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A risk of this is that the airline is only required to get you to the actual destination your purchased. If your flight is cancelled, they could re-book you wit

A risk of this is that the airline is only required to get you to the actual destination your purchased. If your flight is cancelled, they could re-book you with a routing that doesn't fly through your intended destination.

TeMPOraL 12y ago
They should start doing that, or something similar. Say you book a flight from city A to city B, but you really intend to drop off at the place C which is the middle-stop. Airlines could every now and then switch the route to go through a different city D without announcing it in advance. Getting stuck in a different city at random would quickly drive the point home to cheaters.
- larrydag 12y ago
  Easier said than done. Logistics of flight scheduling is very difficult. You need to schedule aircraft routes, flight crew routes, and attendant crew routes. Also have to include refueling stops and maintenance stops. Sabre Solutions made a name for themselves doing this for American. Your solution can be done but there are serious cost consequences.
  - TeMPOraL 12y ago
    I know, I know. It was only a half-joke. Once upon a time I stumbled upon the ITA slides[0] and the complexity involved with fares and routes pretty much blew my mind. [0] - https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.itasoftware.com/en//pdf/ComplexityofArlineTravelPlanning_Carl_Sep-03.pdf https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.itasoftware.c...
- Someone1234 12y ago
  That's unlikely simply because it would upset a lot of people, non-cheaters, as it both alters their itinerary but also alters the total travel time (e.g. 8 hrs instead of 6 hrs). Plus that isn't really how aircraft travel works, it isn't a single aircraft which travels from A to B to C, it is a connection which only exists because aircraft A and B land at the same airport within 30-60 minutes of one another. Now everyone understands if there is an aircraft issue/emergency and the airline needs to re-route you. But if they started making a random habit of it just for "fun" (to catch less than 0.1% of their customers) people would get upset very quickly.
  - nostrademons 12y ago
    It would also wreak havoc with the airlines' routing system. The reason this hack works is because airlines try to route connecting flights through hub cities so that many different passengers can get to many different cities; if they routed the connection through a different city, suddenly all the other passengers would find themselves with no way to get to a final destination.
- LordKano 12y ago
  The flaw with this plan is that one would find out at the gate that the layover city had been changed. At worst, one would have to change their plans at the last minute and pay more money for a ticket to their true destination. Now, are you going to suggest that airlines be permitted to post fictitious destinations on the marquees at the gates?
- Doctor_Fegg 12y ago
  That actually happened on the British railways in the early 1990s. There was an evening express train out of London Paddington whose first scheduled stop was Tiverton Parkway, a middle-of-nowhere station roughly 160 miles from London. Regular commuters knew that the train also made an unadvertised stop at Reading, a popular commuter town 35 miles west of London, to collect passengers heading for the West Country. In theory it was a "pick up only" stop, but with 14 manually-operated doors all opening onto the platform, this was never policed. Until the one night when the conductor announced on the tannoy just before Reading: "Ladies and gentlemen, this is the InterCity service to Penzance. Our first stop will be Tiverton Parkway in approximately two hours' time." And the train sped through Reading without stopping. (For Reading-Tiverton travellers, British Rail had quietly laid on an extra service that night, starting at Reading.) The London-Reading commuters were not best pleased... not least because the conductor then walked through the train selling (expensive) tickets to Tiverton for anyone whose ticket was only valid to Reading. The taxi drivers and hoteliers of Tiverton, on the other hand, were delighted.
- saosebastiao 12y ago
  The risk is only as big as the risk of the flight being cancelled altogether. The reason they go through a specific hub is due to the network effects: The person going from LA to Des Moines sits next to a person going to New York and a person going to Miami, and after the transfer sits next to a person coming from Boston and a person coming from Seattle. Rerouting willy-nilly to punish cheaters would impose a far greater cost on themselves.
- derf_ 12y ago
  They will certainly do this if you miss a connection (because, say, the plane you were supposed to get on never showed up and the one that did eventually arrive hours later was 50 seats smaller than it was supposed to be and had a malfunctioning main cabin door that had to be repaired before it could take off again... to use a completely hypothetical example). Their system will literally not let them rebook you to somewhere other than your original final destination. I was flying to AMS, but the soonest they could rebook me on a flight there was 24 hours later (late enough to miss the event I was supposed to be attending). They had a perfectly good flight to DUS, which was actually closer to my final destination (by train) than even AMS was, and couldn't put me on that. They finally booked me on a flight to AMS through DUS (with an 18 hour layover), but told me if I got off in DUS, my return ticket would be canceled, thanks to all the people who try to cheat fares this way. On the way, I managed to get one of the agents frustrated enough with her own computer system that she took out a physical pad of paper, stamped it with some kind of official stamp (she had to tick over a counter on the stamp with a special tool), and told me to go show it to the lady around the corner. The lady around the corner worked for a completely different airline, who happily took the piece of paper and gave me a free ticket to DUS. So, yeah, thanks guys, for ruining the system for honest people.
josu 12y ago
Your third flight is a complete different journey. Imagine this: 1x: London - LA 12/09/2014(You leave September 12 for your vacation) 2x: LA - London 22/09/2014 (You come back on September 22, from your vacation) 3x: Pacific Island A - Pacific Island B [Random_day](This flight is just to screw with the system so it drops the YQ (Fuel surcharge) charge)
- rosser 12y ago
  You're talking about a "3x" tactic, while the article (and your comment's parent) are talking about the "hidden city" technique.

