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United Airlines Sues 22 Year Old Over Skiplagged
#1

United Airlines Sues 22 Year Old Over Skiplagged

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/finding-chea...d-startup/

Skiplagged site helps navigate cheaper airfare

Airfares seem to keep climbing, but a 22-year-old computer whiz found a way to save hundreds of dollars on airline tickets. With a few clicks of the mouse, Skiplagged can help find what's called "hidden city" airfares, CBS News' Michelle Miller reports.

With little more than a mattress on the floor, Aktarer Zaman's tiny New York apartment serves as the hub of Skiplagged's operations.

The name, while unique, wasn't his own idea.

"It was my little sister. I came up with a real terrible name I am not going to say," he said. "I was baking cookies but like in cupcake cups, so just for a temporary name I called it Cup Cookies."

Fortunately for Zaman, the Skiplagged name stuck. Now up to 200,000 users visit his site each day, many of them looking for hidden city tickets.

It works like this: A traveler looking to fly from Newark to Miami might find it's actually cheaper to buy a ticket to Charleston with a stopover in Miami.

At the time, the direct flight was $541 while the Skiplagged route was $325.

Yahoo Travel Executive Editor Laura Begley Bloom said hidden-city ticketing has been around for years.

"This has been a dirty little secret of the travel industry for a really long time," Bloom said. "Then along came Skiplagged, and your average traveler suddenly knew about it."

It only works with one-way tickets and no checked bags. And while it's not illegal to fly this way, most airlines prohibit it.

"Think about it; they could have flown you at a higher rate into that middle city and then booked somebody for that next leg too, so it's a revenue loss for them. If they catch you on it, they say that they'll freeze your frequent flier miles," Bloom said. "They might not let you book tickets in the future; they might not let you take a return flight. It's really pretty threatening."

In a federal lawsuit filed last month, United Airlines, one of the world's largest carriers, and Orbitz, said, "Zaman has intentionally and maliciously used Skiplagged to damage [their] businesses."

Zaman insisted his site only provides information and does not actually book tickets.

Orbitz calls that "disingenuous." United told "CBS This Morning" it was trying to "protect the vast majority of customers who buy legitimate tickets."

"I haven't made any money from this," Zaman said. "This is privately funded through my own funds."

Those funds, Zaman said, are now running low, so he's asking for donations to help him get through the unfriendly skies ahead.
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#2

United Airlines Sues 22 Year Old Over Skiplagged

My brain hurts. If you're flying from Newark to Miami, how could you book a ticket to Charleston that has a stopover in Miami?

It's late, am I retarded or is that not possible?
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#3

United Airlines Sues 22 Year Old Over Skiplagged

You get off at Miami and then skip the next flight to Charleston.
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#4

United Airlines Sues 22 Year Old Over Skiplagged

Quote: (12-30-2014 01:28 PM)RioNomad Wrote:  

My brain hurts. If you're flying from Newark to Miami, how could you book a ticket to Charleston that has a stopover in Miami?

It's late, am I retarded or is that not possible?

Why wouldn't it be possible? When you load up a city pair on the United website, for instance, you see not just direct flights but all sorts of weird stopover combinations. In your example, the airline may not have a direct flight from Newark to Charleston that departs at 7PM or whatever, but they have a 7PM departure to Miami and a 10PM departure from Miami to Charleston, so that would be a route that would show up when you punch in Newark-Charleston. Now, writing up a program that is able to parse through all those airline websites and sort out the possibilities is pretty impressive.

Quote:Quote:

Zaman insisted his site only provides information and does not actually book tickets.

Orbitz calls that "disingenuous." United told "CBS This Morning" it was trying to "protect the vast majority of customers who buy legitimate tickets."

The fucking chutzpah of modern day corporations is simply astounding. Unless this kind of pronouncement was crafted by someone with asperger's syndrome, it must have been designed to smear contempt on the general public. What "threat" against customers buying "legitimate" tickets are they protecting us from by denying us what is pure and simple additional information?
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#5

United Airlines Sues 22 Year Old Over Skiplagged

Airlines of course are not losing any money... They are actually saving costs on fuel and food with people not taking the second leg of the trip.

