--- source_url: "https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottlaird/2026/03/07/skiplagging-flights-is-not-a-travel-hackits-theft/" title: Skiplagging Flights Is Not A Travel Hack - It’s Theft mirrored_at: 2026-08-07T01:37:28.518Z host: www.forbes.com cited_in_42a: true mirror_canonical: "https://index.42a.ai/www.forbes.com/sites/scottlaird/2026/03/07/skiplagging-flights-is-not-a-travel-hackits-theft/index" --- > **Original source:** https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottlaird/2026/03/07/skiplagging-flights-is-not-a-travel-hackits-theft/ Skiplagging, or not using a whole ticket, can save money, but the practice is tantamount to theft. getty Airfares can be frustrating to purchase. They’re constantly changing from one moment to the next, there’s no readily apparent rationale for how airlines choose to price, and many times the price of an airfare defies logic. Some travelers have turned to a practice called “[skiplagging](https://www.forbes.com/sites/brittanyanas/2024/11/27/what-is-skiplagging/ "https://www.forbes.com/sites/brittanyanas/2024/11/27/what-is-skiplagging/")” in efforts to save money on airfares. Some call it a loophole or a travel hack, but airlines largely have a different word for it: theft. Airlines have spent years figuring out how to keep passengers from skiplagging, because the practice is costly for them, and can create confusion for both passengers and airport workers, but reports of passengers doing it persist. ## How Skiplagging works Skiplagging has been around for years. It was once more commonly called “hidden city ticketing”. Say you want to fly to Houston from Dallas, and the ticket is $200. While searching airfares, you happen to notice a cheaper itinerary, from Dallas to Orlando, involves a change of planes in Houston. So you buy the cheaper flight, and simply don’t take the connecting flight from Houston to Orlando. There are quite a few caveats around the practice, because it’s a circumvention of airline fare rules. First, you can’t check a bag, because airlines will only check bags to the final destination on your ticket. Second, you can’t buy a roundtrip ticket, because airlines will cancel the return flight if you don’t use the entirety of your outbound ticket. Third, if there’s any sort of irregularity, like a flight delay, cancellation, or schedule change, and your flight needs to be rebooked, airlines will only rebook you to the final destination on your ticket—they have no contractual obligation to transport you to to any intermediate point on the original itinerary you purchased. I used to run into this when I worked for an airline, in both reservations and customer relations. On occasion, we’d get complaints from travelers with long layovers in an intermediate city, and they’d planned to see a friend or leave the airport to do some sightseeing (not everybody with an interest in which city they change planes is breaking the rules). We’d either had a delay or had to reroute them and they wanted compensation, but airlines have no obligation at all to route you through a certain connecting city—it’s just not part of the equation. ### Is Skiplagging ethical? In a word—no. Some flyers justify it by saying that it’s simply a loophole they’re exploiting to get a lower fare. But a loophole is a gap in the rules, and airline ticketing contracts expressly forbid the practice. In their [contract of carriage](https://www.united.com/en/us/fly/contract-of-carriage.html "https://www.united.com/en/us/fly/contract-of-carriage.html"), United Airlines includes a clause addressing skiplagging: “Fares apply for travel only between the points for which they are published. Tickets may not be purchased and used at fare(s) from an initial departure point on the Ticket which is before the Passenger’s actual point of origin of travel, or to a more distant point(s) than the Passenger’s actual destination being traveled even when the purchase and use of such Tickets would produce a lower fare. This practice is known as ‘Hidden Cities Ticketing’ or ‘Point Beyond Ticketing’ and is prohibited by UA.” Skiplagging requires subterfuge on the part of the purchaser. The airline displays a fare based on the city pair the user has requested a fare for. If you request a ticket to a city you have no intention of traveling to in order to pay less money, it’s the airline equivalent of picking up a cluster of organic bananas at the grocery store and ringing them up at the self-checkout as conventional bananas at a lower per-pound price. Brett Snyder, founder of the travel assistance company Cranky Concierge and author of the airline industry blog [Cranky Flier](https://crankyflier.com/ "https://crankyflier.com/") says it’s all about the rules. “\[Airlines\] set the rules to use their transportation, and skiplagging is breaking those rules.” His team doesn’t often get client requests for skiplagging, but in the event they do, they won’t consider it. “We tell them we can’t help because we have no interest in breaking the rules of our partners. We can take great advantage of what the rules allow, but we don’t break them.” In short, dishonesty isn’t a good travel hack. ### Skiplagging Causes Problems For Airlines It might seem like a victimless crime. Travelers frustrated with high airfares or labyrinthine airline ticketing policies might use any number of justifications for skiplagging, thinking “what’s the harm?” Airlines price based on market forces, so buying a ticket you don’t intend to use scrambles their data. Not fully using a ticket also delays their ability to report the flight as revenue. If you buy a ticket that you only use half of, an airline’s bean counters continue to hold the money you paid for the ticket as a liability on their books. As far as they’re concerned, they still owe you transportation to the point stated on your ticket, and not using the entire ticket means they have to wait longer to count that money as legitimately theirs. It might sound like an abstract problem, but it does increase costs for the airline, and those increased costs impact both airline employees and consumers. ### Airlines Are Better At Catching Skiplagging Passengers In the old days, it was harder to catch travelers who weren’t continuing all the way to their destination. Once you jumped the connecting flight, you’d gotten away with it. In the internet era, airlines have gotten more aggressive. [American Airlines even sued a website](https://www.forbes.com/sites/suzannerowankelleher/2023/08/22/american-airlines-lawsuit-skiplagged/ "https://www.forbes.com/sites/suzannerowankelleher/2023/08/22/american-airlines-lawsuit-skiplagged/") that would help travelers look for opportunities to save money by skiplagging. Most airlines have also written clauses into the terms and conditions of their loyalty programs saying they can cancel frequent flier accounts with the forfeiture of all accrued miles or points if they catch a member skiplagging (or breaking any of the other mileage program rules or fare rules). Somewhat ironically, loyalty programs can actually help airlines data mine who their worst skiplagging offenders are, since they can see which members are consistently not using their entire tickets. ### The Takeaway On Skiplagging Skiplagging increases cost and complexity for airlines, which drains revenues and puts pressure on them to make up the difference somewhere else. The purchase of an airline ticket is the solemnization of a contract. In it, the airline agrees to provide transportation, and the passenger agrees to show up on time and meet other conditions such as being able to be transported safely and inoffensively to other passengers. Abiding by the airline’s fare rules is a portion of that contract, and violating it is bad faith on the part of the consumer. So when there’s an opportunity to engage in skiplagging on future flights—just skip it. It’s a favor to all parties.