11. Skiplagged: Best Flight Website for Hidden City Ticketing
When I first heard about “hidden city ticketing”, I thought it was a shady practice. It basically means booking a ticket that has a layover through the city where you actually want to travel to, and then getting off there instead of completing the flight.
For example, maybe you want to fly from Boston to Austin, but the flight is way too expensive. If you can find a cheaper flight from Boston to Houston with a stopover in Austin, then you can book that flight and just get off at your connecting flight (Austin is the hidden city here).
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Using connecting airports to get off before the trip is complete only works if you’re traveling with just your carry-on luggage, and if you only book a one-way ticket (your whole flight will be cancelled if you don’t show up for the latter part of your reservation).
You shouldn’t use your frequent flier miles for this kind of trip either, as the airline may ding you for your points. So yeah, you can see why I’ve never been a fan of this method.
So is it illegal? No, not at all. Skiplagged even has the tagline, “Our flights are so cheap, United sued us…but we won.”
While there doesn’t seem to be any hidden city results here, the site still lists all the prices that might work for your route.
It’s also worth noting that you should obviously not book these kinds of hidden city fares for every single flight you book. If you grab a hidden city fare on the same destination with the same airline over and over, the airline is going to notice.