Last week I wrote about an American Airlines passenger flagged for throwaway ticketing or ‘skiplagging’ to save money on their flights.
They checked in at the ticket counter and showed their ID. The agent saw that it was an ID issued in the state they were connecting in – suggesting they might be stopping their journey there. The agent said they suspected the passenger planned to skip the final flight segment and warned them they would be banned from American Airlines if they did not take the connection.
Busted. The passenger had planned to skip that last flight. They ultimately did skip it. We don’t know if American Airlines has banned them or not. However there is already another one and this story is even more striking.
Last week I booked a last minute flight that had a layover in the city I live. Since I knew I was skiplagging, I didn’t use my frequent flyer number to avoid linking it to my AA account. When I went to check in, the system asked me to check with the counter.
I initially thought it was because it was a full flight or something along those lines, but when I spoke to the agent, she told me that the system had flagged my reservation because my address (from my profile) was near the layover city. She said if I didn’t board the second leg of the flight, I’d be put on the DNF list.
In the end, I ended up boarding the second leg and buying a separate flight that departed an hour after I arrived for less than $60 to get home. …[I]t made me wonder if changing my address in the profile to a different state would let me do this again without getting flagged?
They knew what they were doing. They took precautions. They didn’t want to risk their American AAdvantage account, so they did not add it to the reservation. But American Airlines still figured out who they were, where they lived, and knew they were connecting in their home city.
American Airlines has been known to be quite aggressive clamping down on ticketing techniques that save customers money.
- There was the teenager taken to a security room and interrogated over their throwaway ticket (they confessed).
- They’ve also been confronting passengers at the airport over suspected ‘ticketing abuse’ and billing them although there the ban only applies if the customer doesn’t pay.
Here we’re seeing a couple of similar incidents – tracking where a customer lives and comparing it to their connecting city – and having the airline block online or kiosk check-in so that an agent can deliver a warning.
Throwaway ticketing is not illegal but it breaks the airline’s rules. Airlines often charge more money for non-stops than they do for connecting itineraries. So people book a flight with a connection through the city they want to travel to, and just don’t take that second connecting flight. That saves money, and the airline sees it as costing them money.
For instance, you:
- Want to fly New York to Denver, but it’s cheaper to book New York to Denver to Colorado Springs – so you buy that, and only use the first segment to Denver.
- Want to fly DC to Phoenix, but it’s cheaper to fly DC to Phoenix to Tucson – so you buy that, and only use the first segment to Phoenix.
If you do this, and an airline catches you, they might ban you or shut down your frequent flyer account. Historically there has been little risk to this if you do not do this frequently. However, plenty of things can go wrong along the way.
- Re-routing during irregular operations. If your flight is delayed or cancelled, your airline may want to re-route you through a different hub than the city you actually wanted to fly to (and get off in).
Maybe your connection would go through Chicago instead of Denver – and you wouldn’t be able to get off in the city you’d planned to! I’ve never had a problem asking to be kept on my original routing during irregular operations, but it may not be automatic.
- No checked bags. Airlines don’t generally allow you to ‘short-check’ bags, where they only send your luggage to your connecting city, although there are exceptions. If you book DC to Chicago to Milwaukee, and you get off in Chicago, you don’t want your luggage sent to Milwaukee (yes, your bags can fly without you).
- Gate checking bags. If you aren’t among the first to board your flight, overhead bins may be full (or employees might fear that the bins are filling up) and you might be required to gate check your carry-on bag instead of bringing it onto the aircraft. Then your carry-on will go to your final ticketed destination, not the city you’re flying to.
- Can only book one-way. If you book a roundtrip, and throw away a segment on your outbound, the rest of your itinerary will get cancelled by the airline. You might need to book that DC – Chicago – Milwaukee as a one-way ticket if you’re getting off in Chicago, and then a one-way back to DC on the return (potentially with a throwaway segment on that ticket, too).
