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Skiplagged sued by United and Orbitz

skiplagged.com

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Re: Skiplagged sued by United and Orbitz

#111

Post by saryant »

jamesaguilar wrote: post #17
Dylan16807 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh it's certainly their right to set the prices, but I wouldn't automatically say it's their right to dictate which tickets you use post-purchase.

I wonder. Do you sign any agreement that prohibits hidden city routing when you buy the ticket? If so, on an ethical level, it's not the same as the sandwich buying scenario, where you are not signing any additional agreement. I wonder what I would do if I were the airline. Obviously the simplest thing would be to suspend the return ticket, but I suppose that the return ticket would typically be booked on a different…

Yes, you agree for both the fare rules of the specific ticket you bought and the airline's contract of carriage, both of which are approved by the Department of Transportation. And (at least) the CoC prohibits hidden-city ticketing.

Re: Skiplagged sued by United and Orbitz

#112

Post by saryant »

canjobear wrote: post #81
sgdesign wrote: post #25

You can't wish for better advertising that this… "our deals are so great that airlines are trying to sue us out of existence!".

Indeed. I had never heard of this site but now, thanks to the lawsuit, I will definitely check it out when I am booking my next flight.

Our deals are so great the airlines will ban you as a customer if you use them? Sounds wonderful.

Re: Skiplagged sued by United and Orbitz

#113

Post by jowiar »

pas wrote: post #109
jowiar wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you have a near-full plane of passengers perfectly willing to pay $200 to fly from LAX to SFO - you're throwing away profit from all of them if you cut their fare because I'm competing for a different set of customers.

But, obviously, you have some customers who are not that willing, because they use these little hidden-city hacks. So what's the problem? You try to maintain your profits as everyone else, but before customers/passengers/clients smartened up it was easy, now you have to sue and lobby but eventually you have to directly fight against the rights of your passengers (the FAA exit fee someone proposed). Since airlines are…

Airline economics are a bit complicated. What exactly constitutes "below costs"? Let's say I have a plane flying from A->B that is typically 90% full, and a plane flying from B->C that is typically 90% full. You want to get from A to C. The cost on my end for doing this is already a sunk cost - I can carry you for a very small marginal cost. If someone else is willing to do it for $200, I'll do it for $190 (Hell - I'm willing to go very cheap - maybe even $50), because getting something for those seats is better than getting nothing.

What I don't want to do is to let someone else's fare on route A->C cause me to lower the price for people who want to fly from A->B (whose alternative is to pay $250).

Re: Skiplagged sued by United and Orbitz

#114

Post by xtrumanx »

sjwright wrote: post #108
chrismcb wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I've read your better analogy three times and still don't understand it. Is the crust the extraneous leg of the flight?

Off-topic:

I feel like these analogy threads are HN users way of getting around the no-fun policy of commenting on HN.

Someone writes a comment using an analogy and almost always there are people de-constructing the analogy and then creating their own "improved" version that take more facts into account making it harder to understand the situation which is the exact opposite effect an analogy should have.

Re: Skiplagged sued by United and Orbitz

#115

Post by balls187 »

chrismcb wrote: post #100
balls187 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Uh, how about charge the credit card you purchased the ticket with?

Re: Skiplagged sued by United and Orbitz

#117

Post by justinsb »

colordrops wrote: post #96
jowiar wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My concern is that a passenger might buy a ticket through skiplagged, and not understand that they risk getting banned from the airline. If you live near a one-airline airport, that's a pretty serious risk.

Re: Skiplagged sued by United and Orbitz

#118

Post by andrewrice »

brianbreslin wrote: post #116

Can someone give me some examples where this tool works out well? I live in a hub city (MIA) so I can't seem to find any results in their search (or is their site overloaded?)

Not sure about the tool specifically, but I know that tickets to Charlotte/Atlanta from MIA/FLL are often more expensive than tickets to New York from MIA/FLL, routes which almost always have a layover in Atlanta or Charlotte.

(I'm also from Miami)

Re: Skiplagged sued by United and Orbitz

#119

Post by Zikes »

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?

Another improvement: you purchase the footlong and discard half. Subway sues your doctor for telling you not to eat as much.

Re: Skiplagged sued by United and Orbitz

#120

Post by xasos »

brianbreslin wrote: post #116

Can someone give me some examples where this tool works out well? I live in a hub city (MIA) so I can't seem to find any results in their search (or is their site overloaded?)

Same. Can't seem to find many flights from a major hub city (ORD). I've just been flipping in new airport codes into the custom URL[1], but haven't gotten anything yet.

[1] https://skiplagged.com/?src=ORD&dst=JFK&when=2015-01-31&when...

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