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Skiplagged sued by United and Orbitz

skiplagged.com

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Re: Skiplagged sued by United and Orbitz

#91

Post by MichaelGG »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #49
hayksaakian wrote: post #5

This sounds absurd. This is the best analogy i've come up with: A Sandwich shop sells half sandwiches at 5$ and full sandwiches at 6$ You, and a friend would both like half a sandwich. Instead of ordering two separate halves. You order only 1 full sandwich and cut it in half yourself. Now the sandwich shop is suing you because you paid $6 for one sandwich, and only ate half of it. That's instead of paying 10$ for two…

In case you missed it, restaurants already do this (well not the suing part) but many will charge extra if you order an entree (main dish) and ask for an extra plate to share it.

Only as a condition of eating in restaurant. If you get the food to go, then you're all set.

Re: Skiplagged sued by United and Orbitz

#92

Post by Hilton1 »

hayksaakian wrote: post #5

This sounds absurd. This is the best analogy i've come up with: A Sandwich shop sells half sandwiches at 5$ and full sandwiches at 6$ You, and a friend would both like half a sandwich. Instead of ordering two separate halves. You order only 1 full sandwich and cut it in half yourself. Now the sandwich shop is suing you because you paid $6 for one sandwich, and only ate half of it. That's instead of paying 10$ for two…

Brilliant analogy! You right it is absurd and the problem solely lies on the airlines behalf.

Re: Skiplagged sued by United and Orbitz

#93

Post by kartikkumar »

What I don't understand is this statement:

> "Airlines have told Orbitz that a traveler caught on a hidden-city routing is subject to having his ticket voided without refund, the Internet travel company said today in a statement."

How in the world can they ever prove this unless I as the passenger explicitly tell them that I'm on a hidden-city route? Surely, a simple "I was feeling too ill to catch the second flight, so stepped out" would be something they can't contest.

I understand that as the seller they have the right to refusal passengers but it seems like their combative stance is akin to the music/movie industries attitude towards torrents. I would think that both Orbitz and United would be better off on-boarding an "if you can't beat them, join them" mantra. This whole episode could have been flipped on it's head if the headline read "Skiplagged officially endoresed by United and Orbitz". Imagine the number of passengers they'd attract! I'm assuming that the market for flights is demand elastic to some extent. This is anecdotal based on my own buying pattern though.

Re: Skiplagged sued by United and Orbitz

#94

Post by jamesaguilar »

sjwright wrote: post #57
jamesaguilar wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reasonable . . . hrm. Hard to say. The surface area of duties and rights associated with an airline ticket in particular and airline travel in general are so vast that some level of clickwrap is unavoidable, not to mention the various laws that cover the industry. Comparatively, the duties and rights regarding a physical good like a sandwich are fairly simple -- it behaves like most simple physical goods. You buy it,…

I buy a sandwich; I can eat all of it or some of it. I buy airplane seats; I can sit in both seats or just one. If they don't like which seats I chose to sit in or not, they shouldn't have sold the ticket to me in the first place.

The problem with analogies is that just because you can make two things sound similar does not mean they are.

The statement you made about airline tickets is normative, not descriptive. I'm curious about how things actually are, not how people on HN want them to be.

Re: Skiplagged sued by United and Orbitz

#95

Post by micampe »

dchest wrote: post #90
micampe wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please re-read my last sentence.

My question is about your last sentence. Why is it "not very respectful to other people"?

Re-read the previous sentences then?

Because you may prevent me from taking that seat without actually needing it. Sure you can but it's not nice to me.

Re: Skiplagged sued by United and Orbitz

#96

Post by colordrops »

jowiar wrote: post #32
colordrops wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are right that air travel is more complicated than sandwiches, but does it matter? What law or contract has skiplagged broken? Bad business models are not fundamental rights.

When you buy a ticket, you're entering into a contract with the airline. See pg. 11 here for the relevant bits: http://www.united.com/web/format/pdf/Contract_of_Carriage.pd...

Once again, what law or contract has skiplagged broken? They do not purchase tickets, and they do not enter contracts with airlines.

Re: Skiplagged sued by United and Orbitz

#97

Post by Dylan16807 »

micampe wrote: post #95
dchest wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My question is about your last sentence. Why is it "not very respectful to other people"?

Re-read the previous sentences then? Because you may prevent me from taking that seat without actually needing it. Sure you can but it's not nice to me.

They paid for the seat. It's not disrespectful to buy something you don't need when the supply isn't limited. And the supply of plane seats isn't limited; the more people buying seats, the more seats there are for you to purchase, on average.

Looking at a single possible outcome and using it to complain about the entire practice is foolish.

Re: Skiplagged sued by United and Orbitz

#98

Post by micampe »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #97
micampe wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re-read the previous sentences then? Because you may prevent me from taking that seat without actually needing it. Sure you can but it's not nice to me.

They paid for the seat. It's not disrespectful to buy something you don't need when the supply isn't limited. And the supply of plane seats isn't limited; the more people buying seats, the more seats there are for you to purchase, on average. Looking at a single possible outcome and using it to complain about the entire practice is foolish.

On average, you and I eat half a chicken.

I'm not the one considering one single outcome, if anything I feel like I'm the only one in these comments considering a different possible side effect of the trick.

Re: Skiplagged sued by United and Orbitz

#99

Post by chrismcb »

sjwright wrote: post #61
hayksaakian wrote: post #5

This sounds absurd. This is the best analogy i've come up with: A Sandwich shop sells half sandwiches at 5$ and full sandwiches at 6$ You, and a friend would both like half a sandwich. Instead of ordering two separate halves. You order only 1 full sandwich and cut it in half yourself. Now the sandwich shop is suing you because you paid $6 for one sandwich, and only ate half of it. That's instead of paying 10$ for two…

Let me improve that analogy. Subway update their pricing such that a footlong sells for $5 and a six inch sub costs $7. Looking at those prices, you purchase a footlong sandwich. Should Subway be allowed to demand $2 from you if they see you discarding half of the sandwich?

It is even worse, a better sandwich analogy is you buy a huge sandwich. You will eat half now and half later (you return flight) but you don't like the crust. The shop sells a crust free sandwich, but they charge more. So you buy the crust one, remove the crust and eat half. The shop owner sees you throw the crust away, he charges you with fraud AND takes the other uneaten half back.

Re: Skiplagged sued by United and Orbitz

#100

Post by chrismcb »

balls187 wrote: post #77
hayksaakian wrote: post #39

to put this in laymans terms: imagine you want to go from city A to city B normally you would search for tickets from A-B however, during your search, you would NOT see tickets that go from A-B-C. why is that relevant? sometimes tickets from A-B-C are cheaper than A-B. so you would buy a ticket (A-B-C) and simply leave the airport of city B (not boarding the B-C flight). the website in question made it easier to find…

Interesting. I was under (perhaps mistakenly) the impression that buying a ticket to A-B-C and stopping at B, would result in being charged for the A-B route instead. Regardless, I always check my baggage so A-B-C type tickets would not work for me.

What are they going to do? Ask you for money as you exit the plane in B?
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