American Airlines takes throw-away (also called hidden city) ticketing very seriously. So serious, in fact, that American Airlines purportedly forced a teenager traveling solo into a “security room” and proceeded to interrogate him over what it believed was his fraudulent ticketing activity.
Teenager Says American Airlines Interrogated Him Over Hidden City Ticket, Then Bans Him For Three Years
As flagged by Ross Feinstein, the boy was traveling on an American Airlines ticket from Gainesville, Florida (GNV) to New York City via Charlotte (CLT). At check-in, agents noticed he presented a North Carolina driver’s license and suspected that he was probably going to skip his connecting flight to New York, especially when he did not check bags.
First, let’s review the basics of hidden city or throw-away ticketing. Briefly, American Airlines (and all carriers) often charge a premium for nonstop flights. For example, a flight from Los Angeles to Orlando via Chicago may often turn out cheaper than purchasing just the same Los Angeles to Chicago flight alone.
This “loophole” has been magnified by websites like Skiplagged, which focus specifically on pinpointing these type of savings opportunities. In the example above, a passenger will book the connection to Orlando but just get off the plane in Chicago with no intention of making the connection.
This comes with all sorts of risk. You cannot check bags. You also cannot book a return flight. Furthermore, if something goes wrong like a delay or cancellation, airlines will get you to your “final” destination, not the intermediate point that is really your destination.
Although by no means illegal, taking advantage of loopholes like this contravenes the “Contract of Carriage” you “agree” to whenever you book an airline ticket (of course, on a take-it-or-leave-it basis). Now let’s return to our story.
According to the boy’s father, American Airlines ushered the boy in to a secure room and began to “interrogate” him over his intentions. There, he admitted to engaging in hidden city ticketing (well, his father who bought his ticket did). American Airlines canceled his ticket and made him buy a new walk-up, full-fare ticket to get to Charlotte if he wanted to continue.
American Airlines is investigating the incident, but did reiterate that such ticketing practices are not allowed.
Purchasing a ticket without intending to fly all flights to gain lower fares (hidden city ticketing) is a violation of American Airlines terms and conditions and is outlined in our Conditions of Carriage online. Our Customer Relations team has been in touch with the customer to learn more about their experience.
My take on hidden city ticketing is that if you buy two slices of pizza, you should have the opportunity to eat only one. I realize airlines disagree. I don’t engage in hidden city ticketing because I do not want to jeopardize my frequent flyer accounts with the major US airlines. But I still don’t think it is ethically wrong. That said, you do agree to avoid this behavior when purchasing an airline ticket, so for what it is worth be mindful of that…
Whatever the nature of this interrogation, I am going to assume the boy was not held against his will, even if he was “directed” or “ordered” into the security room. It does not sound like there is false imprisonment going on here.
The family also shares that the boy has been banned from American Airlines for three years due to this practice and did not refund them for the ticket that was canceled.
CONCLUSION
I understand why people engage in hidden city ticketing…the savings are sometimes simply amazing. But you must be aware of the risks of doing so and especially note that American Airlines has taken a particularly aggressive approach to combating this practice. This is the first instance of American taking a passenger into an interrogation room, but we have heard numerous incidents of corporate security or gate agents or check-in agents going after suspected cases of this practice.
Caveat emptor.
(H/T: View From The Wing // image for illustration purposes)
If anyone took my child into a closed room with them, forced them to stay against their will, rest assured their life as they knew it would be over.
They’d be known to friends, family, future and current employers as p*dohpile child predators. So help me God.
Did they come up with this tactic after watching “Casino”?
Yea they may not have physically forced him in the room but a couple stern adults against a scared teenager… gee I wonder if he thought he had a choice.
AA is garbage
Gainesville is not a big airport, so was there really an “interrogation room”, or was the teen questioned off to the side of the gate? And for any other Lorettas, the teen is 16-17 years old, so chill on your meltdown. Also, the father has admitted that he bought the ticket, so he bears the responsibility for the incident. American is not the only airline that bans hidden city practices; UA has warned against the practice for years. Daddy may claim ignorance, but my suspicion is that he knew what could happen.
The issue is the interview with the child.
If held in a room with a closed door, potential legal ramifications.