Computers are much more effective than they used to be at noticing patterns and checking large amounts of data – like passenger reservations – for out of sample behavior. That suggests airlines are only going to get better and better at identifying cases where their rules are being broken. They’re going to have a lot more resources thrown at AI than customers will have defending against those. And government ID requirements make it harder to keep airlines from knowing everything about you when you travel.
Everyone who is surprised that the computer system detected the potential skipper, amazes me. Computers and cell phones have IP Addresses. Which a computer reservation systems could associate with you just like the frequent flyer point accounts. It’s like saving your friends name along with, Home, Cell, and Work Numbers. Entering any number would pull up your friend’s name.
For the dudes who are supporting the airlines, a friendly reminder that it’s not an official contract when you buy the tickets, and official or not, contracts in court tend to go in favor to the signee over the writer.
Besides AA is not the only airlines nor even one of the best. All they will do is shoot themselves in the foot and lose customers.
Here’s an extreme example for random dates about one month out. HNL – GUM – HNL $2668. HNL – GUM – MNL – GUM – HNL $1128. The flights between HNL and GUM are the exact same flight in both directions even though GUM MNL is a 3 hour flight each way.
Ok, go to a thrift store and buy cheap luggage and junk clothes. Check that in to help avoid being flagged. It’s throw away stuff. Got it.
For domestic, just buy a refundable fare to anywhere to get airside…
Then book your hidden city ticket using any name you please. Board. Fly.
To the people defending this behavior, shame on you.
Please don’t fly AA if it’s such a bad company as many of you allege. In reality you chose it because they were cheap and now your complaining about policies that keep it cheap for the rest of us.
Less than 2% of travelers skiplag so I say ban them all.
Kinda dumb and entitled to break the rules them and about it and them ask how to cheat the system.
What about the fact that someone else could have used that seat that wasn’t used? This isn’t taking the store off the airline… It’s about about not encouraging bad behavior and chatting or stealing a product or service. Skip lagging isn’t illegal, but it is against policy. So if you cheat or steal, then you should have consequences when caught.
If it’s not illegal, I say keep doing it. The airlines have been screwing passengers for years, time they get the favor returned.
How about airlines price flights fairly – in what world can a 2 segment flight cost them less than the direct flight. Makes no sense
Maybe the airline should reconfigure their pricing of flights.
Stupid. Airline pricing shouldn’t be so punitive and weird. The airline is getting the fair it asked for for that route. The passenger isn’t hurting anyone. Charge more transparently and fairly instead of using resources to harass people. One more reason to hate AA.
Walmart example for the Walmart minded flyers.
If the sign says buy one get one free, you aren’t supposed to grab one and run through the check out throwing 50% of the cash at the cashier. But do you? I bet you do. Is it theft? Debatable. Is it wrong? Yes
Oh no, I’m banned from the best airline in the world. Whatever will I do?
It’s been many years since I last “skiplagged”, but given all the negative press American’s been generating over the past few years, the safe bet would seem to avoid them whenever possible.
Sounds like the morons at AA need to improve service and monitor their crews., instead of going after a few bucks. From what I’ve heard AA needs a lot of improvement and some house cleaning upstairs.
If the airline is allowed to just change your tickets, like move your seats or change your times even though you paid extra for those seats then why do I care to abide by their rules since they aren’t following the contract we have agreed to during the purchase.
For the people making excuses for losers, the airline doesn’t have to take you to court. They’ll just never sell you a ticket again. How much money will you save next time when you’ve got one less option?? Durrrrr
Well.. Why can’t I save money? Skipped lagging is not criminal! And now that all airlines have to break down fares ,you should see how much the base ticket cost in relationship to the entire amount I pay. I think Skip lagged is part of free enterprise and is not the consumer part of that free enterprise?
The way you get around this, is to book with your passport and not a driver’s license. That way nobody knows what your home state or city is.
