Is getting off a flight partway to save money ethical? Credit: stevendamron/Flickr
One solution to finding cheap flights is to get off the plane early, suggestions a story in Sunday’s New York Times Magazine. So-called “hidden-city ticketing” is when you book a cheap flight to Vegas, for example, but deplane during a connection at your true destination of Salt Lake City.
What’s going on here? Flying to smaller airports with fewer flights is more expensive than flying to a major airport like NYC, Vegas, Miami, or Boston.
Obviously, this doesn’t work for non-stop flights. But for connecting flights, the New York Times Magazine reporter found four instances where buying a ticket directly to a big city, but then getting off at the connecting city, was less than 50% of the cost of buying a ticket to the connecting city. Examples:
San Antonio –> Salt Lake City = $391
San Antonio –> Salt Lake City –> Las Vegas = $186
Buy the ticket to Vegas, get off in Salt Lake City, and save $205. More examples:
Fargo –> Chicago = $528
Fargo –> Chicago –> New York = $213
Des Moines –> Dallas = $375
Des Moines –> Dallas –> Los Angeles = $186
Louisville –> Charlotte = $405
Louisville –> Charlotte –> Orlando = $188
So is hidden-city ticketing it legal? Or ethical?
The reporter argues that it is legal and that savvy travelers can pull it off in three steps.
1. Book your ticket as two one-ways because airlines will cancel your return flight if you do not complete the outbound portion.
2. Don’t check bags because there is no access to them when you deplane partway.
3. Don’t lie if you get caught, or you could face fraud charges.
I’m not an expert on the legality of hidden-city ticketing and I certainly don’t agree that it is ethical. If you plan to return a TV after the Superbowl, it’s not ethical to buy it to show off at your football party. If you intend to get off the airplane partway, you shouldn’t buy a ticket for another leg. What do you think?
May 11th, 2011 at 7:45 am
As a frequent business flyer I found this article’s advice kind of scary because while this is possible to do, it’s really severly frowned on by the airlines, and in my opinion, more than once or twice, could get you “flagged”. To see ill advice like this come from the NYT, especially given the amount of security tracking in use now, is incredible. There is no possibility it will not come to the airlines attention. To be honest, I’m a little dissapointed to see you reprint it because it is so sketchy, even with your disclaimer (which, by the way, I fully agree with)
May 11th, 2011 at 7:57 am
Interesting. I’m not sure what happens with inbound flights in the US but I’ve witnessed incidents where someone who has checked in hasn’t turned up for the flight in Europe. It caused a whole pile of problems and delays. Is this fair for other passengers?
May 11th, 2011 at 8:30 am
@Vicki I believe it is important to discuss ideas even if I don’t agree with them or endorse them. Writing about this NYT Mag article is not an endorsement, but a starting point for conversation. I’m glad you chimed in. I agree it hidden-city ticketing is a dubious practice.
May 11th, 2011 at 9:05 am
I understand both sides here. What no one has pointed out is the responsibility of the airlines here. Why should you pay Sooooo much more to go to Salt Lake City for example when one can see how much less you pay going on the same plane to the same city but then connecting on to another city? If the airlines were not allowed to play such games maybe people wouldn’t have to get so sneaky.
Hey I am not sure I would try to do this but having seen this so many times for year really has been irritating.
I’d like to know how we can fight to change these practices by the airlines.
Anyone have some thoughts on that?
May 11th, 2011 at 9:15 am
my friend from Canada did this once to come and see me, I live in AR; she left at Memphis,it was going onwards to my home town. I drove (3 hours) and met her in Memphis, we saw all of Memphis & Tunica. She had no problem in her return flight from my hometown to Canada. So it technically wasn’t to get off the flight for a cheaper flight.
May 11th, 2011 at 9:23 am
I don’t see a problem with this very clever practice. I don’t think this is any more or less ethical than the airlines telling you the ticket costs “x” dollars and then tacking on charges for tons of other things. They used to do this without telling you until they were forced to do so. The prices for flights have become outrageous and I beleive this is just a consumer getting equally savy as the airlines are about hidden fees and charges.
May 11th, 2011 at 11:37 am
What about on the return flight—how do you get on the plane when you’re not at the originating city? Seems chancy and unethical to me, but then as jj says why do they not charge you the lower price to go to the city of your choice.
May 11th, 2011 at 11:59 am
At the risk of sounding like a goody-2-shoes, I’ve found that lying (or cheating) can only lead to problems somewhere down the road, and may be costly in the long run. Besides, if you don’t lie and cheat, you don’t have to worry about remembering what you said or did to anyone. Simple!
May 11th, 2011 at 12:47 pm
Chances are you’d get away with it if you book two one-ways and don’t travel too often. Another thing to consider, however, is the off chance your flight gets cancelled, bumped, or re-routed…you could end up hundred of miles from your *desired* city.
May 11th, 2011 at 5:41 pm
I don’t think it’s fair because you are robbing people who truely want to go the entire distance to their destination and cannot.
May 11th, 2011 at 7:45 pm
I don’t see anything wrong with doing this at all, personally. You bought a product, you are choosing to use only part of the product. Of course airlines don’t like it…it makes it blatantly obvious that they artificially jack up the price of high demand flight destinations. If they don’t like this, they should restructure their price structure to actually make sense.
May 11th, 2011 at 8:54 pm
Theres going to be a lot of people saying this is unethical because its a good idea no one has ever thought of before. I know people are probably going to yell at me, but what is unethical about it? You paid for it and thats that. I can say i would have a totally clean concious about doing this if i had the opportunity. I didn’t think anything about this being wrong until i read the end of the article.
May 12th, 2011 at 11:36 am
I am not sure about how I feel about it. The prices are very much higher to smaller destinations than the more popular destination even when the smaller destination is an earlier stop on the same flight. In the past I have known a number of frequent business travellers who used this practice. However I wonder about the return portion of the trip. Isn’t is just as expensive to fly out of the smaller airport as it would be to fly in (i.e., would you only get the lower fare on one way of your trip)?
I can see that it would be a problem for the airlines if you were scheduled to change planes at the smaller airport rather than it being a stop to “let off and pick up” additional passengers on a continuing flight, They might hold the plane and make repeated calls searching for the missing passenger who had been on the first segment of the trip but not boarded the second flight. If it is the same plane continuing on to the more popular (i.e. competitive) destination city they might not even notice that the extra seat was empty. Of course we would all like to see the airlines make their fares “fairer” to all customers but they have calculated their prices based on what their competitors charge.
To me this bears no resemblance to the situation of purchasing a television to watch a special event and then returning it (when it is no longer able to be sold as “new in box”). By opening and unpacking it, using it once, and returning it to the store it will now have to be sold as “used” goods at a reduced price. That is not the same thing as not sitting in a seat on the plane for which you have already paid the ticket price. The airline does not lose any money because you are not in that seat for the next leg of the journey, you paid the price that they asked and only used part of it (just as if you bought a box of cereal and ate half the box and discarded the balance). They still got the price they requested for the product and it should be of no concern to them that you used part of it and discarded the remainder.
May 13th, 2011 at 1:57 pm
very interesting.