Skiplagging

[tvguy]

Please quote from the article where it said an airline won a case.

And please note NONE of the cases cited are in the U.S.

 

[luvsvacation]

I had never heard this term until recently when I was looking into I international travel for next year. DD and I are going on a trip to Europe for her college graduation. The first part of our trip will be a Mediterranean cruise and we are using the cruise lines airfare deal to get there. Then we will travel a few weeks around Europe eventually flying home from London.

One way flights from London to our Midwest airport are 2500 each!! Round trip tickets from London to our home (and back to London) are 1000! You can bet I’ll be booking round trip and not using the return ticket. That is an absolutely ridiculous price difference! 3,000 for 2 people!

 

[sam_gordon]

And please note NONE of the cases cited are in the U.S.

OK. Still waiting for the quote from the article where it said the airline won. Remember, that's what you claimed...

If you read the article, some cases the passenger wins, some cases, the airline wins.

 

[china mom]

What is an “illegal” connection? I haven’t used a travel agent in many many years for a simple airline booking. The internet makes it unnecessary. I can find the best deal and times I want easily on my own.

An illegal connection is one that does not give the passenger time to get from gate to gate. I have found flights where you don't see the route when looking it up as an itinerary but can find two flights but you only have, let's say, 10 minutes to get from the one flight to the other. The airline won't let you book it as one trip but if you dare to risk it, you can book it as two separate legs and run between gates.

It is not illegal, just called that by the industry.

 

[sam_gordon]

One way flights from London to our Midwest airport are 2500 each!! Round trip tickets from London to our home (and back to London) are 1000! You can bet I’ll be booking round trip and not using the return ticket. That is an absolutely ridiculous price difference! 3,000 for 2 people!

Something that would be interesting to check... book fully refundable fares from London to your home airport round trip (I'm sure they'll be more than $1000). Then, after you get home, cancel the return ticket. Since it's fully refundable, you should get your money back.

I wonder how that would work with skiplagging... in the case from the OP, book a fully refundable ticket from Gainesville to JFK. After you arrive in Charlotte, cancel the remaining ticket.

 

[sam_gordon]

I wanted to fly from Sacramento to Salt Lake City and connect to a flight to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. I think it had to do with it being an International Flight where I did not pass through customers on the first flight. But Internet sites were what suggested this routing even though I would have been denied boarding in Salt Lake City. Glad I decided to have my Travel Agent book it because their more sophisticated booking software caught that. Well worth the $25 fee she charged to book the flight. My routing was much cheaper, and cut the travel time almost in half including time for the change of planes in Salt Lake City.

So wait, the TA's itinerary cost you $25, plus more fees to the airline, plus doubled your travel time? Me thinks you got hosed.

More than likely it's what @china mom said, your connection time from the internet site was probably too short. Does the US have international flights where you clear customs before departing the US? I know Canada has flights where you clear US customs in Canada.

 

[tvguy]

So wait, the TA's itinerary cost you $25, plus more fees to the airline, plus doubled your travel time? Me thinks you got hosed.

More than likely it's what @china mom said, your connection time from the internet site was probably too short. Does the US have international flights where you clear customs before departing the US? I know Canada has flights where you clear US customs in Canada.

No, there was more time between flights on my itinerary that in the legal one by 30 minutes. Yes, I got hosed because you can't go the most direct route. They want you to go through Vancouver, Calgary or Minneapolis.

 

[fla4fun]

Never heard the term "skiplagging" until this thread appeared.

We skipplagged a couple years back and did not have an issues.

We were booked to Kalispell from Boston months in advance.
About 3 days before our trip, our Glacier NP lodging was cancelled and half the Going to the Sun road was closed due to wildfires.

We decided to salvage the trip (non-refundable flight) by not boarding our next flight and renting a car to see Yellowstone instead.

We just exited the plane in Salt Lake City and let the delta lady know that we would not be getting on the connecting flight.
Did not seem to be any issue at all, she thanked us for letting them know.

Your situation was different in a couple of ways. One, with wildfires in the area there could have been special policies in place like we have here during hurricanes. Two, you let someone know as you were getting off the plane. At that point they were aware they could resell the seats if they wanted to, without waiting to see if you were a no show. It would be the same as calling the airline and cancelling a non-refundable flight.

