American Airlines Sues Skiplagged for “Fraudulent” Hidden City Ticketing [Roundup]

by Gary Leff

News and notes from around the interweb:

  • From the lawsuit of American Airlines versus Skiplagged, the airlne’s theory of the case is weird – American is suing because they think helping flyers find hidden city tickets reduces their revenue (i.e. saves customers money) – emphasis mine:

    American contends that Skiplagged’s marketing practices violate the airline’s ticketing policies, put buyers who book flights through Skiplagged at risk of having their tickets invalidated, infringe on American’s trademarks and, because of hidden fees, fraudulently promise customers lower fares than they end up paying.

  • I told you last month that the new Delta One business class lounge at LAX would open October 10th. And now you’re reading a lot about it because they held a media preview this week. Here are details and photos.


    Credit: Delta

  • In other news, water is wet.

  • Reminds me of LatinPass, earning 1 million miles with in the first half of 2000 by flying at least one international segment on each of the ten LatinPass member airlines, flying at least three segments on partner airlines (KLM, US Airways, TWA); staying at least three nights in at least two partner hotels and renting a car for at least five days from their car rental partners.

    And for Star Alliance’s 5th anniversary in 2002, members earned 55,555 bonus miles by flying five different Star carriers.

  • Delta SkyMiles really is a bad joke.

    Wow what a deal!! Can’t believe they actually posted this as a sale. #skypesos
    byu/AnyEducator2598 indelta

  • Air Canada elites get Marriott status and Marriott elites get Air Canada status.

    Marriott Titanium and Ambassador members get Aeroplan’s first-tier 25K status, while Aeroplan 50K, 75K, and Super Elites get Marriott Gold.

    Aeroplan elites (including those matched as part of this relationship) can convert Aeroplan points 1:1 into Marriott, which is not good value.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  3. @ Gary — This is why you should ALWAYS take a photo of your restaurant receipt before leaving the table. The person that did this should be fired and arrested IMMEDIATELY.

  4. The fraudulent adding of the excessive tip should have led to a criminal complaint. With the way it was handled, the manager should have been questioned to find out who was involved.

    The Skiplagged trial should have some of the plaintiff’s case thrown out since situations where a longer flight is charged less than one of it’s segments is due to monopolization. The government has a number of laws on the books against monopolization. They should not abet the company using it’s monopoly to extract more money from the consumer.

  5. Now they are blaming the fact that people have to rebook all of their flights because AA can’t put 2 legs together to complete a route. When does AA ever man up to their legal responsibilities?

    I seriously hope the judge assesses court costs to AA in an amount enough to get their attention.

  6. AA may live to regret having brought that Skiplagged suit. They can put all sorts of things in their CoC with the flyer, but how they can bring third parties into that seems a stretch. I could also see a court not liking some of the other things in the CoC, not to mention bad publicity.

  7. Glad to see Delta invest in travel (screens, premium products) and not on a rewards program. And they’re more profitable for it.

  8. I own American Airlines stock, but… their lawsuit against Skiplagged is BEYOND-STUPID. American cannot show any damages other than self-induced pricing policies. When they sell a 2-leg ticket cheaper than a 1-leg ticket, they have only themselves to blame.

    When customers ditch a 2nd-leg, the airline saves on fuel costs (due to less weight = less fuel consumed). American is going to try to show other damages, such as opportunity-cost (being unable to sell seats on the 2nd leg because they’re already paid for), but the fact remains that those empty seats WERE ALREADY PAID FOR, AT AMERICAN AIR’s OWN PRICING.

    If there’s any justice in the world, I will enjoy seeing American Airlines lose this lawsuit.

    Please, please, pray for Skiplagged.

Comments are closed.