Hidden City Ticketing: Pay Attention While Booking Cheap Flight Ticket

The Hidden City Ticketing dropped over me like a bomb. I was shocked, desperate and panic when I first encountered this concept. It occurred few years ago during a trip to Russia. Getting a great deal on the air ticket is always a pleasure. I was sitting in the office, when I first saw a Trans Aero flight in Delhi. The arrival of that flight was quite a surprise, because I never noticed a scheduled movement of Trans Aero at Delhi Airport. I leaned on the system and learnt that it was an inaugural flight between Delhi and Moscow. I checked the return airfare and found that very reasonable. I immediately booked the ticket.

The flight itinerary was Delhi-Moscow-St Petersburg for the onward journey and St Petersburg-Moscow-Delhi for the return journey. During both journeys, I was supposed to travel from one airport in Moscow to the another airport in Moscow (Moscow has three airports) to board the onwards flights. It was still good upto that point. There were no problems, no complications in my journey until I came to know that 9th May is celebrated as the Victory Day in Russia. To mark the 70th anniversary of the Victory Day Celebration, Moscow was gearing up for even a bigger celebration.

I made up my mind to enjoy the Victory Day Celebration in Moscow. But, my flight from Delhi was landing at St Petersburg in the evening of 8th May. But since it was landing in Moscow and involved a change in the plane (even change in the airport) with 7 hour connection time, I thought to left the plane in Moscow only without hopping on the Moscow-St Petersburg flight. I booked a hostel in Moscow and stayed relaxed. But, just one day prior to departure, when I was discussing this arrangement in my office,someone pointed to this term ‘The Hidden City Ticketing’ of airlines industry.

Suddenly, my all plans started crumbling and I became speechless for few minutes. In a desperate state, I searched a lot on the Internet for any way out form this situation, but there was none. The only available option was to reach St Petersburg as per the original ticket and again return to Moscow on the same day with another ticket. In the worst case, I was supposed to skip the Victory Day Parade in Moscow. It also involved two nights cancellation of hostel in Moscow and re-book another one in St Petersburg to watch the parade in St Petersburg. The good thing is that The Victory Day Parade celebration takes place all around in The Russia, at each and every city. Of course, the best and the most spectacular is in Moscow only.

After searching a lot on the internet without any fruitful result, I decided to book a flight from St Petersburg to Moscow. Fortunately, due to the high competition between the airlines on that route, fare was relatively cheaper, even only one day prior to departure. Train was another option, but normally on the route between St Petersburg and Moscow, the train and flight fares compete close to each other. If I would have got a high price on that sector, I might had left the Victory Day Parade in Moscow. All that efforts and calculations were attributed to the Hidden City Ticketing.

What is The Hidden City Ticketing? The Hidden City Ticketing normally works on Hub and Spoke models of the airlines networks. Suppose, You want to fly from New Delhi to Moscow, but fare is very steep. Few minutes later, you search again and notice a cheaper deal from New Delhi to Saint Petersburg with a stopover at Moscow. Instead of buying the first ticket, you buy the second ticket and think that once the plane would land in Moscow, you would just walk out and abandon the next leg of flight from Moscow to Saint Petersburg. It sounds a good plan, but actually abandoning a flight at an intermediate stop is big hurdle in many cases.

If you have only one way ticket, then there is a slight chance to abandon that the next leg. But, if you have a return ticket, then not turning up for any leg of your journey actually leads to the cancellation of all subsequent legs of your flight. It means that if you leave your flight in Moscow and don’t board on the next leg from Moscow to St. Petersburg; it would lead to the cancellations of other legs of your return journey for a single PNR ticket.

If airlines observes such types of pattern in a passenger’s record, then there are other Implications too:
1. Airlines may block your frequent flyer account or deduct many miles from your account.
2. They may charge the penalty from your travel agent.
3. Passengers may also find their reservation canceled, or be denied access to their luggage if they checked it.
4. As abuses are detected, the passengers may be told they cannot use their tickets and will have to buy new ones at the higher fare.

Is there any way out? Unless you are in the return journey and taking the second last flight of your itinerary, there is no way out. If you skip any leg of your itinerary, your contract with the airlines stands cancelled and all the subsequent legs get cancelled also. While on the return journey, if you want to skip your last leg, you can do that without any problem. But in that case, you shouldn’t have any check-in baggage to your final destination. Normally, when you check-in for two sectors on the same PNR with the connecting flights, the check-in luggage gets checked in to the final destination, unless there is an airport change during the connection. Therefore, you should not have any check-in baggage for the final destination, if you want to skip the last leg.

Why is it harmful for airlines business? Suppose there are 20 such passengers on a flight from Delhi to Saint Petersburg who secretly plan to abandon their journey in Moscow, an intermediate stop. The airlines reservation system does not have any idea of this plan. The flight from Moscow to Saint Petersburg is showing full in the reservation system, but, in reality, there are still 20 vacant seats on that sector. In this case, some last minute passengers may force to buy the available seats at very high price. However seat availability is still there at a comfortable level. Such type of behaviour also leads to the delay and fuel wastage at the gate, since the airlines staff keep waiting for such passengers upto the last minute, unaware of their exact intention. From the airlines point of view, such practice is considered as unethical and they take it very seriously.

That is why the United Airlines and Orbitz sued Mr. Zaman owner of Skiplagged, which listed hidden-city options alongside conventional fares (with a “NO CHECKED BAGS” disclaimer), and linked to Orbitz to reserve them. Its an interesting legal battle with lot of mention on the internet.