I don’t think I would try skiplagging on purpose (not that I fly a lot anyway) but it should either be legal or illegal. If you aren’t breaking the law by doing it, the airline shouldn’t be able to detain you or take you to court. I don’t have a problem if the airline wants to cancel your return ticket if you skiplag on the outbound flight, since you won’t be boarding where you should be. I don’t have a problem with them penalizing you by not crediting any FF miles for that flight. I don’t even have a problem with them banning you from flying with them in the future. I realize the airline is a business, and they have the right to set rules and penalize you for not following them using penalties or putting you on a no fly list within the boundaries of that particular airline. People really should read the fine print.

My issue is that I just don’t feel they should have the right to sue you or charge you criminally in court if you decide, for whatever reason, to not set foot on that flight. If the law changes and skiplagging becomes illegal, then the airline would have that right, not until then.

 

[EACarlson]

Something that would be interesting to check... book fully refundable fares from London to your home airport round trip (I'm sure they'll be more than $1000). Then, after you get home, cancel the return ticket. Since it's fully refundable, you should get your money back.

I wonder how that would work with skiplagging... in the case from the OP, book a fully refundable ticket from Gainesville to JFK. After you arrive in Charlotte, cancel the remaining ticket.

In the case of a refundable ticket with the outbound already flown, they would reprice the already flown leg to the highest walk up fare in that class of service and you would get a refund of anything left over, usually not much if anything. In the case of a one way fare, the same thing. The portion already flown would be repriced to a full fare and if anything was left you would get that refunded. Your account would be flagged and if you did it again you would lose your FF account and could be put on that airlines no fly list.
What @luvsvacation is talking about is something slightly but completely different, throwaway ticketing. Historically it has always been cheaper to book roundtrip than two separate one way flights. Usually the price difference aren't as drastic as what was posted but does happen. What I suspect happened with those specific flights is they were looked at very close to when they were made available for sale. And no discounted one way fares were loaded into the system yet. If you look again in a few months I would bet that the difference will not be nearly as much as what was seen. I highly doubt anyone on this board would pay full fare transatlantic Y unless they really had to get there right now.
An airline isn't going to sue anyone for skiplagging, the reason it's in the CoC is so that you can't sue the airline if they refuse to board you, refuse to let you book again or take away your FF points.

 

[bcla]

My issue is that I just don’t feel they should have the right to sue you or charge you criminally in court if you decide, for whatever reason, to not set foot on that flight. If the law changes and skiplagging becomes illegal, then the airline would have that right, not until then.

Certainly there's no crime, but the conditions of carriage are a contract and theoretically they could take a customer to court or perhaps arbitration. Might be tough to enforce though.

 

[sam_gordon]

My issue is that I just don’t feel they should have the right to sue you or charge you criminally in court if you decide, for whatever reason, to not set foot on that flight. If the law changes and skiplagging becomes illegal, then the airline would have that right, not until then.

Keep in mind, in the US, everyone has the right to sue anyone for anything. WINNING is a different matter. According to the article I posted earlier, some airlines HAVE tried to sue customers and lost. Don't know if that was in the US or not (Lufthansa and United are the airlines listed).

 

[GAN]

Like I mentioned, many of these situations involve the airline getting a subsidy from a city for each passenger they fly in. The airline offered a lower fare on the longer flight because if the passenger had continued on to the final booked destination, they would have gotten that subsidy from the final city. The passenger contracted for, and paid for a flight to the FINAL destination. The airline quoted a price based on the subsidy the airline was getting for delivering the passenger to the FINAL destination. The passenger breached the contract and the airline lost whatever subsidy they would have gotten. Basic contract law.

There is no “contract” that can force a person onto an airplane…. ZERO. The key word is “intentionally“ …beyond the passenger admitting(not sure if it happened in the referenced case) that they intentionally skipped a leg the airline has no recourse. The potential risk of losing frequent flyer points is something the passenger weighs for themselves. Whatever the “loss” in subsidy, the cost to have a team of attorneys file a lawsuit is sure to be hundreds of times greater than the return.

