The tactic of skiplagging either “flight with hidden city” It consists of buying a ticket for a connecting flight that has a stopover in the city, which is the true final destination of the traveler. Passengers disembark after the first leg and do not board the second. Often the fare is cheaper than if they had purchased a direct flight to their desired destination.
Currently, at least two websites help consumers locate these offers. Although it is not illegal, airlines prohibit this practice in their contracts of carriage. In that regard, passenger airlines have shown a hesitant but tough hand in punishing those caught in the act.
Two cases were paradigmatic in the way of sanctioning users who have carried out the skiplagging maneuver. In one episode, a customer’s accumulated frequent flyer miles were removed. In another event, it was decided to sue the passenger, prohibiting him from traveling with the company for three years.
Travelers have flown this way for decades, experts say, and detecting misuse of connections is difficult, which is why airlines have struggled to enforce these sanctioning policies. For travelers, this means that it can sometimes be more affordable to book a connecting flight on a more competitive route and get off there than to book a direct flight to your desired location.
Skiplagging experts take into account certain maneuvers to avoid being discovered. The main ones are to avoid checking bags and not linking to any frequent flyer account to accumulate miles. In that regard, travelers who display patterns are more likely to be discovered.
The increase in rates and costs have made the technique of choosing “flights with a hidden city” an option to be taken into account among passengers. Aktarer Zaman, founder and CEO of skiplaggeda website dedicated to this disputed activity, emphasized: “This empowers people to make their own decisions.”
By purchasing a ticket, travelers agree to a contract of carriage with the airline, which is a set of rules that passengers agree to abide by. These range from the way the airline will handle overbooked flights to the behavior of users on the trip. These terms and conditions also often explicitly prohibit the issuance of hidden city tickets and come with a host of consequences if travelers evade the rules.
United Airlines reserves the right to permanently ban travelers who do not complete their trip. It also states that you can revoke special traveler status and remove accrued miles. Instead, American Airlines indicates that you have the right to take various actions, such as canceling any unused portion of the ticket, preventing the passenger from flying, and charging the customer for the cost of the planned journey.
Finally, lawsuits by airlines against websites that promote this behavior did not have certain results. A lawsuit filed by United Airlines in 2014 against Skiplagged was dismissed, while in 2021, southwest Airlines sued the same company for using its aerial data. The platform stated that they did not actually distribute the tickets and only displayed the flights. Later, both parties agreed to dismiss the lawsuit.
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