01/11/2023
How Does Skiplagged Work?
Skiplagged takes the concept of skiplagging or throwaway ticketing but makes it easy to find those hidden deals.
This concept is best described with an example:
Let's say you want to fly from Minneapolis-St. Paul (MSP) to Atlanta (ATL), but the prices are sky-high.
However, there's a cheaper flight from Minneapolis to Orlando (MCO) with a stop in Atlanta for much less.
Hidden-city ticketing means you'd buy that ticket with no intention of flying through to the final destination of Orlando. Instead, you'd just get off in Atlanta and skip that second segment altogether.
This hack has been around for a while, but Skiplagged helped popularize it – and made it much easier to find these money-saving wraparounds.
Yes, even the Skiplagged website itself warns against using this method often. Airlines could suspend your frequent flyer account and seize your miles like United has threatened, or worse. Some travelers who have used and abused this tactic have been sued. So yes, this means you should not attach your frequent flyer account to any flight you skiplag.
As you can imagine, using this method brings some complications. So before you take off to buy a bunch of hidden-city tickets, there are a few things you should know...
Must-Know Tips for Using Skiplagged
You're probably already thinking of all the ways in your head that this could go wrong. Well, there are a few.
⭐Take these “rules of skiplagging” into consideration before using this method on your next trip.
⭐It only works for one-way tickets. This is probably the most important part of hidden-city ticketing. For any flight, the rules are the same: once you skip a segment, the rest of your reservation will be canceled. So if you skip out halfway through on a roundtrip flight, you'll have no flight home. To use this method for a round trip, you'd have to book two, separate one-way tickets.
⭐Don't check a bag. Your checked bag doesn't know it's supposed to get off early. If you skiplag, you can only bring a carry-on. And pack light — if the gate agents require bags to be checked on an overcrowded flight, you'll be SOL.
⭐Don't make it a habit!