Hidden cities. What are they?
I'm not talking about Atlantis or Pompeii. Rather, "hidden cities" is a travel term that means buying a ticket to a point beyond your final destination. The difference in the price can amount to hundreds of dollars per person. This is not a new practice. In fact, it's a byproduct of the incredibly complex web of ever-changing airfares.
The hidden cities strategy is receiving more attention this week after United Airlines and Orbitz, the online travel agency, sued Aktarer Zaman, a 22-year-old entrepreneur who started the website Skiplagged.com.
Go ahead and take a look at the site. It's pretty slick, which is probably why United and Orbitz are suing Zaman. Be patient if you visit the site this week. Zaman and Skiplagged.com are getting quite a bit of publicity surrounding the suit.
Skiplagged.com is not the only place you can find the hidden cities or point-beyond ticketing information. You can find the information on almost any booking engine or the airlines' own websites, although they don't use that specific wording. And Skiplagged.com specifically incorporates the hidden city practice in many of the itineraries it displays.
Note: Airlines hate this practice. Alaska Airlines (and most other airlines) specifically prohibit this practice in their "contract of carriage" documents. Alaska Airlines states, "Tickets may not be purchased and used at fare(s) from an initial departure point on the ticket which is before the passenger's actual point of origin of travel or to a more distant point(s) than the passenger's actual destination being traveled, even when the purchase and use of such tickets would produce a lower fare. This practice is known as 'Hidden Cities Ticketing' or 'Beyond Point Ticketing" and is prohibited by Alaska Airlines.'"
American Airlines has a form letter on their site which details its stance on the practice, saying it's unethical: "Although the issuance and usage of hidden city tickets is not illegal in the sense that one could be fined or sent to jail by the government, it is unethical and a breach of a passengers contract with American Airlines."
In years past, the best-priced tickets were round-trip-only, with a mandated Saturday night stay. It was almost always cheaper to purchase a round-trip ticket even if you were just traveling one way. Or to get around the Saturday-night stay restrictions, travelers used to "nest" round-trip tickets in order to save a bundle. For example, if you were going Anchorage-Seattle on two separate trips but were not staying a Saturday night, travelers could buy the first and fourth segments of the trip at the bargain rate. Then, separately, they would purchase a Seattle-Anchorage round-trip ticket which spanned a weekend. These practices also specifically were prohibited in the airlines' contracts of carriage.
Here are some examples of hidden city itineraries:
Anchorage-Minneapolis. To fly on the Delta nonstop in mid-January, the cost is $392 one way. However, if you buy a ticket to Calgary through Minneapolis, the cost is $175 one way.
Anchorage-Detroit. To fly Delta to Detroit in late -January is $311 one way. To book an itinerary on the same flights and continue to Boston, the rate is $245 one way.
Anchorage-Salt Lake City. To fly Delta to Salt Lake City costs $297 in mid-January. To book an itinerary on the same flights and continue to Los Angeles, the cost is $198 one way.
Anchorage-Denver. To fly United's nonstop to Denver costs $367 one way. But to fly on the nonstop and continue to Phoenix on United, the rate is $229 one way.
On the Skiplagged.com site, you can see a disclaimer telling people not to check luggage on hidden city itineraries, as airlines will only accept checked bags to your final destination.
Also, if hidden city travelers need to return home, they would have to purchase a separate ticket. The Skiplagged.com site offers travelers options for the return flight.
The hidden city theory is just one in a long line of push-and-pull skirmishes between travelers who want to spend less on their tickets and airlines who want to charge more. Before airlines started checking ID at the counter, one-way travelers would purchase a round-trip ticket and sell the return portion, because the round-trip ticket cost less than a one-way! When airline frequent flyer plans first became popular, there was a robust market in buying and selling miles. Travelers still swap miles, but airlines have shut down most of the highly publicized brokers that used to put the deals together.
I also found some hidden city examples for travel to Atlanta, Phoenix and San Francisco. What do all of these cities have in common? They are "fortress hubs" where one airline controls the majority of the flights (or an outright monopoly) and uses that advantage to bump up prices. That, of course, is why the hidden city option looks more attractive, contracts of carriage notwithstanding.
But there could be problems for the casual traveler. First, it's a violation of the airline's contract of carriage. Then there's the issue of checked baggage. Then there's the unusual issue of a weather diversion or cancelation. So if you bought a ticket to LA thinking you were going to get off in Salt Lake but they rerouted you on the nonstop -- well, it would be a problem. And the problem would be yours and yours alone.
What happens when an airline finds out what you're doing? Well, they might try and collect the regular fare to your actual destination. They might freeze your frequent flyer account. They might ban you from flying on their airline, although that's unlikely.
Still, the hidden city controversy brings the super-high fortress hub pricing into focus. The easiest way to get rid of the problem is for airlines to erase the price differential between the point-beyond city and the fortress hub. That's unlikely, though.
Instead, you have travelers on one side, trying their best to get a good deal to fortress hubs like Denver and Minneapolis. On the other side, you have the airlines that want to maintain the high prices. And that battle is likely to continue, regardless of the outcome of United's lawsuit against Skiplagged.com.