@Tristan — This is it. You got it. Winner winner chicken dinner. No one is honorable. So, don’t feel bad if you skip lag, just do it correctly. These companies will scam and screw us in a heartbeat. In fact, the top executives and majority shareholder are probably frothing mad when they don’t harm us. After all, in their minds, we, the consumers, are inferior–worthy of their cruelty. Vigilantism isn’t the answer. No. Start electing folks who will actually regulate them. Forget the culture war. It was always a class war, and 99.99% of us have been losing this whole time.
Stop takin AA, airlines are out to always win and not care about the customers, it a business to them, it about the money. It a monopoly the moment you buy a ticket, they make final decisions. So the way to win is to take there power away, usually it means take there money or make them lose money.
Why don’t airlines allow people to pay for 2 sections of a trip and skip riding on the 2nd one? The airlines get to keep the full 2 section trip payment and they save money on less weight on the plane.
A restaurant can’t force you to eat all the food you purchased. An airline should not be able to force you to fly. Skipping part of your flight saves them fuel. The FAA should stop airlines from attacking customers.
F the airlines like they F you.
Also, that kid they interrogated should sue the living hell out of them. I know many lawyers who would LOVE that case.
I am not sure I understand the fuss Airlines make about this. They get an empty seat that is already paid for. That in itself should be a good thing.
If someone buys something and chooses not to use the service, that is their right.
Airlines price tickets the way they choose, and passengers buy them the way they choose, and that should be the end of it.
My two cents: 1. The airlines get the money regardless so they can’t claim lost revenue. 2. The airlines overbook and force people to give up their seats, this practice actually helps them in that regard. Which also means others who want or need that seat get it anyway. So conclusion the only way this hurts anyone is it prevents airlines from price gouging. Keep it up!
For people defending the airlines, were you nerds hall monitors growing up? Just because a unscrupulous business has a policy, doesn’t mean the policy is ethical, logical, or legal. If they’re willing to take my money, I should be able to do whatever I want with the seats I reserved and paid for. The airline industry is one of the most unethical industries with very little accountability on the customer service and business practices side of things. Skip lagging wouldn’t even be a thing if they priced their routes appropriately. Point A to point B should never cost more than going A to B to C. It’s stupid, it’s illogical, it’s unethical. Then punishing people over it is corrupt as hell. Someone should Luigi some of these airline CEOs. Society needs to stop being run by narcissists and sociopaths that will sink to any level and exploit their customers and employees to get their annual bonus and bump the stock up.
Because AA is the only airline that punish you and on the be love world no1 delta you can get away with it.
How come nobody asks the obvious question as to why airlines have this rule in the first place?
Here is the reason:
I live in CLE and want to go to Tokyo. A pricey ticket, maybe up tp 2,000 or more.. I rush to the airport and the agent says, ‘sorry we are sold out’.
You, snickering when you here my plight just booked a CLE to MCI through ORD for $350, versus a $700 non stop to ORD. Why do they charge more for the non-stop? Is it not obvious? AA can no longer sell me the connection thru ORD to Tokyo for big bucks, because they sold you the last CLE-ORD leg seat with no connection opportunity.
The non-stop CLE-ORD higher pricing helps to mitigate the risk of the empty ORD-Tokyo seat. If you book a fake cheap connection to MCI, you just screwed me from getting to Tokyo and the airline out of revenue.
Good for you.
Don”t like the rules, take the bus.
Use your passport, use gift cards, use PayPal which is more lax with addresses. Many ways
If the airline has a stipulation that they dont allow it. Dont do it. If you dont like their rules, dont use them. Why break their rule then get mad when they call you on it?
If you don’t like a businesses’ policies, do business with someone else. But trying to game the system is pathetic. Sounds like the frontal lobe is not fully formed.
To all the people saying the airline is right, shame on you. In an efficient market, price should be equal to marginal cost. Any price above is just airlines abusing their market power to extort money from passengers.
