Ex-DUB trick being monitored/closed - be aware

Snap, @Penny_L!

Interestingly, the T&C for VS & BA are nearly identical: "The Ticket you have purchased is valid only for the transportation shown on the Ticket from the place of departure via any Agreed Stopping Places to the final destination."

So if you are a repeat 'offender' they could say that you are repeatedly breaking the terms of the T&C and just ban you from the airline, or just remove all your miles.

But isn't that saying that, as long as you take the final flight, it's ok?

Ok, so the real win here is to get the lower ticket and not take the final leg (and hence the need for another flight back). But for those willing to do that, the savings are still there and you just loosquite a few hours taking extra flights.

Price vs convenience...

If you were to book ex Dub and actually take all flights, thus needing a final flight home again, whilst the airline might not like it, doesn't seem to break Ts and Cs - albeit, the DL one is interesting as they may be able to claim that your home address is different to your destination?

This feels a lot like tax legislation for big companies - whatever a goveernment does next, there are smarter people who are paid more that will find a way round it!

But isn't that saying that, as long as you take the final flight, it's ok?

Absolutely. The only trouble I've read about has been connected with pax not taking the final flight.

The real win is to book an ex-EU w/ M-G upgrade on the VS legs and then miss the final (non-VS) sector. Ex-EU can knock £300-400 off Y fares in an M bucket. Probably a whole host of T&Cs broken there, but what a saving!

If you book a ticket (for example): DUB-LHR-JFK-LHR-DUB and fly all of the flights in that ticket as booked, the airlines have no comeback whatsoever.

How you get to/from DUB to start the ticket is none of their business.

If you book a ticket (for example): DUB-LHR-JFK-LHR-DUB and fly all of the flights in that ticket as booked, the airlines have no comeback whatsoever.

How you get to/from DUB to start the ticket is none of their business.

Agreed, and I doubt the airlines have any issues with that. If you look through all the trouble pax have been getting recently, it's only those trying not to take the last sector who have run into problems.

Yes, no-one's questioning the legitimacy of completing the entire journey you've paid for. The airlines' problem is with people who DON'T complete the entire journey, deliberately skipping the final leg to take advantage of a lower fare.

The airlines would, no doubt, argue that by deliberately not completing the journey you paid for in order to avoid paying the quoted fare for your actual journey, you're in breach of their T&Cs. And while it's very unlikely they'd chase an individual passenger for the difference, they could charge the travel agent who sold you the ticket or, as we've seen, make life difficult by refusing to short check baggage or cancelling your FF account.

My take on it is this is a problem of the airlines' own making and if they don't want to close the loophole (as they clearly don't), they must be prepared to bear the cost of a relatively tiny number of savvy passengers playing them at their own game. I have a feeling they won't see it that way though.

Reading the Delta T&Cs as quoted by NYLON though:
Hidden City/Point Beyond Ticketing - The issuance, purchase or usage of a fare from a point before the passenger's actual origin or to a point beyond the passenger's actual destination.

Couldn't that be loosely interpretted to "where you live" - that's either sloppy wording, or more likely cleverly vague...

So, I thought the gripe of the airline was folks booking the ex-EU fares full stop; I get the last leg point though, it seems to me taking others advice to book for at least a day later, with a different airline or from a different airport or any combination of these would make it very difficult indeed for you to be caught.

...it seems to me taking others advice to book for at least a day later, with a different airline or from a different airport or any combination of these would make it very difficult indeed for you to be caught.

When I've done ex-EU, it's usually been BA/VS sectors. I tend to remove my BAEC number from the booking prior to my not taking the final sector. I figure the easiest way for BA to mess with my account is for them to just cross reference sector no-shows against my BAEC account.

I would remove my BAEC number from the entire booking (even if only the 1st & 4th sectors were on BA). Just claim the miles retrospectively for sector 1 - far less chance of getting caught out then.

But as previously stated, I can't see BA being too bothered if Virgin lose out on the higher UK-Wherever-UK fare.

The only issue may be that if you don't show for sector 4 on BA, does this mean they cannot claim payment for the ticket "e-voucher"? If so & if they cannot re-sell the seat, then they stand to lose out. Admittedly not much, but it all adds up over time. I am sure BA would / do concentrate their efforts on people on all-BA itineraries / BAEC members who they can tighten the screw on a little, as my friend found out!

Most airlines specifically prohibit the practice now, so it's not really a question of fraud etc, just of breaking the T&C under which your ticket was purchased. The wording for DL, for example is:

Delta specifically prohibits the practices commonly known as: [...]
Hidden City/Point Beyond Ticketing - The issuance, purchase or usage of a fare from a point before the passenger's actual origin or to a point beyond the passenger's actual destination.

So my question to them there would be what if I actually intend to travel all legs but don't want to take my bag on all legs? As far as I can see that's not breaking T&C as the passenger's actual destination is as-ticketed.

For example I have a DUB-LHR-LAX return booked in July. I've got a positioning flight MAN-DUB booked, which I've included hold baggage on. Then on the return, I planned to fly LAX-LHR, leave my hold bag at LHR with a family member to take home for me, then continue with my LHR-DUB final leg. I'm then staying in Dublin for 2 days with friends and have my return DUB-MAN flight booked hand baggage only. If they refuse to short-check my luggage at LAX, how am I breaking T&C? I'm still flying to my ticketed destination.

Most airlines specifically prohibit the practice now, so it's not really a question of fraud etc, just of breaking the T&C under which your ticket was purchased. The wording for DL, for example is:

Delta specifically prohibits the practices commonly known as: [...]
Hidden City/Point Beyond Ticketing - The issuance, purchase or usage of a fare from a point before the passenger's actual origin or to a point beyond the passenger's actual destination.