If held in the terminal in the open, where’s the social media???
We can ignore a Loretta. That poster is just angry at everything for no damn good reason rofl.
Look who’s in favor of taking children into rooms with them. DavidM.
What’s your real name, David?
In many states police cannot interrogate juveniles without parental consent.
The juvenile didn’t commit a crime so perhaps this is false imprisonment?
A good question for an attorney who practices in the state where this happened.
If the interview had been held at the gate (open area), no issues. However, I’m sure AA didn’t want the situation recorded in public via social media.
However, AA may have just converted an awkward situation into a criminal offense!!
Father was a bozo making his kid carry out his scofflaw ways. Busted!
They only exist today because we propped them up with taxpayer money repeatedly. It’s time to cut them off. Next time there’s a crisis, let them fail hard.
Or regulate the snot out of all of them.
The last sentence before the photo outlines something that is illegal. At minimum, they owe the boy a ‘flight credit’ or his father a flight credit. Taking the beyond city ticket without any recompense AND making the boy pay full fare walk up is unjust enrichment and not allowed by law.
The teen was not a professional fraudster because he got stopped at the origin in Florida. He could have refused to speak, claiming he is mute then running away from the airport when he got to Charlotte.
Alternatively, he could have said his father bought him the ticket and insisted he was going to New York. Or was the father too stupid to know that checking luggage is generally not possible for a hidden city ticket?
I wonder if it were a one way ticket? How was he supposed to return home to Florida?
The family says they used skiplagged, which to my knowledge only does one-way flights.
An unaccompanied minor on a one-way flight with a connection could reasonably trigger some questions at check-in.
What would have happend if he checked a dummy bag?
This is the part that I really don’t get… “At check-in, agents noticed he presented a North Carolina driver’s license and suspected that he was probably going to skip his connecting flight to New York, especially when he did not check bags.”
What if he legitimately couldn’t do a direct and needed to connect to get to New York? The Check-in agent took it on themselves to make the call and push it to this point. Are they going to assume every traveler connecting through their home state to another location is taking part in hidden city ticketing?
I wonder how widespread this practice is.
Hidden city ticketing? I think some do it, but the majority of travelers? No.
Traveling through your home state to get to another destination? I think of business travelers.
I wonder if he/his father have done this before and AA had it noted on their Frequent Flyer account?
I have a Texas DL, and have certainly traveled between FL and CA making a stop at DFW. Considering CLT is a fortress hub, making a stop there shouldn’t be weird. The airport is located less than 10 miles from South Carolina. Would a SCDL be a problem too? What about Virginia? This just seems really unlikely to me.
Making a stop in CLT from GNV is very common, and I’ll bet tons of folks with NC DL’s do it all the time, probably once a day.
The key here is the unaccompanied minor, on a one way flight that goes through his hometown– might prompt a question that gets answered in a way that leads to more questions.
Most folks flying out of GNV are going to connect through ATL or CLT, so the connection in CLT probably wasn’t the tip off. There are no non-stop flights to NY from GNV.
He was clearly an unaccompanied minor, not a business traveller.
Seeing a child on a one way from GNV to JFK through CLT as an unaccompanied minor, but with a Charlotte address on his ID probably led to some questions being asked that exposed the plan.
Also the family admits that they have done similar things previously, so maybe the airline has noticed what they were up to.
why didn’t this kid just check in online and bypass all this nonsense? also shame on dad for putting a kid solo into this situation.
I don’t think children traveling alone can check in online– I think they have to go to the ticket counter even if not using the unaccompanied minor program.
I suspect that the teenager, being a first time flier, was not aware of what to do and told the agent by mistake that he was going to Charlotte.
Seems that the father’s clever deflection is working quite well…
This dad is too cheap to buy his son a regular airline ticket, even though the kid is traveling alone for the first time in his life. So his dad uses a trick to save a couple of bucks, but it requires his kid to deceive the airline at the airport on his own. The kid gets caught at the airport for violating airlines terms of ticketing. It turns into an expensive and embarrassing mess.
Instead of accepting any responsibility for his role in this mess, the dad deflects the responsibility pointing out possible faults in the airline’s actions to get people’s attention away from the fact that this dad put his kid in a bad position to save a few bucks.
