Why Airlines Hate "Hidden City" Ticketing

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Some airlines have gone as far as cancelling a passenger's loyalty program membership with a forfeiture of all points accrued.

However, Amtrak doesn't really have the kind of fare structure where hidden city ticketing would actually save money. I can't really save anything by booking EMY-DEN and then getting off at Reno. Airlines want to offer fares that passengers will accept even if they aren't traveling to a hub. Amtrak's reasons for cancelling an entire itinerary seem to be different than the airlines.
 
Many years ago I worked for a Travel Agency and the owner's husband always came in and "insisted" I do Hidden City Tickets for him. Back then we used a lot of Manual Ticket Stock making it easy to get away with this and he gradually began having his work colleagues come in for them. They knew once they boarded the First segement, for example OKC-MEM to tear out Coupons 2 and 3, in this case MEM-LTR-MEM and show back up at MEM with Coupon 4, MEM-OKC. And do not check any bags. It worked for a long while until one week when we were preparing the ARC Report and Northwest Orient dinged us for several THOUSANDS of Dollars. Did we ever have fun letting the owner know that so she could present that bill to her husband.

Needless to say he did no more Hidden Cities after that!
 
Split tickets were a common -- and totally legitimate, so long as you used two or more airlines -- way to book trips (in years no long past when I was working) for long-distance trips of short stay (not over a Saturday nite). One of my employer's frequently used airlines went so far as to offer special ticketing rates to us -- essentially providing us stay-over-Saturday-nite fares without requiring a stay over that Saturday nite, just to keep us on their airline. This allowed them to get ALL of the money and not necessarily give, effectively, half of the total fares to one of their competitors on these long-haul domestic routes, such as San Francisco - Washington, D.C.
 
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Hidden ticketing still works under the right conditions if you know what you're doing. That being said unless it's a last minute trip to a major hub it's probably not worth bothering with the effort and risk.
 
I take it back on not being able to save money. I can think of one possibility, which is getting off at EWR. However, I would think someone would look at a ticket before allowing one to enter the monorail section of the station.
 
BCL said:
Some airlines have gone as far as cancelling a passenger's loyalty program membership with a forfeiture of all points accrued.

However, Amtrak doesn't really have the kind of fare structure where hidden city ticketing would actually save money. I can't really save anything by booking EMY-DEN and then getting off at Reno. Airlines want to offer fares that passengers will accept even if they aren't traveling to a hub. Amtrak's reasons for cancelling an entire itinerary seem to be different than the airlines.
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There are a few such "hiccups" in the Amtrak system (Anniston, AL was probably the most [in]famous of these...the Crescent is basically surcharged through Atlanta, but booking to Anniston, AL gets a far lower fare). For the most part the antics go in the other direction (the Dyer trick on the Cardinal comes to mind...there's like a $300+ penalty if you book through to CHI in a sleeper, but if you book to Dyer and then book a separate reservation in coach from Dyer to Chicago you can save a small fortune).

There's also a wacky trick over on VIA which I won't elaborate on, but there's a known quirk of the system involving multi-city bookings that can save a lot of money.
 
BCL said:
I take it back on not being able to save money. I can think of one possibility, which is getting off at EWR. However, I would think someone would look at a ticket before allowing one to enter the monorail section of the station.
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No one looks at anything for getting on the monorail. And there are other ways to get out of EWR without using the monorail too. The only barrier in the Airtrain system is between the Airtrain and Amtrak/NJT at the EWR rail station and that just requires a properly coded NJT ticket or an Amtrak ticket. nothing to do with any airline.
 

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