So my question to them there would be what if I actually intend to travel all legs but don't want to take my bag on all legs? As far as I can see that's not breaking T&C as the passenger's actual destination is as-ticketed.

The issue is whether you actually take the final sector or not, rather than the various methods of subterfuge. In your case you're taking the final sector, so you should be fine.

You can tell the airline whatever you like, and they might well believe you and short-check your luggage. At that point, of course, no T&C have been broken. But if you then deliberately don't take the final sector (i.e. Force Majeure does not stop you from taking it) then, yes, you have fallen foul of the T&C.

All that said, the T&C for DL are 50 pages long! In DL's case the T&C clearly state that they are only obliged to short-check luggage for a connecting flight if the stopover is longer than four hours, or if it is from a different airport. VS might have in place (as of very recently) a similar policy.

Four hours would work for me. Our layover at LHR is 5 hours 20 mins.

All that said, the T&C for DL are 50 pages long! In DL's case the T&C clearly state that they are only obliged to short-check luggage for a connecting flight if the stopover is longer than four hours, or if it is from a different airport. VS might have in place (as of very recently) a similar policy.

Thanks - I can't see anything similar in the VS conditions of carriage (yet!) but I guess in my case my best move would be to ask them to short-check at checkin at LAX and make sure I've got my proof of onward travel (ie Ryanair ticket with no hold baggage). Then if they refuse, I can get online before I leave LA and add a bag to my DUB-MAN leg. Taking the bag with me would be awkward as it'll have 10 days of stuff I don't need from my LA trip, but likely cheaper than any re-faring fee they might try to charge me!

As my LHR-DUB flight is on BA, would it still be VS policy I'd need to comply with as they're the ones checking me in?

I tend to only use ex-DUB for NYC and only travel with hand luggage usually, every once in a while I'll have a case with me.

How flexible are VS with the dimensions they specify for their UC hand luggage?

As my LHR-DUB flight is on BA, would it still be VS policy I'd need to comply with as they're the ones checking me in?

Basically, yes. Although at this stage it doesn't seem to be so much an official policy about checked luggage with VS (as it is with DL), rather it's what seems to be check-in agents keeping an eye out for pax they suspect likely to miss the final sector (which would be against T&C).

Just flown JFK to LHR. Our ticket had us going on to OSL - wasn't easily to get them to tag bags to London only. Was sent to ticket desk and quoted £387 per person to change tickets. Eventually managed to convince agent as our stopover was 12+ hours to waive the fee. He said "things have changed" and our ticket should send bags to OSL, any change to that would incur fee.

Just flown JFK to LHR. Our ticket had us going on to OSL - wasn't easily to get them to tag bags to London only. Was sent to ticket desk and quoted £387 per person to change tickets. Eventually managed to convince agent as our stopover was 12+ hours to waive the fee. He said "things have changed" and our ticket should send bags to OSL, any change to that would incur fee.

Was this BA or VS?

Strictly speaking 12 hours is not the criteria it is an over night stay because many airports won't permit bags to be stored over night.

Sorry was VS

I'm going to be a bit pint half full here. Even though some people have been questioned and sometimes penalised when asking to label their bags up for UK. Has everyone had this happen to them, or is it just a slow implementation, or are their still a lot of us being able to jump off at London without too much fuss? I only put this forward as when one or two say what happened to them, we all seem to think it is 100% vetted.

If anyone from VS is actually reading this, I'd say the only reason I'm thinking of doing this, is because of the price. If I had to book paying normal UK taxes & fees, I wouldn't even be thinking about a USA holiday.

Charging extra to short check baggage appears to be a new development for VS. I'd never read any reports of it until this week but now two V-Flyers have reported being asked to cough up, one at LAX, the other at JFK, and being told that's now the way it is.

I guess we'll have to wait and see whether those two just got unlucky and were victims of an unhappy coincidence or whether this really is a new policy that's now being applied universally. I'm sure we'll get more reports in the days & weeks to come.

If anyone from VS is actually reading this, I'd say the only reason I'm thinking of doing this, is because of the price. If I had to book paying normal UK taxes & fees, I wouldn't even be thinking about a USA holiday.

If you look at the breakdown of the difference in fares ex-UK and ex-EU flights then APD is only a small part of the difference.

It is the airlines reducing their element of the fare - whether the base fare or the fuel/carrier/international surcharges they impose that is the main difference.

I've seen ex-EU fares be £1,000 less in business class than ex-UK. APD is only £140 of that and airport fees an even smaller part.

The rest is down to what the airline wants to charge.

I've seen ex-EU fares be £1,000 less in business class than ex-UK. APD is only £140 of that and airport fees an even smaller part.

The rest is down to what the airline wants to charge.

It's often a lot more than £1000. When I priced up our flights directly to SFO in UC on the VS website, they were coming up as £3500 each. The ex-DUB fare booked we through Expedia was just over £1300 each.

Aer Lingus business class DUB-JFK is £1300. Therefore if Virgin want to attract passengers from Dublin they won't get very far trying to suggest they fly via London for twice the price.

Which is exactly why VS charge roughly the same as EI to fly DUB-JFK, though via LHR. If they charged Irish passengers the same as they charge UK customers, only a fool would buy a ticket!

But it does expose how much more we in the UK have to pay for long haul flights - how can it be that exactly the same flight with exactly the same T&Cs costs £1300 in Ireland and £2500+ in the UK?

Airlines, of course, are not charities and need to make money so will charge what the market will bear but they really shouldn't be surprised if some people take advantage of far cheaper fares that they're happy to sell to people in other countries.