Throwaway Ticketing Saves You Money on Travel — With Big Risks
One of the latest air travel trends that’s emerged recently is causing quite a bit of controversy. It’s all about skiplagging, AKA throwaway ticketing, AKA hidden city ticketing.
Travelers use it as a way to save money on flights. If a flight to their destination is expensive, they book a cheaper flight to another city that happens to have a layover in their actual desired destination. Then, they just don’t get on the connecting flight and go on their merry way.
Aktarer Zaman, founder and CEO of Skiplagged.com, discovered the loophole after looking up flights from New York to Seattle. He noticed it was half the price to fly from New York to Seattle with a layover in San Francisco, than to fly directly from New York to San Francisco.
In fact, Dan Gellert, COO at Skiplagged, said travelers save 47% on average, or $180, when booking a skiplagged flight via the site.
However, throwaway ticketing does come with pretty serious risks (e.g., getting banned from flying that airline). We explain how these savings could cost you in other ways.
Save Money Without Using Throwaway Ticketing
Your dream vacation is just within reach — if only you could make the flight just a little bit cheaper. We get wanting to save on travel, but if you’re not willing to risk throwaway ticketing (which is smart) we have other ways you can save money to help build up your vacation fun.
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Can You Save with Throwaway Ticketing?
In some instances, Gellert said, the savings can be significant. One family of four booked a trip to Alaska and saved $1,000 per passenger. Another customer used the site to fly to another country several times a year for IVF treatments.
“This approach can often end up being more cost-efficient than paying for direct flights to a desired location and has therefore been becoming more and more popular among travelers across the globe,” said Alonso Marly, a travel expert at Skylux Travel.
Because of the competitive nature of the travel market, the cost of a plane ticket is often calculated based on destination popularity rather than distance. So it can often be less expensive to leave at a layover instead of the final destination. Marly said airfares can be up to 50% less expensive with throwaway ticketing.
This method has been fairly popular over the last year, with nearly 300,000 travelers completing their *partial* journey successfully, saving a total of $51 million, according to Skiplagged.com.
The Risks With Throwaway Ticketing
It may seem fairly straightforward to leave the airport during your layover without returning, but there are risks involved.
The first thing to know is that you can’t check bags. These will be delivered to the final destination. But can’t you just travel with a carry on? Anyone who travels frequently knows you’re sometimes forced to check your carry on, even if you hadn’t planned on it.
But more importantly, throwaway ticketing or skiplagging — which is technically legal — violates the terms and conditions most airlines make you agree to before purchasing a ticket, Marly said. That means the airline is allowed to remove your frequent flyer miles. Or, ban you from flying with them in the future. They may also cancel your return flight. It can also disrupt travel for other passengers if staff make any effort to find a traveler who isn’t planning on showing up.
American Airlines recently banned a passenger after he got caught skiplagging, presumably because AA noticed he was “flying through” the city he lived in, according to this driver’s license. The airline has also sued Skiplagged.com for $94 million, claiming copyright infringement and unfair competition. The federal jury awarded American $9.4 million in October 2024 — but Skiplagged.com is still operating.
“Airlines are obviously not happy with this growing throwaway ticketing trend, which results in them losing millions of dollars in revenue over the empty seats that could have been sold to other passengers,” Marly said. “At the same time, skiplagging also raises ethical concerns and impacts the broader travel ecosystem.”
There’s no legal penalty and Skiplagged.com claims the majority of people fly without issues. So basically, it’s up to you if you want to take the chance.
Other Ways to Save on Travel
If you don’t want to risk skiplagging (I totally do not recommend it, though I’ve been tempted), there are other ways to do it that won’t get you in trouble.
One of our favorite ways to save on travel is with travel rewards credit cards. You can spend money on stuff you were going to buy anyway and build up rewards points or miles that go toward airfare, hotel and rental car purchases.
Jen Ruiz, the author of “12 Trips in 12 Months,” said she saves by getting flight alerts notifying her about flash sales, deals and mistake fares. She also uses budget airlines like PLAY and FrenchBee, which has sales offering $99 flights to Europe (at press time, you could fly from New York to Reykjavik via PLAY for $111 each way; or from Baltimore to Paris for $152 each way). However, make sure to read our guide on flying with budget airlines so you don’t get burned by fees.
The Penny Hoarder contributor Danielle Braff is a Chicago writer who specializes in consumer goods and shopping on a budget. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Real Simple and more.