This is just the market providing more information that lets customers make more efficient decisions. Why in the world are airlines charging less to go to Charleston via Miami than to go straight to Miami to begin with? This whole practice wouldn't exist if pricing were a bit more rational.
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#6

United Airlines Sues 22 Year Old Over Skiplagged

This is an old trick. When flying to Atlanta, I saved a couple of hundred bucks by flying Delta (whose hub is Atlanta) by instead buying a ticket to Birmingham Alabama and having only carry on luggage. The catch:
  • All luggage needs to be carry on unless traveling internationally in
  • If something goes wrong, the airline has an obligation to fly you to Birmingham (or wherever), and sometimes they have you fly through a different hub. I handled this by choosing a reasonably close city and letting my ride know "There's a small chance you might to pick me up in another city; I'll pay your gas should that happen". Never happened, thankfully.
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#7

United Airlines Sues 22 Year Old Over Skiplagged

Ironically more people will start to do this.

This is an old trick friends of mine used to do, some still do.

I need to look into this.
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#8

United Airlines Sues 22 Year Old Over Skiplagged

Quote: (12-30-2014 02:06 PM)Sonsowey Wrote:  

Airlines of course are not losing any money... They are actually saving costs on fuel and food with people not taking the second leg of the trip.

This is just the market providing more information that lets customers make more efficient decisions. Why in the world are airlines charging less to go to Charleston via Miami than to go straight to Miami to begin with? This whole practice wouldn't exist if pricing were a bit more rational.

No, they are losing money because the ticket price was higher. The fuel savings does not compensate for the loss revenue from the higher ticket price.
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#9

United Airlines Sues 22 Year Old Over Skiplagged

There is a danger sometimes of "think-fucking yourself right into the deck", as we used to say in the old days.

In other words, getting too cute for your own good. Sometimes this obsession with saving money can go over the top.

I think there are better ways to save money on travel than taking circuitous plane routes all over the place just to save $100.

You're not factoring into the equation other types of costs, such as burnout costs, hassle factor, flight rerouting, cancellations, etc.

Instead of running around like a maniac to save a few bucks, focus on making more money, so that you can have the ultimate measure of resources:

Being rich enough not to waste time.
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#10

United Airlines Sues 22 Year Old Over Skiplagged

During the Egyptian revolution I was in Cairo, trying to find a flight out of that shithole to Istanbul. The flights were canceled I guess because the tickets were very expensive. However tickets from Sharm el Sheikh to Istanbul connecting at Cairo were very cheap. I asked the airline company if I can buy that flight, skip the first connection and just catch the second connection at Cairo to Istanbul. They said no, if I skip the first, the second one gets canceled automatically.

How is it possible for a S.e.S.-Cairo-Istanbul flight to be cheaper than Cairo-Istanbul flight and why is it against the interest of the airline companies to forbid me from skipping the first one and taking the second one? If someone has more insight to this, can he explain to me? If not, fuck the airline companies. I say, trick them greedy moneygrabbing assholes as much as you can. It's their fault that non-stop flights are more expensive than connected flights. Actually it's a concrete proof that they are conning us.

There are certain industries that the government should intervene with and not let the free market decide what they charge. Airlines are one of them. Last year in Turkey the government set a 130 dollars limit for domestic flight tickets. Nothing bad happened. No airline bankrupted. No tickets on the black market. Turkish Airlines was still one of the fastest growing airlines in the world. It only did good for the customers. The regulation got canceled because some greedy airlines started violating it and when the others saw their competitors violating it they violated too. This would not work in international flights, but if a government passes such law for domestic flights and keeps it under strict supervision to prevent any airline from violating it, both customers and airlines will benefit from this. Only then people would not need to ''skiplag''. Until then, fuck'em.
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#11

United Airlines Sues 22 Year Old Over Skiplagged

Quote: (12-30-2014 01:28 PM)RioNomad Wrote:  

My brain hurts. If you're flying from Newark to Miami, how could you book a ticket to Charleston that has a stopover in Miami?

It's late, am I retarded or is that not possible?

I see what your getting at. It doesn't make sense for a plane to fly from New Jersey to the southern tip of Florida, then back up to South Carolina instead of going straight there. But the reason is because regional airports only fly into larger hubs and it's difficult to get a direct flight.

