Posted on 12/30/2014 10:25:05 AM PST by george76
A young computer whiz from New York City has launched a site to help people buy cheap plane tickets. But an airline company and its travel partner want to shut him down.
United Airlines and Orbitz filed a civil lawsuit last month against 22-year-old Aktarer Zaman, who founded the website Skiplagged.com last year.
The site helps travelers find cheap flights by using a strategy called “hidden city” ticketing.
The idea is that you buy an airline ticket that has a layover at your actual destination. Say you want to fly from New York to San Francisco — you actually book a flight from New York to Lake Tahoe with a layover in San Francisco and get off there, without bothering to take the last leg of the flight.
This travel strategy only works if you book a one-way flight with no checked bags (they would have landed in Lake Tahoe).
(Excerpt) Read more at kdvr.com ...
“A 747 can’t land in Lake Tahoe.”
Landing in Lake Tahoe - quite possible.
Take off would be another thing . . . .
When you miss a connection due to airline delays, they know about it and alert the connecting flights. When you walk away and disappear into the ether, you open up a can of worms.
Car breakdowns on the way to the airport before you check in are out of scope.
-PJ
Nope.
No airline is going to sue their customers for flying one way on a round trip ticket.
Technically, they can hold you to the contract but they never do it in practice because of the bad publicity they would incur and they would lose you as a future customer.
Same with the hidden city thing - as long as they get paid, whether you actually go to your intended destination is of no consequence.
No body is being defrauded and people don’t want to pay an arm and a leg to fly. The airlines themselves know that even better than the folks who book with them.
If another airline is offering a direct flight, at a minimum they’ll have to match the fare. In most cases they’ll offer a lower fare to make up for the inconvenience.
Cool. Now how to get all the kids to wear business suits...
Very simple: When you purchase a airline ticket, you agree to the airline's "contract of carriage," which includes a provision that specifically prohibits this practice. The UA contract, for example, reads as follows:
"J) Prohibited Practices:
1) Fares apply for travel only between the points for which they are published. Tickets may not be purchased and used at fare(s) from an initial departure point on the Ticket which is before the Passenger’s actual point of origin of travel, or to a more distant point(s) than the Passenger’s actual destination being traveled even when the purchase and use of such Tickets would produce a lower fare. This practice is known as “Hidden Cities Ticketing” or “Point Beyond Ticketing” and is prohibited by UA.
2) The purchase and use of round-trip Tickets for the purpose of one-way travel only, known as “Throwaway Ticketing” is prohibited by UA..."
Although the guy who runs this website isn't breaching his contract with the airlines (because no such contract exists unless he buys a ticket and engages in the prohibited conduct), he is arguably encouraging other people to breach their contract with the airlines and could be sued for intentional interference with contractual relations.
The only caveat is you can’t take checked baggage. But with the ridiculous fees for baggage now it is about the same price to just buy clothes and other sundries at the destination.
Send your bag a day ahead with fedex or ups.
Airlines find this unethical, yet some are still are adding a fuel surcharge . . .
The obvious workaround would be to book your trips leaving Friday and returning Monday.
;)
In a free market system, airlines can charge what they want.
On the flip side of the coin, customers can use legal ways to save money.
What the young computer whiz did with Skiplagged.com is neither illegal nor unethical. Its been around for decades.
United/Orbitz are going to lose this lawsuit because they don’t like competition. They aren’t claiming he’s defrauding them of customers.
LOL
K
You are correct.
Terrorism laws..............
What if you weren’t going back?.............
Turns out they land 737’s sohhh?
I did not know that...
I once booked a flight from San Diego to Dallas with a layover in Austin. I got off in Austin because it was closer to home. The flight from SD to Dallas was over $300 while a flight ending in Austin was almost $400.
See Post No. 66. Although not illegal per se, the young computer whiz is arguably encouraging airline passengers to breach their "contract of carriage" with the airlines, which expressly prohibits such a practice.
In actual practice, those contract terms are unenforceable.
No airline will sue their customers for taking a layover flight or a taking a one way flight on a round trip ticket.
They can deny you boarding but they’d lose you as a future customer.
They are technically within their rights to enforce their terms of carriage but if you legally save money, they look greedy trying to single you out what they allow anyway.
If it bothers them that much, make flying more attractive rather than bullying a customer into paying higher fares.
Along those lines you can say you are in town training employees at IBM, not that you actually work for IBM themselves. You still get the IBM rate.
The contract of carriage is enforceable, but rarely enforced for the reasons you state. That is why UA/Orbitz is suing the computer whiz, as opposed to the passengers.
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