TeMPOraL 12y ago

They should start doing that, or something similar. Say you book a flight from city A to city B, but you really intend to drop off at the place C which is the middle-stop. Airlines could every now and then switch the route to go through a different city D without announcing it in advance. Getting stuck in a different city at random would quickly drive the point home to cheaters.

larrydag 12y ago
Easier said than done. Logistics of flight scheduling is very difficult. You need to schedule aircraft routes, flight crew routes, and attendant crew routes. Also have to include refueling stops and maintenance stops. Sabre Solutions made a name for themselves doing this for American. Your solution can be done but there are serious cost consequences.
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  I know, I know. It was only a half-joke. Once upon a time I stumbled upon the ITA slides[0] and the complexity involved with fares and routes pretty much blew my mind. [0] - https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.itasoftware.com/en//pdf/ComplexityofArlineTravelPlanning_Carl_Sep-03.pdf https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.itasoftware.c...
Someone1234 12y ago
That's unlikely simply because it would upset a lot of people, non-cheaters, as it both alters their itinerary but also alters the total travel time (e.g. 8 hrs instead of 6 hrs). Plus that isn't really how aircraft travel works, it isn't a single aircraft which travels from A to B to C, it is a connection which only exists because aircraft A and B land at the same airport within 30-60 minutes of one another. Now everyone understands if there is an aircraft issue/emergency and the airline needs to re-route you. But if they started making a random habit of it just for "fun" (to catch less than 0.1% of their customers) people would get upset very quickly.
- nostrademons 12y ago
  It would also wreak havoc with the airlines' routing system. The reason this hack works is because airlines try to route connecting flights through hub cities so that many different passengers can get to many different cities; if they routed the connection through a different city, suddenly all the other passengers would find themselves with no way to get to a final destination.
LordKano 12y ago
The flaw with this plan is that one would find out at the gate that the layover city had been changed. At worst, one would have to change their plans at the last minute and pay more money for a ticket to their true destination. Now, are you going to suggest that airlines be permitted to post fictitious destinations on the marquees at the gates?
Doctor_Fegg 12y ago
That actually happened on the British railways in the early 1990s. There was an evening express train out of London Paddington whose first scheduled stop was Tiverton Parkway, a middle-of-nowhere station roughly 160 miles from London. Regular commuters knew that the train also made an unadvertised stop at Reading, a popular commuter town 35 miles west of London, to collect passengers heading for the West Country. In theory it was a "pick up only" stop, but with 14 manually-operated doors all opening onto the platform, this was never policed. Until the one night when the conductor announced on the tannoy just before Reading: "Ladies and gentlemen, this is the InterCity service to Penzance. Our first stop will be Tiverton Parkway in approximately two hours' time." And the train sped through Reading without stopping. (For Reading-Tiverton travellers, British Rail had quietly laid on an extra service that night, starting at Reading.) The London-Reading commuters were not best pleased... not least because the conductor then walked through the train selling (expensive) tickets to Tiverton for anyone whose ticket was only valid to Reading. The taxi drivers and hoteliers of Tiverton, on the other hand, were delighted.
saosebastiao 12y ago
The risk is only as big as the risk of the flight being cancelled altogether. The reason they go through a specific hub is due to the network effects: The person going from LA to Des Moines sits next to a person going to New York and a person going to Miami, and after the transfer sits next to a person coming from Boston and a person coming from Seattle. Rerouting willy-nilly to punish cheaters would impose a far greater cost on themselves.
derf_ 12y ago
They will certainly do this if you miss a connection (because, say, the plane you were supposed to get on never showed up and the one that did eventually arrive hours later was 50 seats smaller than it was supposed to be and had a malfunctioning main cabin door that had to be repaired before it could take off again... to use a completely hypothetical example). Their system will literally not let them rebook you to somewhere other than your original final destination. I was flying to AMS, but the soonest they could rebook me on a flight there was 24 hours later (late enough to miss the event I was supposed to be attending). They had a perfectly good flight to DUS, which was actually closer to my final destination (by train) than even AMS was, and couldn't put me on that. They finally booked me on a flight to AMS through DUS (with an 18 hour layover), but told me if I got off in DUS, my return ticket would be canceled, thanks to all the people who try to cheat fares this way. On the way, I managed to get one of the agents frustrated enough with her own computer system that she took out a physical pad of paper, stamped it with some kind of official stamp (she had to tick over a counter on the stamp with a special tool), and told me to go show it to the lady around the corner. The lady around the corner worked for a completely different airline, who happily took the piece of paper and gave me a free ticket to DUS. So, yeah, thanks guys, for ruining the system for honest people.

josu 12y ago

Your third flight is a complete different journey. Imagine this: 1x: London - LA 12/09/2014(You leave September 12 for your vacation) 2x: LA - London 22/09/2014 (You come back on September 22, from your vacation) 3x: Pacific Island A - Pacific Island B [Random_day](This flight is just to screw with the system so it drops the YQ (Fuel surcharge) charge)

rosser 12y ago
You're talking about a "3x" tactic, while the article (and your comment's parent) are talking about the "hidden city" technique.