For example, I used to frequently fly between Oklahoma City and Madison. Since they are both regional airports, it was impossible to get a direct flight. I would have to layover somewhere different every time. I had layovers in Denver, Minneapolis, Chicago, Memphis, etc. which are sometimes way out of the way when you look at a map. It's only a twenty minute flight or two hour drive between Madison and Chicago, but Madison flies into an international hub to get onto a bigger plane such as a 737 or 747 instead of the puddle jumpers you get on at the regional airport to go to the hub.
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#12

United Airlines Sues 22 Year Old Over Skiplagged

Thanks wi30, that's what I was wondering. That makes sense.
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#13

United Airlines Sues 22 Year Old Over Skiplagged

I agree with Fast Eddie above that the lawsuit is bullshit. Whether booking this way is worth it, as QC asks, is a legit question and it is not my taste either, but this kid with the website is just putting information into the market for informed choices.

The lawsuit is just another way in which the market in the USA becomes more of a game of hide-the-ball by large corporations. I hope United's lawyers get Rule 11 sanctions.
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#14

United Airlines Sues 22 Year Old Over Skiplagged

On another subject, Turkishcandy's comment about the Cairo - Sharm el Sheikh route, that route and others on Egyptair to Hurghada, Luxor and Aswan have to be subsidized by the Egyptian government for tourism and domestic political reasons.

No way can you have $95 RT fares with 4 hours of flying without subsidy.
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#15

United Airlines Sues 22 Year Old Over Skiplagged

Quote: (12-30-2014 02:50 PM)Quintus Curtius Wrote:  

There is a danger sometimes of "think-fucking yourself right into the deck", as we used to say in the old days.

In other words, getting too cute for your own good. Sometimes this obsession with saving money can go over the top.

I think there are better ways to save money on travel than taking circuitous plane routes all over the place just to save $100.

You're not factoring into the equation other types of costs, such as burnout costs, hassle factor, flight rerouting, cancellations, etc.

Instead of running around like a maniac to save a few bucks, focus on making more money, so that you can have the ultimate measure of resources:

Being rich enough not to waste time.

[Image: huh.gif]

What you just said doesn't apply to hidden city ticketing. You're still going directly to your destination.

The only "hassle" is the airlines making a stink because they are "losing money" when you don't pay extra to go to the same place.
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#16

United Airlines Sues 22 Year Old Over Skiplagged

This isn't anything new, it used to be called phantom flying in the old days. Thought they had software to prevent this by now but apparently not.

Another thing I used to do was ticket splitting. If you knew you had to make two round trip flights to the same place within a month or two, it was cheaper to buy two tickets with overlapping return/departure dates then switch the halves of the tickets as you needed them. I'm not sure if this trick still works but it was fun while it lasted.
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#17

United Airlines Sues 22 Year Old Over Skiplagged

Quote: (12-31-2014 05:39 AM)SlickyBoy Wrote:  

This isn't anything new, it used to be called phantom flying in the old days. Thought they had software to prevent this by now but apparently not.

Another thing I used to do was ticket splitting. If you knew you had to make two round trip flights to the same place within a month or two, it was cheaper to buy two tickets with overlapping return/departure dates then switch the halves of the tickets as you needed them. I'm not sure if this trick still works but it was fun while it lasted.

It worked as of 2011 when I last used that trick. Attempts to use it in 2013 failed, but it could have just been the routes I was looking at.

This is all just arbitrage. No fucking way the government will side with the airlines on this. Air travel is already one of the most highly regulated industries in the US and it is generally not regulated in favor of the incumbent airlines.

I've got the dick so I make the rules.
-Project Pat
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#18

United Airlines Sues 22 Year Old Over Skiplagged

@Enigma:

What I was trying to say was that when you're trying to travel, there are limits as to how much bullshit you want to put up with.

Sometimes, it is worth it to pay and be done with it.

I remember, a long time ago in the military, everybody would talk about how great it was to take a "MAC" flight (military airlift command).

"They're only $20"!
"They're great!"
"Wow"!

But in reality, it was far more complicated than that. You had to wait for slots to open up. It was inconvenient. Departure and arrival times were sketchy, so you had to wait around all day. I did it a few times and decided it wasn't worth it.

