It’s clear that after the pandemic and the many lockdowns, the world has returned to normality, and people are eager to explore the vast world outside their homes. Since traveling has become one of the people’s favorite activities, prices have risen in the past couple of years, and with it, people aim to find the best price; enter skiplagging.
What Is Skiplagging?
Also known as hidden-city ticketing or throwaway ticketing, skiplagging is the name of a ‘hack’ people think they’ve found to trick airlines and get cheap tickets. How? Skiplagging is basically booking a workaround flight that has the desired destination as the connecting airport. As we know, direct flights are way more expensive than connecting ones, and in many cases, the difference can be really high.
So, the loophole relies on staying at the connecting city, and losing the connection flight, and saving some money. There are many ways to skiplag, doing it by yourself looking for the best deal online or directly with the airlines, or checking out websites like skiplagged.com. This website promotes itself as “Our flights are so cheap, United sued us … but we won;” and has become a favorite for people looking for the best skiplagging options. But there’s a warning in this story.
Why Skiplagging Isn’t a Great Idea?
As wonderful as it sounds and as tempting as it is to travel for a small price, skiplagging isn’t as great as it sounds. To start with, there’s a grey area in terms of the legality of this practice, which means that, depending on the airline, you could be doing something illegal if you don’t take the time to read the small lines in the ticket contract.
Not only that, to do so, you must be planning on traveling only with a carry-on since documented luggage will be sent to the final destination. But that’s pretty much the least of your concerns. You should also consider that this is only a one-way ticket, because if you book a round trip planning on returning on the connecting flight, probably you won’t be able to do so. Once you miss the first connection flight, the airline will consider you a no-show.
Finally, as you can imagine, airlines aren’t happy about this ‘hack’ that is increasing in popularity. And it doesn’t only have to do with the fact that they’re losing money on ticket sales, but also because of the unnecessary stress this causes for the airport and airline staff whenever someone misses the other flight. You could be responsible for delays for other passengers.
So, what to do? The best advice we can give you is to look for actual deals that work for your itinerary. You can place alerts on several websites and airlines to know the lowest prices to travel and catch the best deal without infringing the law or messing up with other people’s travel plans.