I sort-of view this as a “Nobody’s Right” situation. I don’t think I’ve ever booked a ticket not intending to fly a leg, though once or twice I’ve been in a situation where I shuffled plans at the proverbial last minute (e.g. “Hey, I’m in NYC, might as well grab dinner with a friend and catch Amtrak tomorrow”)…but that’s out of dozens of flights per year. But (particularly with their pre-pandemic behavior…and with some of their recent behavior [WN, I’m looking at you this week]), I’m also quite unsympathetic to the airlines in this one.
To @Tom d.’s explanation, I would counter that the airline has plenty of other options at their disposal to maneuver capacity and passengers (including just charging more for the CLE-ORD flight – whether they’re “losing” that TYO ticket for someone only flying to ORD for $700 or flying to MCI for $350, they’re still trading off the chance of that TYO flight for $2500 for less than the $2500), but I’ve long been of the view that an A-B-C ticket is, and should be treated as, simply a set of coupons to go A-B/B-C (which was, to be clear, the pre-ADA* treatment of things). I’d be rather more sympathetic to their position if it was “Look, you need to put /somebody/ on that plane, but as long as they’re not on a government DNF list and you’re flying domestic we don’t give a rat’s you-know-what who is in that seat as long as you’re not claiming mileage credit” (don’t forget that re-selling of unusable tickets was rather a thing at least through the 1980s).
Honestly, I’d say “Just kill the ADA* already.” There are enough airports where you either have an effective monopoly, and many, many others where it’s at best a duopoly (I’m excluding the incidental, sometimes ephemeral, presence of minor carriers) that I find “Don’t like them? Take your business elsewhere” to be rather ridiculous.
*In this context, the Airline Deregulation Act, not the Americans with Disabilities Act (which doesn’t even apply here – that’d be the ACAA for airlines).
Article states it costs arilines money when people do.this hut does not in any way explain how.
I’d like to try this where it might be worthwhile, perhaps internationaly in business class. Thankfully I haven’t had to fly AA in years. When I did it was terrible. D1 and JB Mint more lately. With any luck, AA won’t be around in a few more years. Hopefully sued for monopolistic or oligopolistic practices like Google. Banning people from what is effectively 1 of the 3 or so national airlines over a commercial profitability reason and not a criminal violation? Idk now class action lawyers aren’t taking this up. I’d like to get banned so I can be part of the settlement class.
Maybe if airlines stopped trying to take advantage of it’s customers we might not want to f them over all the time. They created this adversarial relationship.
It is important to always remember skip lagging, or hidden City, is not illegal. It is perfectly legal to purchase a product and not use it, regardless of the price. The passenger has every right to get off of the aircraft at a connecting City and not continue on For any reason. But for those passengers who are squeamish, all you have to do is say that you are not feeling well and the airline purposely will deny you boarding because they do not want to transport a sick person. End of story
It is important to always remember skip lagging, or hidden City, is not illegal. It is perfectly legal to purchase a product and not use it, regardless of the price. The passenger has every right to get off of the aircraft at a connecting City and not continue on For any reason. But for those passengers who are squeamish, all you have to do is say that you are not feeling well and the airline purposely will deny you boarding because they do not want to transport a sick person. As for bags, you cannot check any bags, but if they do check your bag at the gate, you simply tell the flight attendant the city you want it checked to. The flight attendants. Do not go into your record to find out where you live, or even Your ostensible final destination. If an airline does try to ban you, you can sue them. The The practice of charging more for certain flights to same destination is unscrupulous at best. I’ve been doing this for 25 years without any issue, and will continue to do so as long as the airlines charge less for a connection than a Non-Stop.
Since they intentionally over sell every flight they can and hope people don’t show up then what’s the problem, here?
Be careful of your comments, you may get banned.
I guess I see it a little differently. My grandmother passed a few days after my mother-in-law had a massive stroke. My husband drove to my mother-in-law while I stayed behind with grandma.