I'll pay the bloody commercial airline ticket price, evaluate my options, and do it my way.

I'm not saying you shouldn't try to save money traveling. I love being a skinflint as much as anyone and am always looking for ways to save. I'm just saying that people can get deceived by things.

Matt Forney had a great article on how to save on air fares. I think it's worth reading closely. Here it is:

http://mattforney.com/2014/09/26/how-to-...n-airfare/
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#19

United Airlines Sues 22 Year Old Over Skiplagged

Quote: (12-30-2014 01:50 PM)Peregrine Wrote:  

You get off at Miami and then skip the next flight to Charleston.

That doesn't make any sense. Charleston is closer to Newark than Miami is. The article might have just used a dumb example though.
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#20

United Airlines Sues 22 Year Old Over Skiplagged

@Quintius:

I understand what you're saying 100%, and I agree for the most part.

My point is that the practice this article describes does not involve extra running around or waiting like the other methods you're referring to. You're still going directly to your destination, there's just another leg on the ticket that you're not taking.

From a time spent standpoint, there's nothing lost. If you get on a flight to Charleston via Miami, and get off in Miami, you still got there just as quickly as flying directly to Miami.
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#21

United Airlines Sues 22 Year Old Over Skiplagged

Quote: (12-31-2014 03:55 PM)JoyStick Wrote:  

Quote: (12-30-2014 01:50 PM)Peregrine Wrote:  

You get off at Miami and then skip the next flight to Charleston.

That doesn't make any sense. Charleston is closer to Newark than Miami is. The article might have just used a dumb example though.

Read my post above.
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#22

United Airlines Sues 22 Year Old Over Skiplagged

In the meantime, traffic for this guys site has exploded. I wonder how many people (like myself) had never even heard of his site and now he gets national press coverage for a way to screw over airlines...

Why do the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing? Psalm 2:1 KJV
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#23

United Airlines Sues 22 Year Old Over Skiplagged

Quote: (12-30-2014 03:29 PM)turkishcandy Wrote:  

During the Egyptian revolution I was in Cairo, trying to find a flight out of that shithole to Istanbul. The flights were canceled I guess because the tickets were very expensive. However tickets from Sharm el Sheikh to Istanbul connecting at Cairo were very cheap. I asked the airline company if I can buy that flight, skip the first connection and just catch the second connection at Cairo to Istanbul. They said no, if I skip the first, the second one gets canceled automatically.

How is it possible for a S.e.S.-Cairo-Istanbul flight to be cheaper than Cairo-Istanbul flight and why is it against the interest of the airline companies to forbid me from skipping the first one and taking the second one? If someone has more insight to this, can he explain to me? If not, fuck the airline companies. I say, trick them greedy moneygrabbing assholes as much as you can. It's their fault that non-stop flights are more expensive than connected flights. Actually it's a concrete proof that they are conning us.

There are certain industries that the government should intervene with and not let the free market decide what they charge. Airlines are one of them. Last year in Turkey the government set a 130 dollars limit for domestic flight tickets. Nothing bad happened. No airline bankrupted. No tickets on the black market. Turkish Airlines was still one of the fastest growing airlines in the world. It only did good for the customers. The regulation got canceled because some greedy airlines started violating it and when the others saw their competitors violating it they violated too. This would not work in international flights, but if a government passes such law for domestic flights and keeps it under strict supervision to prevent any airline from violating it, both customers and airlines will benefit from this. Only then people would not need to ''skiplag''. Until then, fuck'em.

You're hitting on something which affects every means of travel. Ships, trains and planes.

Just this holiday in the UK there were limited trains and buses running in major artery transport routes. I'm talking about London and other cities. Over the festive period they decided it would be a good idea to fuck people over and do engineering works.

Not only do they pay the engineers more over this period, not including over time but they screw the cash cow that is the paying public.

Season tickets run into the thousands here and they still need subsidising. Yet they report massive profits, just like the energy industries.

You're right when you say there should be limits but these companies have big lawyers and even bigger money backers. All they could do is say this; "what you gonna do about it?" This infrastructure isn't cheap and needs constant repairs and updates so if you were to go all communist on them the whole system would be left to rot to the bare minimum.
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