Budget travellers are all about saving wherever possible including airfare. Most savvy travellers know about apex lagging and last-minute discounts. But there is a new trend that is doing the rounds called, 'Skiplagging'. According to Business Insider, this travel hack is technically being popularised as the "hidden city" of ticketing, which 'guarantees' that the passenger will save money. This travel hack involves the travellers booking flights with a layover in a city they want to visit and then skipping the second leg of the journey altogether to get cheaper tickets. But fair warning, there are many consequences.
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Skiplagging
How Does Skiplagging Work?
Essentially, to skiplag, a passenger buys a ticket that has a final destination, C, with a stopover at point B, but the passenger's actual destination is point B. The passenger leaves the airport at this layover point B and their seat remains empty from the layover point to the destination C. Understandably, Airline companies do not take kindly to this practice. On many airlines, it is cheaper to travel this way.
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Why Is Skiplagging Controversial?
Insider reported recently that Gilbert Ott, the founder of the travel site God Save The Points, warned that skiplagging can save money, but that depends on your departure point and final destination. "There's no guarantee that adding complexity or stops to your journey starting in another city will be cheaper," he says. He added that the only way to know if you are booking cheaper flights was by carrying out a comparison search on sites like Google Flights, which allows you to search five different cities at once to find the cheapest routes. He also cautioned that skiplagging comes with risks such as when an airline has irregular operations. One of the risks includes if the first leg of a flight was cancelled. Also, the passenger would be not able to check in any luggage as the luggage would be on track to directly reach the final destination. Moreover, regular flyers are also at risk of losing their privileges and miles or getting banned by the airline.
According to a CNN, Lufthansa attempted to sue a skiplagging passenger in Germany in 2018, but a Berlin court dismissed the lawsuit. Other carriers taking action against the practice are American Airlines, United Airlines, and Lufthansa. American Airlines also sent a memo in 2021, to its employees announcing that it would start monitoring skiplagging.
According to Business Insider, United Airlines and travel website site, Orbitz also tried to sue the CEO of travel site Skiplagged, Aktarer Zaman, in 2014, accusing him of "unfair competition" and "deceptive behavior." The case was however thrown out due to legal technicalities.
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