After grandma passed and my husband was driving home, a two day drive, I wanted to join him. There are no airports near where mother-in-law lives. The best I could do was fly to Denver and have him dip down and grab me 5 hours into his trip. Only catch, no flights available. But I could get a flight to SC or NC wherever with a layover in Denver. I wasn’t left with much choice.
Seems like those saying to ban people have never been in a situation like that. So go dinner and decide you are full. You ordered the meal. You are paying for the meal. Now you have to clean your plate your can’t go back again. Seems a little silly to me.
I say Boo Hoo to the Airlines. Cry Babies! The person paid for the flight and got off the plane. The seat is still paid for and the Airplane staff works less but is still paid the same. If I buy a Movie ticket and can’t show up to the movie because of traffic, the movie plays anyway with an empty seat. The Theater has been paid. The Theater is not hunting me down threatening to ban me. Sheesh! Anyone that thinks it’s ok to threaten/warn me about something I’ve paid for won’t receive any future business from me ever! How about that Ban! I have every right to do whatever I want with my purchase.
This is horrible treament by AA to the passengers and especially to its loyal members! I have being traveling on many airlines, some of which i have the frequent flyer membership and others not, and never once came accros this type of BS from them with connecting flights, NOT ONCE! These airlines would normally proactively even take the kind gesture to offer me a layover period in the connecting city and help me with chauffeur service, booking hotel rooms and tickets to entertaining spots like a waterpark or theatre, etc. And they would always also offer and ask me to pay a little more on top of the ticket original fare, regardless if i got from them directly or a travel agent or online, to extend the ticket period to be year round so I could travel the remaining segment of the outbound or inbound flight whenever I wanted and have done so so many times for myself and my family.
And they never asked me my actual address, where I was from or funnily which state I resided or any other such dumb question which I believe should be completely private to you for your and your family safety.
AA just knows exactly how to milk you to the last drop and how to treat customers and offer the WORLD’s best traveling experience ever! SMH
What’s next, ban you because your address says NY and you work in NJ …
It is none of AA business what you do with your ticket, travel or not as you have paid for it already and it is upto you and your right to not show up. Period!
That’s why they should allow international airlines to compete and operate in US and I can guarantee you AA, UA, Delta, etc will either provide the best service,.and never again we will read such an article, or they will simply vanish in thin air.
The amount of people on here not giving a damn about breaking Rules or Policy is disgusting. YOU all sound like a bunch of worthless LIBTURDS!
Can someone sane explain to me how it is cheaper to get an additional flight then to fly straight to a particular city? That literally does not add up. I get there is supply and demand, but it does not add up that jumping on an extra flight is cheaper than terminating a trip.
I am all for following the rules, but when their rules are to protect blatant price gouging? I cannot get behind that. Every flight should have a set rate, with discounts for adding additional flights on. It is completely ridiculous to charge a lot more for A to B or B to C than for A to B to C. Until we as consumers wake up and make them charge fair prices they will continue to rob us. By the “you just have to follow the rules mentality, we would still be part of Britain right now”. If they ban everyone from flying then they will go out of business!
A lot of lame ass hall monitors in these comments – the empty seat on your missed flight gets filled by people on standby. Skip lagging is the shit. I do it all the time.
Is American just TRYING to go out of Business ? they have already lost so many customers with their poor service, bad planes, constant cancellations and delays and now they are just trying to find ways to offend and harass the last few that are willing to fly them? Attention AA….you placed LOWER than Spirit Airlines on the raning charts ….QUIT while you are ahead ! LOL IT’S ACTUALLY COMICAL :))
Skiplagging is the mark of the unimaginative (and dishonest) traveler, the one who can not figure out how to save money in their travels without breaking the contract of carriage (or caring to have an ethical code). So much press has warned about what goes wrong . . . with every excuse which have already been repeated not just in this post but also in these comments.