It started with a one-way ticket from Dublin to Lisbon that somehow cost less than the return train ride from Galway to Dublin. The only catch? The final leg was scheduled to go on to Madrid—one I never intended to board. That was my first taste of hidden-city ticketing, a controversial trick that airlines have been quietly fighting for years.
Hidden-city ticketing, or “skiplagging,” has become the whisper-hack of veteran travelers who know how to navigate airline pricing like it’s a stock market. The premise is simple: you buy a cheaper ticket that connects through your intended destination, and simply don’t take the second leg. You save money. The airline loses a bit of margin. It’s entirely legal—but not welcomed. Passengers caught doing it repeatedly can get banned from loyalty programs or even blacklisted.
| Discount Type | Description |
|---|---|
| Hidden-City Ticketing | Disembark at layover city, skip final leg—cheaper, but risky |
| Mistake Fares | Pricing errors sometimes up to 90% off; rare, but catchable via alerts |
| Senior/Kids Discounts | Not widely advertised; require direct contact or specific links |
| One-Way Segment Booking | Splitting trips between airlines can lower costs |
| Use of VPN or Location Shift | Fares vary by region; changing your IP address can reveal cheaper options |
| Consolidator Tickets | Available via agents; especially useful for international/business travel |
| Bereavement Fare Policies | Offered by some airlines; call to inquire—often more flexible |
A few months ago, American Airlines sued a teenager for using the tactic too frequently. It made headlines not because it was a rare offense, but because thousands of travelers were quietly doing the same thing. Sites like Skiplagged have built businesses helping people exploit it. Airline loyalty terms often warn against such behavior, yet enforcement remains inconsistent and reactive.
And then there’s the phenomenon of mistake fares—those fleeting pricing errors that slip past the airline’s internal checks, sometimes offering business-class seats for the price of a modest dinner. These blips don’t last long, sometimes minutes. But when they appear, deal-hunting travelers—especially those signed up for alert systems like Going or Secret Flying—pounce.
What makes mistake fares so compelling is not just the price but the sense of beating a system designed to extract every dollar. There’s something oddly satisfying about locking in a $300 transatlantic round trip when the next cheapest option is four times higher. Of course, airlines can try to cancel those tickets, but often they honor them if they’ve already been ticketed.
Yet not all savings are digital or sudden. Some are quiet, analog, and require a phone call. Age-based fares for seniors, bereavement discounts, and children-fly-free programs still exist—barely. Airlines don’t advertise them loudly. Some are hidden under “special assistance” tabs on the site, while others require a customer service rep to activate. It feels like a relic of a more human age of flying, but the savings can be real.
Booking through third-party consolidators remains another overlooked path. While online platforms like Expedia and Google Flights dominate search behavior, they don’t always reflect the cheapest fares—especially for long-haul international travel. Large travel agents often negotiate “net fares” or consolidator deals directly with airlines, which they then mark up slightly and still undercut the publicly listed prices.
I remember one such instance, standing in a nondescript office near Marble Arch in London, holding a paper itinerary that cost £400 less than anything I could find online for the same route. The agent had tapped into a block of fares reserved for South Asian travel agencies. It felt old-fashioned, but it worked.
Then there’s the digital misdirection airlines rely on. Change the language on the site to Spanish or shift your VPN location to Thailand, and you might see a different fare. Airlines apply geo-pricing strategies that assume travelers in different regions have different willingness to pay. It’s price discrimination, algorithmically optimized.
I once toggled the same Emirates flight through the UK and UAE versions of the site. The same economy ticket was priced £120 lower in the UAE portal. The only thing I had to do was change the currency and clear my browser cookies.
More subtly, airlines are known to spike fares based on repeated searches from the same IP address. That’s why incognito mode in your browser isn’t just a privacy gimmick—it can actually save you money. It’s remarkable how often I’ve seen a price drop by £50 or £60 simply by opening a new browser window and refreshing the search.
Families can also benefit from airline quirks. Southwest Airlines in the U.S., for example, allows a Companion Pass holder to fly a second person for almost nothing—taxes only. Other carriers periodically run “kids fly free” promotions tied to loyalty programs. These aren’t always promoted via email blasts or splashy graphics. Sometimes you just have to dig.
And while flexibility is always key to saving money, many travelers forget just how much it matters. Shifting your trip by a single day, or flying out of a different airport within an hour’s drive, can alter fares dramatically. Google Flights’ “Explore” function is remarkably effective at surfacing nearby options that are cheaper, faster, or both.
It’s worth remembering that airlines have one goal: fill seats at the highest possible margin. Everything from the price of oil to the day of the week influences what fare you see. They adjust prices up to a dozen times a day, leaning on predictive algorithms that assume you’re either in a rush or not paying attention.
That’s why I’ve stopped assuming loyalty earns better pricing. In fact, many frequent flyers use separate browsers or log out of accounts entirely when shopping. It’s not paranoia. It’s pattern recognition.
One airline insider quietly admitted that fare structures are designed to exploit passenger habits—relying on assumptions like “people always return from where they go” or “everyone checks a bag.” Break the assumptions, and you break the pricing.
Of course, there are moral lines each traveler must consider. Airlines argue that tactics like skiplagging are a form of contract violation. Others see it as a consumer response to opaque pricing. For some, it’s just about getting home to family without spending an extra paycheck. For others, it’s a game.