 

[NotUrsula]

I had never heard this term until recently when I was looking into I international travel for next year. DD and I are going on a trip to Europe for her college graduation. The first part of our trip will be a Mediterranean cruise and we are using the cruise lines airfare deal to get there. Then we will travel a few weeks around Europe eventually flying home from London.

One way flights from London to our Midwest airport are 2500 each!! Round trip tickets from London to our home (and back to London) are 1000! You can bet I’ll be booking round trip and not using the return ticket. That is an absolutely ridiculous price difference! 3,000 for 2 people!

A big part of your problem is flying into London, or anywhere in the UK, actually. The UK has insanely high arrival/departure taxes for international flights, in fact, there are situations where the taxes are higher than the fare itself. Price out flying your international leg out of another country and you may end up saving a LOT of money.

 

[tvguy]

OK. Still waiting for the quote from the article where it said the airline won. Remember, that's what you claimed...

Here you go
"Southwest won its case against Kiwi.com in fall 2021, when the court granted the airline an injunction to say Kiwi could no longer scrape its site for data. Kiwi settled the lawsuit - and in turn Skiplagged.com no longer offers Southwest tickets. "

 

[sam_gordon]

Here you go
"Southwest won its case against Kiwi.com in fall 2021, when the court granted the airline an injunction to say Kiwi could no longer scrape its site for data. Kiwi settled the lawsuit - and in turn Skiplagged.com no longer offers Southwest tickets. "

A) That sentence shows up nowhere in the article.
B) Assuming you found that quote in another article, it's not about skiplagging (AND a resulting court case).
C) That quote refers to a company (kiwi.com) losing to Southwest, not passengers, which is what you said.

If you read the article, some cases the passenger wins, some cases, the airline wins.

Now, before you go find a different case where the airline won some discrimination case or something against a passenger, see A & B above.

Now, care to try again?

ETA: Regarding B above, the case just says kiwi.com can't scrape SW's site for it's data, so skiplagged.com can't offer SW tickets. So marginally about skiplagging, but still not what @tvguy claimed.

 

[NotUrsula]

Here you go
"Southwest won its case against Kiwi.com in fall 2021, when the court granted the airline an injunction to say Kiwi could no longer scrape its site for data. Kiwi settled the lawsuit - and in turn Skiplagged.com no longer offers Southwest tickets. "

That's a completely different animal than an individual doing it on their own and getting sued for it. That case was a company making money off the practice.

 

[bcla]

There is no “contract” that can force a person onto an airplane…. ZERO. The key word is “intentionally“ …beyond the passenger admitting(not sure if it happened in the referenced case) that they intentionally skipped a leg the airline has no recourse. The potential risk of losing frequent flyer points is something the passenger weighs for themselves. Whatever the “loss” in subsidy, the cost to have a team of attorneys file a lawsuit is sure to be hundreds of times greater than the return.

They could theoretically attempt to collect monetary damages for breach of contract. And even large companies can use small claims court, and quite a few have mandatory arbitration terms in their terms of use.

 

[sk!mom]

Here you go
"Southwest won its case against Kiwi.com in fall 2021, when the court granted the airline an injunction to say Kiwi could no longer scrape its site for data. Kiwi settled the lawsuit - and in turn Skiplagged.com no longer offers Southwest tickets. "

They sued a company that was negatively impacting their business. That is much different than suing a passenger. It seems highly unlikely that they would go to the effort to file a petty lawsuit against a passenger.

 

[sam_gordon]

They could theoretically attempt to collect monetary damages for breach of contract. And even large companies can use small claims court, and quite a few have mandatory arbitration terms in their terms of use.

They'd have to prove damages wouldn't they? And at most the damages would probably be a couple hundred (let's even say a thousand) dollars. What company in their right mind would go after someone, where even if they win, they're probably out tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees?

 

[tvguy]

They'd have to prove damages wouldn't they? And at most the damages would probably be a couple hundred (let's even say a thousand) dollars. What company in their right mind would go after someone, where even if they win, they're probably out tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees?

Correct, not likely to end up in court, but the passenger would be clearly on the hook for breach of contract if they did.