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A friend asked me a question that I'm fairly certain I know the answer to, but I want to throw it out here to other travelers to see if there's anything I'm not considering.
She is flying from the east coast to the Long Beach area of California. She's presented with two options:
RDU direct to LAX ($$$)
RDU to LAX to SLC to LGB ($$)
Considering that LAX and LGB are about 22 miles apart, she's considering taking the cheaper option, and just skipping the last two legs.
Her return flight is not a factor (she'll be booking that as a separate one-way trip), and she's not checking any luggage.
Can anyone think of any problems with booking the second option and skipping the last two legs?
A friend asked me a question that I'm fairly certain I know the answer to, but I want to throw it out here to other travelers to see if there's anything I'm not considering.
She is flying from the east coast to the Long Beach area of California. She's presented with two options:
RDU direct to LAX ($$$)
RDU to LAX to SLC to LGB ($$)
Considering that LAX and LGB are about 22 miles apart, she's considering taking the cheaper option, and just skipping the last two legs.
Her return flight is not a factor (she'll be booking that as a separate one-way trip), and she's not checking any luggage.
Can anyone think of any problems with booking the second option and skipping the last two legs?
Nope, other than having the airline figuratively shaking its fist at her for knowing how to take advantage of the system.
There is currently a lawsuit against a website founder that pointed out flight routes like that for passengers, it seems like a dumb suit and they are probably going to spend more in legal fees than they are asking in damages and all they have done is made more people aware of the practice.
With no checked bags and no return flight to worry about she should be good. It might be wise to leave any frequent flyer accounts off the ticket. I've heard stories of people having the accounts revoked when they regularly abused hidden city fares. As long as she doesn't make a regular habit of it the airline likely won't care though.
Only other thing to note is the airline is only obligated to get her to LGB, so if something should go wrong with the flights she could still end up in LGB via some other routing. But given the proximity of LGB to LAX that shouldn't be a huge deal.
As someone else noted, skipping connections can result in your FF account being targeted by the airline for suspension, cancellation, fines, etc. This is so even if you don't have your FF number on the account (it's not that hard for an airline to figure out if you have a FF account through a name/DOB search from the information supplied on the ticket/reservation). I have no problem doing this, but would only do it on an airline that is not my FF airline.
That's a strange route to Long Beach: RDU to LAX to SLC to LGB ??
What's the date of her travel? Consider flying into John Wayne Airport too (SNA) ... it's also 22 miles from Long Beach.
That's a strange route to Long Beach: RDU to LAX to SLC to LGB ??
What's the date of her travel? Consider flying into John Wayne Airport too (SNA) ... it's also 22 miles from Long Beach.
She's not trying to get to Long Beach, she wants to go to Los Angeles but the RDU to LAX to SLC to LGB route is cheaper than the cost of the direct flight. The question is, what are the consequences of leaving the airport after the RDU-LAX leg
I think she's staying somewhere in the general area between LAX and LGB. So she was checking prices to both airports. I did suggest SNA, and she's going to look into it, and check with her hosts to see if it's inconvenient for them.
RDU to LGB with two stops doesn't surprise me. I just did a quick Expedia search with random dates a couple months out (I don't know her exact travel dates) and there are 2 results with one stop, and 45 results with two stops.
She doesn't have FF with any airline. She's only flown a small handful of times.
While there is nothing I know of that says the passenger must fly all the way to the booked destination, most likely it would not be a problem for the passenger. However, it could cause lots of headaches. If the passenger simply gets off the plane at LAX and head out the door without saying anything, it would quite likely be seen as a security concern. It might only take a few minutes to resolve. Then again it could take hours possible causing other passengers to miss down line connections. The airline could go after the passenger to recover costs it occurred because of this.
Many years ago I worked a charter flight with 492 passengers. The plane stopped in Anchorage for fuel and to change crews. When they got ready to depart only 491 passengers got back on. One passenger reported seeing the missing passenger getting into a taxi and leaving. The Capt. decided that all of the passenger bags would be offloaded and the passengers would have to claim them to ensure no unaccounted bags were still on the plane. While this was going on the unaccounted passenger showed up with a bag of fast food. He wanted one last fast food burger before being deployed overseas. By the time we got the bags back on the plane the crew had timed out. Thus we had to put 492 passengers in the hotel while the crew rested. Furthermore on the return trip the next day we again had to put 492 passengers in the hotel as the crew was now off schedule. That bag of fast food ended up causing the airline to have to pay for almost 1,000 hotel rooms.
That's why I indicated that she won't have any checked bags. If she doesn't show up at the connecting flight, it shouldn't take any time for them to see on the computer that she checked in with no checked baggage. Hence, no security concern.
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hope she is returning on a different airline, Otherwise her 'one-way' home might also be cancelled (even if a separate reservation).
BTW, my favorite airline has allowed me to do this (Exit on a connection leg, so I don't have to fly back to same destination!).
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