American has long been the land of skim, scam and fraud.
The WaPo reports that an airline travel blog found that airlines are now charging people who search for a single airline seat on a flight a higher per person rate than a traveler booking 2 or more seats on the same flight.
{{ This week, Thrifty Traveler executive editor Kyle Potter was searching for airfare for a trip with his wife when he noticed something unusual. His Delta Air Lines airfare for one person was $206, but the price for two was $154 each. He assumed it was a glitch, or a mistake on his part. He checked his dates and the fare type. The same results appeared.
{{ snip }}
Potter disagrees. With bulk pricing, customers are often aware of discounts, Potter said, whereas airlines appear to be hiding the price disparity.
“I just need to stress that this is not a discount for group travel; it is a price increase for solo travel,” he said.
Since his discovery, Potter said he’s changing the way he searches for flights. He booked a work trip on Thursday, and even though he’s traveling solo, he compared the fares for multiple passengers “to check if I was getting hosed,” he said. “I wasn’t in that particular case, but it’s on my mind now, that’s for sure.” }}
In my case, a decline in service quality and a crapified airline travel experience has had me avoiding commercial airline travel for the past five years, and thus kept me safe from getting hosed.
Airline pricing has been loony for a long time. I have told the story before, about my aunt looking into flights from Kalamazoo to Cincinnati. The Cincinnati flight was much more expensive than a flight to St Louis, but the St Louis flight included a stop and plane change in Cincinnati. How could a single flight to Cincinnati cost more than two flights, first to Cincinnati and then, from Cincinnati to St Louis?
Skiplagging.
A person that buys the St Louis ticket but gets off at Cincinnati.
American states that “if we find evidence that you or your agent are using a prohibited practice,” the airline reserves the right to cancel any unused part of the ticket; refuse to let the passenger fly; not refund an otherwise refundable ticket; or charge what the ticket would have cost. American Airlines does not say anything about banning passengers for the practice, but United Airlines does. Delta Air Lines, too, prohibits hidden city ticketing but doesn’t get into the long list of possible repercussions that American and United provide. Southwest also has a clearly defined policy against hidden city bookings, and JetBlue remarks in its contract of carriage that “fares apply only between the points named and via the routing as shown in carrier’s current schedule and are not applicable to or from intermediate points.” It doesn’t say anything more on the topic.
In the computerized world you likely could only get away with this once. And you wouldn’t be able to check your bags. They going to St Louis.
With tongue firmly in cheek, I suggested my aunt only have a carry on bag, and not get on the connecting flight to St Louis. But, I figured that would open the possibility of her return flight ticket being cancelled. I have several little songs that express different observations. I have a “crazy song”.
“Somebody’s crazy, and it isn’t me”
“Somebody’s nuts”
“Sombody’s whacked”
“Somebody’s crazy, and it isn’t me”
When my aunt learned of the airline pricing, she said “somebody’s nuts, and it isn’t me”, in spite of her probably never having heard my “crazy song”.
Southwest was the last airline that didn’t actively try to screw over their customers. They were priced like a budget carrier but gave full fare service, with bennies like free checked bags and no change fees. This policy worked great. Southwest was the only US carrier to consistently make money in an industry where serial bankruptcy is the norm, although Southwest struggled after COVID.
Welp, a hostile activist hedge fund took over the board and fired the old management. Southwest had proudly never laid off employees. That changed immediately, starting with customer service workers. And no free checked bags for you.