Flying in search of 'hidden cities'

August 23, 2000
Web posted at: 12:31 p.m. EDT (1631 GMT)

By Christopher Elliott
CNN.com Travel Columnist

(CNN) -- When the airlines talk about "hidden cities," they're not referring Shangri-La, El Dorado, Atlantis or some other far-off, mythical place.

No, hidden cities may be places like Philadelphia, Denver or Charlotte, North Carolina. And carriers view them with the same fondness they reserve for unruly passengers and carry-ons the size of St. Bernards.

Scheduling a hidden city is sort of like booking a back-to-back itinerary that circumvents a Saturday night stayover: It's a bit of subterfuge that costs the flier less money and angers the carriers.

By booking a hidden city, a traveler pays for a less-expensive trip between two airports and gets off at a stopover city -- the passenger's intended destination. For example, a traveler may buy a round-trip ticket from Baltimore to Tampa, Florida, but only go as far as Philadelphia, the stopover city.

By all accounts, carriers have zealously pursued customers who use hidden cities. But who's right? The airlines or passengers?

A recent court verdict appears to favor the traveler.

A Cincinnati judge last month issued an injunction against Delta Air Lines, which had frozen a frequent flier's Skymiles account and had ordered him to repay the $9,000 he'd saved by using hidden cities on trips originating in Cincinnati. In the decision, the jurist cited a federal regulation barring the airline from seeking any money from its customer.

If the precedent holds -- it's really too soon to tell if it will -- then it could mean that airlines may have to change the way they deal with passengers who find a way to get around their labyrinthine fare system.

It could even mean that the government, or at least its judicial branch, is ready to step in to protect the rights of consumers.

Keep this in mind, too: Hidden cities weren't always forbidden.

Barbara Soleta, who started working for Continental Airlines in 1964, says her bosses condoned what was then a common booking practice.

"As a matter of fact, the lower you could work the fare, the better a ticket agent you were considered," she remembers. "Ah, how times change."

But just because we can do it doesn't mean we should.

"There are, of course, all sorts of moral issues involved," notes Richard Eastman, a technology consultant and former airline manager. "The passenger bought a ticket from 'Point A to B,' not 'Point A to X.' The contract for travel is based on a mutually agreed price between 'Points A and B' -- not 'Points A and X.'

"The airline must hold up its side of the contract," Eastman says. "What gives a passenger a right to abrogate his side?"

Eastman says this breach of contract on the part of travelers would result in higher ticket prices, an assertion that research seems to support. A study published by the Washington-based Economic Policy Institute last year found that if hidden cities were legal, it would cost the airline industry $6 billion a year. You can bet that carriers would pass that expense along to us.

Some passengers also agree that using hidden cities is wrong.

"This is one more example of how our society rewards cheaters," says Gary David, a La Jolla, California, traveler. "It's a matter of having values."

Other passengers seem too confused to worry about ethics.

That's the case with Omer Eubanks, an Atlanta software consultant who says he's baffled by the way airlines price their tickets.

"How can it cost less to travel to a city beyond the one you wish to travel to? This concept makes no sense to me," he gripes. "I also don't understand the threat of taking away miles and privileges if I'm caught. If they only had reasonable pricing policies."

For Eubanks and the rest of you who remain mystified about the appeal of hidden cities, let's take a bottom-line look at the Baltimore/Philadelphia/Tampa trip I mentioned above.

Say you want to travel from Baltimore to Philly midweek: The fare is $376 on US Airways. However, a flight from Baltimore to Tampa with a stopover in Philadelphia costs only $162. Why not take the second option and just get off the plane in Philly?

Two reasons come to mind, says travel agent John Frenaye of Carlson Wagonlit Travel in Annapolis, Maryland.

First, a carrier could cancel your return reservation, leaving you stranded; and second, it could debit your travel agent the fare difference. The latter reason is why Frenaye refuses to book a hidden cities itinerary.

John Millsaps, a Salt Lake City travel agent, doesn't knowingly sell a hidden cities itinerary either, but says it should be allowed.

"The customer has paid for the seat and if the customer chooses to get off early, that's the customer's right," he says. "It's not the customer's fault that the airlines have devised a screwy pricing system that punishes certain types of travelers and certain destinations."

So what is right? Personally, I'm not opposed to hidden cities, and I think the Cincinnati court ruling only underscores what most travelers and travel agents feel:

If passengers want to get off a plane at a stopover, that's their right.

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