and complexities of trying to fly via Canada anyway.

WineCountryUA

The Jones Act applies to non-USA flag carriers, not to USA carriers)

Trying to check bags or claiming to be a transit passenger (for COVID reasons) could unravel that

SPN Lifer

Please read my first sentence emphasized below. There is absolutely no prohibition on passengers buying or flying such tickets. The onus is on foreign carriers who sell them. No, AC would be in breach of their contract of carriage to deny boarding, and subject to a DOT complaint by the passenger. The time for AC to act is before any sale, including by matching names and frequent flyer numbers. If a devious passenger manages to buy such a ticket — perhaps by not claiming frequent flight credit on one trip, though I don't know how one would get around TSA name-matching — DOT would not fine a carrier for that. DOT is looking for a pattern and practice of cabotage violations by the carrier. This was a major news story on Saipan before OZ stopped selling tickets between SPN and the U.S.

As pointed out by jsloan and WineCountryUA, the prohibition is against foreign carriage between U.S. ports. Whether or not there is a connection is irrelevant to the law. It is absolutely not illegal to buy such a ticket, even though it is illegal to sell. The prohibition is solely on the carrier, with no legal consequences whatsoever, criminal or civil, on the passenger. Feel free to read the law.

I do agree that AC should be aware of the potential violation and should refuse to sell such a ticket. Likewise, there is no problem if a U.S. carrier is used for part of the trip. Indeed. Since foreign carriers are forbidden to sell such tickets, they should be very hard to come by.

Repooc17

It is not inconceivable for someone to fly from AAA (US) to BBB (Canada) to take a meeting, and then within 24 hours, fly to CCC (US). This would be especially plausible if no US airlines fly the route nonstop between AAA and BBB and/or BBB and CCC, thus needing to fly with foreign carriers.

PTahCha

Bingo! I tried to book JFK-LAX on Qantas when they had the one-stop to SYD, since I had some flight credit, and it would not book as a solely-domestic flight.

Similarly, when you try to force a connecting flight in Canada with 2 US endpoints, it will price out with 2 separate carriers.

Repooc17

QF LAX<->JFK are different. They are really just tag on flights, and QF has no pax pickup rights between LAX and JFK.

jsloan

I disagree. If the passenger has come into possession of a ticket which, if operated, would force AC to break the law, AC does not have an obligation to honor it. It would be covered somewhere in their contract of carriage. (As a point of fact, I'd actually think the biggest risk of being denied boarding might be at the origin, because AC might ask for your return flight plans and then realize that they'd be in jeopardy of a Jones Act violation).

Yes, I remember the OZ story -- that was a rather severe transgression, and they deserved what they got (although I'm not a fan of the Jones Act in general).

I think we're arguing semantics here. I agree 100% that the passenger would not be subject to criminal consequences for making this kind of purchase. (It'd be interesting to see if they were liable for civil consequences if AC were to sue). But the transaction itself is still illegal -- it's just that the penalties accrue only to the seller.

Well, that's the problem -- they're really not that hard to come by. People have pointed out that it would be trivially easy to build a trip that meets these criteria, as long as more than one ticket is involved. And the use of two tickets, as you've pointed out, does not absolve the carrier of responsibility -- IIRC, that was specifically the tactic that OZ was suggesting.

Enforcement is uneven -- a strict reading of the act would make it illegal to book an open-jaw return (e.g., AUS-FRA / FRA-IAH), regardless of the duration of the trip. However, in general, if you can show a legitimate purpose for the trip beyond transportation to the other US city, both you and the carrier are probably OK. In this example, if someone were to fly to YYZ for a weekend, have dinner, go to the Hockey Hall of Fame, etc., and then continue to Hawaii, I doubt it would cause a practical problem.

But the reason that they have no passenger rights on the LAX-JFK sector is that it would be illegal cabotage. I believe that you actually can book LAX-JFK, as long as you do it as part of a trip to/from Australia. (i.e., SYD-LAX / LAX-JFK / JFK-LAX-SYD, with a stopover on the outbound).

If memory serves, at one point, AA was trying to get codeshare rights on the QF flight in order to sell it as standalone domestic service. I believe the DOT said no -- that because it was a foreign operator selling the trip, even if it were an AA ticket, it would still be illegal to sell that sector on its own.

SPN Lifer

QF has no passenger pick-up rights for the reason being discussed in this thread.

SPN Lifer

Yes, OZ was selling end-to-end tickets through ICN, with no requirement for a stopover.

I agree that legitimate open-jaw tickets to a destination abroad, beginning and ending in the U.S., would rarely if ever fall with the anti-cabotage prohibition, and I am unaware of DOT bringing cases against carriers on this basis.

As for DOT enforcement, I suspect they focus on structural, marketwide ("pattern and practice") cases rather than playing "gotcha" against the carriers with individual passenger itineraries.

This would be most easily accomplished by DOT monitoring what is available for sale.

bocastephen

There is no violation of the law when the passenger is constructing a trip by piecing together legally available itineraries since the passenger cannot violate any of these laws which do not apply to them, intent notwithstanding, and the carrier cannot be in violation for flying a customer on legally available itineraries that the customer pieced together to circumvent the law since there is no onus on the airline to determine a customer's true intent.

Cabotage is only really cabotage when an airline offers an itinerary for sale or operates a flight or series of flights that violate the law. For example flying the old CX flight JFK-YVR and a separate ticket YVR-SEA is not cabotage because the customer who created this itinerary cannot be in violation of a law that does not apply to their own personal actions....and plenty of people did this very thing in both directions.

As to the cruise ship examples, the cruise lines should have (or did, who knows) fight those fines because they have no way of forcing a customer to reboard the ship at an intermediate stop, nor would they know of a passenger's intention, nor should they know.

As to the OP's request, have a look at United Vacations (just add a cheap hotel you won't use, or a rental car that you will use) or a consolidator to try and issue a BULK ticket - it's really the only way to avoid the PQP cap.

paperwastage

A Passenger won't be fined for breaking cabot age (airline would), but could be inconvenienced

In the usa-icn-saipan example, the passenger had separate tickets but the airline detected (likely due to frequent DOT fines), and forced passenger to do a 92hr stop. Perhaps overzealous and doesn't actually change the intent of the trip, should have been caught in the beginning of trip (and reroute via DL/UA metal to ICN to make it non cabotage)

Us customs/dot can probably detect cabotage despite the separate tickets, so can't blame the airline from trying to avoid the fine
https://thepointsguy.com/news/illega...mistake-story/
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/30704622-post24.html
(The other person later in the thread was denied boarding at origin, even worse?)

As I mentioned in the link as well, AC has a warning if you try to quote a usa-canada-usa
Anyways, back to OP's question.

Bulk fares, partner PQP, quoting a higher fare on same flight, are the only way to gain additional PQP (or even lose PQP, you need to do the math) without actually flying more