“Skiplagging” — or booking a flight with a layover to skip the last leg of travel — is a common hack for travelers who don’t want to pay for a direct flight or who to save money on airfare to a connecting destination. Airlines contend the practice results in lost revenue for seats on planes.
The airlines can end this practice pretty quick by charging less for a direct flight to the connecting city than they do for a two-legged flight though it. We prohibited the railroads from doing this sort of thing back in 1887 with the Interstate Commerce Act.
That’s back before we gave up any semblance of real democracy and legalized bribery though. Now you can do massive multi million dollar stock buybacks during good times and cry poor house and demand a bailout anytime you hit a bump in the road. They make the rules now.
This is the saddest attempt to thwart a practice you don’t like. None of it makes any sense. As far as I can tell, having used the service many times though never actually skiplagging, it doesn’t do anything different than any other travel site. Pretty often I’m just redirected to the airline website with the specific flight selected for me. Skiplagged ends up just being an aggregator at that point.
Their reasoning for disliking skiplagging is stupid too. If the person didn’t skip a leg of the flight the seat would be taken and it would cost them fuel. More expenses for them. If they are arguing that they could have gotten more money by having someone actually use the seat for that leg of the flight then perhaps they should change their pricing so skiplagging doesn’t make financial sense for the passenger.
I’ve heard reasons for why things are priced like that but that sounds like a them problem, not ours.
If they were that accurate in their seat management then why are airlines constantly overbooking their flights and asking for passengers to volunteer to take another flight?
Plus if a passenger is NOT taking a leg doesn’t that save them fuel? This is like suing a person for using a buy 2 get 1 free deal because they could have sold 3 for full price.
The amount of fuel saved is insignificant overall. The airplane still needs to fly and that is where most fuel goes ’
Which is irrelevant. I paid for the ticket. Whatever costs have been covered. If I choose not to use it, that’s my prerogative.
No, the fuel is paid for because the flight is paid for. The plane is still going to its final destination, it’s just going to use less fuel because there’s one fewer passenger. I’d argue as well that skiplaggers don’t check bags, so the fuel savings are even greater since that’s one less bag than planned on both flights.
Over time, those fuel savings do add up. Airlines do care about that, or checking bags wouldn’t be an optional extra charge with so many of them. It’s just not as optimal as having someone pay the full price for a ticket to destination 1, and full price for destination 2.
Frankly, I feel that airlines can shut up. Overbooking flights is the same practice in reverse - they deoptimise passenger travel plans by bumping people when everyone who booked a seat shows up.
“The amount of fuel saved is insignificant overall.”
We need to teach you about economies of scale…
Just to clarify, skiplagged does do things a little differently.
For example: they saved me $300 flying from Japan to SFO because they booked me an additional leg from SFO to SEA. If you searched for the first leg on any aggregator (or the airline’s site), it was available but cost $300 more than booking the 2-flight itinerary to SEA (which would never show up if you searched for flights to SFO).
For what it’s worth, I agree that this form of pricing is absurd and should be illegal. The fact that skiplagged even exists indicates something has gone wrong.
I only meant in terms of actually booking the flights, not finding them. That last part is what makes them special.
From their view you cost them an upcharge on the initial ticket and then they can boom the seat for ANOTHER up charged direct flight on the second leg. It’s complete bullshit that this has become their business model, but it is. Anticonsumer behavior is corporate 101 these days.
So, there is a practical reason why airlines dislike skiplagging. There’s a contract of carriage that goes along with every ticket, and it states that the airline has a responsibility to get a traveler from their origin to their destination. If flights get rescheduled and canceled, the airlines will reacommodate you on alternate flights from origin to destination, and are under no obligation to route you through that particular airport.
However, this is mainly a contracting provision and as long as airlines offer flights that get cheaper when you add a connection, they shouldn’t be surprised when people take advantage of it. They can ban a traveler when they do it too many times, I suppose, but Skiplagged is doing nothing wrong here.
Remember that airlines are not above gaming the rules for themselves, either. Qatar Airlines is running empty flights in Australia, on purpose, to get around restrictions on foreign airlines flying there. They have a flight to Melbourne, and also a flight to Adelaide with a “stop” in Melbourne – except they scheduled the Melbourne to Adelaide leg inconveniently, on purpose, to make sure no one would want to connect. The result is two flights to Melbourne, where normally they would only be entitled to one: https://onemileatatime.com/news/qatar-airways-australia-flights/
I don’t use skiplagged, but think that if the airlines want to stop people from using it, they should make their fare rules saner.
I like how their reasoning is that someone could’ve used that empty seat for an actual emergency, or losing a luggage. Lol
They already got their money. They want even more money.
Won’t someone think of the shareholders please?
If there were an emergency, and the seat was empty just before door seal… Why wouldn’t they put the emergency person in it? Having someone there who needed to travel would be a problem, having no one is not.
