United employees are told to report customers who they think are taking advantage of hidden city ticketing.
United Airlines has reportedly sent an internal memo to airport staff to watch out for flyers using the hidden-city ticketing trick.
According to reports, the memo reminds employees they should be “properly enforcing the contract of carriage rules and United policies.”
It goes on to state that airport staff should “avoid confrontation when handling hidden city ticketing instances.”
“Corporate security is better positioned to follow up on the situation and taking appropriate action to ensure customers are following contract of carriage rules and United policies.”
Hidden city ticketing is a practice which involves a passenger booking a one-way flight with a layover, but they exit the airport in the layover city and don’t continue with their trip.
Huge savings can be made by the trick in comparison to booking a simple flight to your target city.
In our example, you can see in the image below that a one-way non-stop flight with United Airlines from Great Falls, Montana to Denver, Colorado costs $255 on 13 November.
On that same day, it is possible to book a one-way from Great Falls, Montana to Albuquerque, New Mexico for $139, however, this itinerary has a layover in Denver – using the exact same plane as the $255 flight.
So if a passenger does not check-in any baggage and decides to exit the airport during the Denver layover, they have saved themselves $116.
In February, Lufthansa sued a passenger who took advantage of the hidden city ticketing trick.
A few months prior, a Spanish court ruled that Iberia passengers could not be punished for the practice.
Do you support or oppose hidden-city ticketing? Let us know in the comments below.
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