The airlines' own policies have made checked baggage a serious burden, and frequent-flier programs don't accumulate free travel at nearly the rate that they use

The airlines' own policies have made checked baggage a serious burden, and frequent-flier programs don't accumulate free travel at nearly the rate that they used to. As such, the downsides to booking hidden-city tickets are a lot less significant than they used to be, and it's entirely due to the airlines' own behaviors. I used to commute by air weekly in the pre-9/11 days and used hidden city bookings every week. Not only did it save my company money, the airlines didn't check to see if you actually boarded the second leg of the flight so you'd accumulate mileage for the leg(s) you skipped. The result was a lower-cost round trip flight with 1000 extra miles banked every week.