The dad is quick to point out that he thinks others put his kid in a bad position, but does not acknowledge that he has done the same thing.
I don’t believe for a second that this kid was travelling without a cell phone and without the ability to call his dad for help. Thus I suspect the dad is likely conveniently leaving out some details.
What the dad and kid did isn’t illegal, it’s frowned upon. Like masturbating on an airplane.
What the airline did may have been legally problematic dependingon the actual circumstances.
I am reassured that I will not need to rely upon your legal expertise now or in the future.
Your loss
The good news is AA is expanding food and drink services at the Admiral Clubs. The bad news is they are raising the annual fee.
As for this kid, what a POS the dad must be to put him in this position.
FOOD with an airline? You’ve got to be joking.
How old was this “kid”? I didn’t see anything mentioned. Probably at least 16. Sounds like living on the age and maybe like stuff it appears Ben (One Mile at a Time) did when he was younger and eventually got into trouble with United.
It isn’t only adults who try to play games with credit cards, miles, points and saving a few bucks. One reason I’m seldom sympathetic to those who lose points or have accounts closed when they do stuff like manufactured spending.
I once saw a young lady (seemed like 18ish) being asked questions by a guy in jeans and looking kind of rough. I was pondering asking for security until I heard him saw he was a police officer and showed his ID and told her they had found drugs in her checked luggage and if she went quietly he wouldn’t cuff her in front of everyone.
People are guessing 16-17, probably for a variety of reasons. To me this seems likely to be accurate, though I haven’t seen his exact age confirmed.
If he was under 15, he would have been required to use the unaccompanied minor program with the airline which would mean he would have been escorted to his connecting flight to JFK at CLT, so the plan wouldn’t work undetected under age 15.
“We’ve used Skip Lagged almost exclusively for the last five to eight years,” is a quote from the kid’s dad in the story from Queen City News.
The hidden city fare is $95 one way. The regular fare is $235 one way.
I just continue to be amazed at the airlines’ insistence that they should be allowed to engage in abusive pricing practices with impunity. I like the “two slices of pizza” analogy. If I buy a six-pack of beer, I can drink just three beers, then toss or give away (or even sell) the remaining three beers. If I go to a movie, I can leave the theater at intermission. If I go to a basketball game, I can leave at halftime. How can they insist I occupy the seat I purchased? I purchased the RIGHT to occupy the seat. I didn’t commit to an OBLIGATION to be in that seat, any more than I committed to occupying the seat on the initial flight.
As for harm to the airline – flying with the seat empty actually SAVES the airline money in fuel costs. In addition, if I don’t show for the second flight, they can re-sell the seat for more profit or fill it with a stand-by passenger. They don’t really care whether you’re in the second seat or not. What they really care about is that you dared to notice that they have priced two slices of pizza for less than the cost of one slice, and acted reasonably on that information by buying two slices of pizza and eating just one.
Ridiculous.
They can’t force that you occupy the seat that you purchased. Notice in this case, the passenger did not end up being forced to occupy the seat from CLT to JFK.
They can ask you to abide to the terms that you agreed to when you entered into a contract to pay a specific fee for a specific service. If you refuse to abide by those terms, then they can refuse to provide the entire service– and they can choose to not do business with you again in the future. That’s what happened here.
Commercial air travel isn’t sold the same way that pizza and beer is, it’s sold differently, and to my knowledge this is the case for much of the world. There are things that are sold by contractual agreement where there are penalties for not completing the transaction in the manner in which you originally agreed to it, airfare is one of those things.
This is a valid concept in theory but in practice airlines hold all the cards when it comes to fulfillment of service.
Right or wrong, I can only hope the family did not rebook and pay a much higher fare on American Airlines. If you’re going to be judge and jury and apply punishment the way I booked, I’d be walking away and buying another ticket (full fare or otherwise) on ANOTHER AIRLINE. Why would I give MORE of my money to the “offended” airline ?
At that point, you’re really only punishing yourself further. American isn’t going to notice the loss of your one full fare ticket, and they’re banning you for three years anyway. You’ve got a child standing at a ticket counter in GNV who needs to get to Charlotte– your options are basically fly American nonstop, or fly Delta through Atlanta, which obviously takes significantly longer and may cost more at that point.
