United Airlines lawsuit

UK Rail travel has been like this for years... often cheaper to buy a return than a single, or get a tickets to beyond your station to save money based on the cheap rate at the time for a route.

I came across the same nonsense when I booked a ticket to Seattle, intending to go to Vancouver in the end. My flight routed through Vancouver, but the airline wouldn't let me get off in Vancouver, even when I offered to pay for the landing fee (as I can understand there may be some costs involved for the airline for passengers leaving at an airport rather than changing... maybe).

I did catch my plane in Vancouver for the return with no problem at all, as I had checked in before the return portion from Seattle left, so they considered me to have 'caught' that flight.

I agree that if the airlines don't sort out their pricing, the internet will do it for them....

Quote: AZDuffman

Who here remembers the old "saturday night stay" gag where the round-trip price was lower if you had a saturday night during the trip? Businessmen would but two overlapping trips originating in opposite cities, fly out on ticket A then back but really out on ticket B, then back on A then back on B.

Contractors for the US government used to do this all the time. In some cases the Saturday night stay tickets were less than half the price of the tickets without Saturday night stay. So theoretically they would save money even if they couldn't make the follow up trip.

The problem was always that they couldn't expense two tickets for one trip, even if it saved the government money.

BTW, you may ask why contractors want to save expense account money. It was because they got a contract for a given amount of money, and they would rather spend it on salaries instead of pointlessly wasting it on airline tickets.

United has lost Round 1. The airline will most likely appeal, so stay tuned. Skiplagged won on a technicality: the judge ruled that the lawsuit cannot be filed in Illinois, it must be filed in New York.

International media attention to the lawsuit has helped boost the Skiplagged’s traffic enormously, so United's lawsuit has backfired so far. (The nickname for a lawsuit intended to suppress a secret but inadvertantly reveals the secret is The Streisand Effect.)

Quote: TheCesspit

UK Rail travel has been like this for years..

But the service has been different as to stops and speeds.

Quote: TheCesspit

I agree that if the airlines don't sort out their pricing, the internet will do it for them....

Now you know what Mid West farmers had to go through to ship wheat to NYC. From Chicago to NYC was six dollars, but getting it to Chicago was a short haul monopoly railroad setting the price.

We have to go back to the days of Operating Cost per Mile times number of miles plus competition factor equals mandatory ticket price.

Safety only comes from profits not low cost airlines with low cost inspections.