That’s basically standby travel. Which is a thing for irregular operations (storms and such for missed flights) and someone trying to get on a same-day earlier flight, but generally you can’t book yourself as a standby passenger on a full flight from the get-go. So the flight wouldn’t even show up as an option when you search for it.
I had thought that overbooking was standard practice in the industry these days?
It is, but it’s actually done pretty well that they usually don’t need to pull anyone off the plane. They also reduce how much they overbook by as departure time comes closer
Yeah pretending to care about the empty seat is totally ridiculous, they just know it sounds bad to say ‘we wanted more money from people for the first leg even though we can obviously still make enough profit to cover a whole extra flight and give a discount large enough to make all the extra hassel worthwhile for enough people that it’s worth addressing’
It’s always funny to me that businesses think we’re responsible for their success. Not my problem to keep your business alive, it’s yours, and ultimately, I’m trying to exploit & scam your business just as much as you’re trying to do the same to me.
Its just a new form of nobility. We are privlaeged and you owe us fidelity.
They’re going to lose this lawsuit and open the door to even more skiplagging.
They are definitely causing the Barbara Streisand effect with this. Before seeing this post, I had never heard of skiplagging…now there is a 100% chance I will check for skiplagging my next flight if it saves me money.
Same here, I only heard about this practice just a few days ago. Now it’s 100% going to be something I try next time I fly.
Fuck the airlines. Don’t like losing money for lost seats? That’s too bad, maybe try providing a better service. Skiplagging only became a thing because people caught on to your abusive pricing schemes. You made your bed, American Airlines, now lie in it.
This will like end up having a Streisand Effect for them.
It’s not even the first one lul. Skippedlag has been sued before for the same thing and they won.
American Airlines has no reason not to do this. Their public image is that of an unsecured burning trash pile beside a children’s hospital. What, are people going to hate them slightly more?
Didn’t Skiplagged survive previous lawsuits?
Yes because even though doing it can get you put on the no fly list because they can just put whoever they want on the no fly list, it still isn’t illegal and as other commentors have pointed out all airlines need do to end skiplagging is structure their pricing differently and they will not.
They’re charging you for convenience. A time honored end stage capitalist tradition. We are but filthy peasants for them to extract capital from.
Doesn’t more weight mean more fuel is required! If anything, the airline is saving some money by not having to pay for the fuel that would have been used. I mean if it was booked for the whole flight at the beginning of course.
While this is true, the airline could have sold the direct flight that you actually took for more money. You had to pay less because the flight was seemingly inconvenient for you. So in the end you didn’t pay for your illegally obtained convenience. You rascal!
Yes but that was their choice. They didn’t have to sell it that way. They don’t get to tell me how to use the ticket I bought. How about they stop inconvenienceing people in the first place. I believe our tax money has helped keep these jerks around whenever the price of fuel or the economy shake from a bad dream. And what do we get? Called out for just trying to get by while theyrape us with fees and stuff our legs into our chest so they can cram more bodies into these tin cans so we can sit on the tarmac for hours till finally they cancel the whole flight. Nah, they can suck this one up.
To be clear it’s not illegal for the passenger to do this. Airlines just hate it because it breaks their business model in a way that lets someone else make money.
I was hoping the silly “you rascal” made the sarcasm obvious.
For anyone who has skiplagged before, how do you deal with checked bags? Do you just not check any bags?
You simply cannot have checked bags. If you’re traveling for less than a week and don’t need large liquids, this is usually pretty easy to do. You can have a wheely carry-on and a backpack as your personal item, which gives you a ton of storage. I don’t need checked bags for the vast majority of travel I do and prefer to avoid it by all means possible, as it just slows me down and has the potential for the airline to lose my bag.
What about your return trip? How does that work
You need tickets orginating from the airport you want to leave from. You wouldnt buy a round trip to another location.
So you can’t do a round trip?
Two one-ways. Your origin would have to be the city you want to fly from, as missing an earlier flight generally means your ticket gets cancelled.
This can be a little difficult flying from, for example, Denver to Albuquerque. There probably won’t be many cheaper flights if you add Albuquerque to Los Angeles or Houston or something, but Albuquerque to Denver may be cheaper if you had a connection to Las Vegas or something.
Yep, I travel very light anyway and I don’t trust the baggage handlers and TSA not to lose or outright take my shit. I can fit toiletries, a few days’ clothes, my laptop, and any chargers in my backpack. If you treat air travel as a particularly inconvenient bus line, it goes a bit smoother in my experience.
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Yes, even if your aren’t skip lagging it’s really easy to travel without checking a bag. 40L backpacks fit five days of clothes and toiletries while still meeting most airline carry on requirements.
I just looked at various bookings on AA, and the price change for the same flights booked differently is wild, over 100% change.
Is skiplagging purely an American thing, or does it apply to flights on other continents as well?
