Why You Should Never Skip an Onward Flight

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Imagine this scenario: You’re searching for a flight from Los Angeles to New York City, and you find a flight from Los Angeles to Boston with a connection in New York City that’s hundreds of dollars cheaper. You might think you could simply skip the last leg of your flight and still use the return portion of your ticket to get back home. However, the reality of air travel is more complex than that. Skipping a flight, whether it’s the first leg or a connecting flight, can have significant implications for your entire itinerary.

Purposely missing a flight is more complicated than it may seem at first glance—here’s what happens if you don’t get on your connecting flight. 

Why Would You Skip a Connecting Flight?

Skiplagging, also known as “hidden city ticketing,” is a travel strategy where:

• You book a flight with a layover in your actual destination.
• The ticket includes a connection to a further city, but you don’t intend to take that last leg.
• When you reach your desired city during the layover, you exit the airport instead of continuing to the final destination on your ticket.

Popularized by the airfare site Skiplagged, this hack can save you a lot of money compared to booking a ticket directly to your destination. But is it legal to do?

What Happens if You Don’t Get on Your Connecting Flight?

Hidden city ticketing isn’t illegal, but most major U.S. airlines explicitly prohibit it in their contract of carriage statements. 

If the airline realizes that you are not planning on completing your entire itinerary, it can prevent you from boarding or even ban you from the airline for future flights. For example, a teenage passenger tried this trick using a ticket he bought on Skiplagged, was detained by American Airlines, and was denied boarding.

In general, if you miss or cancel any portion of a plane ticket, the airline can cancel all flights remaining on that ticket’s itinerary. When you miss that first flight, whether or not you cancel or no-show, the entire ticket becomes void.

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This rule also applies to connecting flights. If you’re ticketed from City A to City C through a connection in City B, but skip the connecting flight from City B to City C, you can’t use your connecting flight ticket later, even with a change fee. And if it’s a round-trip ticket, the return trips are also toast.

This is why it’s essential to notify the airline if you accidentally miss any portion of your flight—as long as you let the airline know (and rebook the missed leg), you should still be able to fly the rest of your planned itinerary. 

Why is Skipping a Flight Cheaper?

Why would a longer flight be cheaper than a shorter, direct one? For some destinations, there is not a lot of competition for a direct flight between two cities, making tickets expensive. However, there might be more competition on a different route with a layover in the city you want to fly to—so a longer flight going somewhere else (but connecting through your destination) could be cheaper.

Why You Shouldn’t Skip Your Connecting Flight

There are a lot of risks associated with buying a hidden city ticket. 

1. You can’t check a bag, as your bag will be tagged to the final destination on your itinerary.
2. Even if you fly carry-on only, there is the risk that there won’t be space on the plane for your bag, and it will get checked through to the destination you’re not planning on flying to.
3. You can’t buy a round-trip ticket, as the return fare will automatically be canceled as soon as you don’t make your connecting flight.
4. The airline can deny you boarding and refuse to refund you if they figure out what you’re doing.
5. There could be a schedule change that reroutes your flight through a different connecting airport. 
6. The airline could ban you from flying with it in the future.

When Is It Okay to Skip a Flight?

There are only two cases where you could potentially get away with skipping an onward flight. However, keep in mind that you could still get in trouble with the airline, and the airline could pursue legal action against you or ban you from future flights. 

1. If you skip a flight that’s the final leg on a multi-flight ticket, there’s no other ticket left for the airline to cancel.
2. If your round-trip itinerary is on two separately booked, one-way tickets, the return trip should still be valid if you skip the first trip.

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