Travel for Less: Where is the Hidden City? (Part 1 of 2)

The Hidden City-its not really so much a where question as it is a what question when talking about airline travel. I read the below information from a post by fellow blogger View From the Wing and thought my readers could learn from it.

Airlines often price tickets from one city to another through a hub cheaper than flights that terminate at the hub. For my novice readers a hub is an airport that an airline uses as a transfer point to get passengers to their intended destination. For example, flying United Airlines from New York to Milwaukee through Chicago is often much cheaper than just flying New York to Chicago. But if you get off the plane in Chicago and don’t board your connection to Milwaukee, you’ve potentially saved yourself a lot of money. This is called hidden city ticketing. The airlines don't like it!

It is not illegal to use hidden city ticketing to buy a ticket and not fly all the segments, although I would not recommend lying about what you're doing since that could technically introduce a fraud element. The most that would probably happen is an airline could ban the customer in the future. Some people don't care as they are not loyal to an airline, they are only loyal to the lowest price. It is far more likely the consequence would be to debit the customer's frequent flyer account. This would be even more difficult, though not impossible, if you had the mileage credited to an airline partner (remember the July 3, 2012 blog about alliances).

If you're not breaking the law, and the airline can't reasonably go after you for doing this especially for doing it infrequently, what are the real risks involved?

Do this only as the last segment of a reservation. Only throw away the final leg of a roundtrip. Or book two one-ways if you want to do a throwaway in each direction. Because when you miss a flight, the airline is likely to cancel the rest of your itinerary. My friend's daughter, Kathy, verifies this in the August 1, 2012 blog.
Don’t check luggage. If you check bags, your bags will go to the final city on your ticket, you will not. So this only works with carry-ons (except for international flights arriving in the U.S. and a few other countries where you have to pick up your bags on arrival and walk them through customs and then drop them back off. If you’re checked to a domestic destination other than the one you arrive at in the U.S., you usually just won’t drop your bags back off.)
Don’t let yourself gate check luggage. For the same reason you don’t want to check a bag, you don’t want to board the plane and find no overhead space and a flight attendant telling you they’ll check your bag to your final destination. That’s not okay, since you aren’t going to your final destination. So these tickets work best if you have status or an upgrade, or at least can board in the middle of the pack and not be the last to board. But if you are last to board, there’s no overhead space, and they won’t let you hunt and peck for space, then you need an excuse why you either need to get the carry-on on the plane or you need them only to check it to your intermediate destination. In the former case, tell them you’re connecting on a separate ticket to a carrier they’ve never heard of. In the latter, just tell them your final destination is where the aircraft is landing. And they’re more likely to check it to your planned arrival city rather than your reservation’s final destination.
There’s still a risk of irregular operations. If your flight cancels, the airline might offer to send you to your ‘final destination’ via some other connecting city. That obviously won’t work for you. I’d suggest saying that the connecting city is important, you’re meeting folks in the airline’s club lounge there. Add some color, maybe you’re having an affair there (and only need a 45 minute connection in one of the conference rooms?). Agents are usually pretty accommodating during irregular operations and will give you an itinerary that works for you if anything is available that suits you. But you’ll need to be proactive about the rebooking.