Matt i’ve read Gary, Lucky and your interpretation of this: A kid (minor) whose dad broke the contract of carriage has his ticket cancelled and left to his own means flying for the first time.
I feel like a warning here is the way to go. But, instead they cancel his ticket and leave him on his own and ban him for a few years. I just feel if your going to make a public example of hidden city ticketing a 16 yo flying for the first time is not the scapegoat your looking for.
Gosh you know, banning/cancelling a flight, that’s not even the thing that gets me the most upset here. It’s described that they take him to a room and interogate him. If you took my underage child to a “room” without my consent to interogate them you better believe my inner Liam Neeson would come out.
Good thoughts on this.
Lawyers, please come forward. Worse than living in a communist country here. You can be sure I’m glad I’m not taking American anywhere if I can avoid it.
follow the damn rules. Hidden city ticketing is banned by all airlines. How is this communism? This is actually capitalism. A private company deciding who and who they wont do business with. It would actually be communism if the government went in, and told American they’d have to honor the ticket. Damn you’re clueless.
It isn’t capitalism. They take public money to stay in business instead of bearing the full risk of business cycles and market fluctuations.
If they insist on engaging in socialism, regulate the crap out of them.
A NC dmv webpage states that the minimum age to have a state driver’s license is 18. So are we dealing with a minor or an adult here?
If 18 does that change any poster’s position as to the actions of American? The father? The son?
I think you can get a learner’s permit or provisional license from 15-18 yo in NC.
The former VP of Marketing for Bud Light is now employed by AA in GNV.
Stay tuned for further developments.
How difficult is it to follow the rules.
Bottom line: until airline pricing makes sense, then folks are going to figure out cheaper ways of flying. American et al bear the responsibility for activities such as these by providing pricing models that make no sense. The kid was ostensibly going to New York in transit through Charlotte… why was the ticket to Charlotte more expensive than the ticket all the way to NYC? The kid didn’t stow away, he had a ticket and was entitled to passage. If he had legitemately missed the connection to NYC by taking a bathroom break while connecting in Charlotte would American have accommodated him? Probably not.
All he needed to do was check in at a Kiosk or on the app since he wasn’t checking bags. No ID required except at TSA.
“Children traveling alone can’t check in online or at the kiosk.”
https://www.aa.com/i18n/travel-info/special-assistance/unaccompanied-minors.jsp
Being OLD AS SIN ITSELF , and traveled pre-deregulation, I’m all in favor of bringing regulation back again, especially given the mismanagement and poor customer service today. Set the fares, set basic service standards so everyone plays by the same rules and then let the airlines compete on customer service and hence customer satisfaction. Yes I know it’s not going to happen but clearly airline management left to its own devices isn’t working out very well is it.
I favor deregulation on the condition that shitty airlines are allowed to fail. Once they take bailouts, they should become subject to intense regulations and controls.
“Our records indicate the customer was questioned only at the ticket counter about their travel while attempting to check-in for their flight,” a representative for American Airlines told Insider in a statement.
https://www.insider.com/american-airlines-skiplagging-hidden-city-ticket-canceled-connecting-flight-2023-7
Oh, what a surprise… maybe we shouldn’t have blindly trusted the father… he seemed like such a great guy…
The abusive ticket pricing should be banned or their denial of deplaning prematurely. Absurd. It should have been enough to have issued a stern warning, add it to their reservation history and d the unaccompanied passenger to get home. Shame on AA and those involved for turning this into a nightmare for him and his family. What do you bet AA offers a bonus for rooting out such ‘wrong-doing’? Where is their compassion and understanding that for some, the extra pricing could be a hardship and possibly make the trip undoable. When I was 6 and my mother was divorced, I got to spend the summer with my grandparents in Florida (call it free childcare for a working single mother). In those days, it was a $25 fee for an unaccompanied child – almost $300 in today’s money. My mother would observe those in front of us in line at the airport, select one and then ask “Could you please say she is with you ?” No one ever said no, I never sat with that person and the care extended to me by the flight attendant convinced me to pursue that job 16 years later.