Hidden City Ticketing: Techniques, Challenges, and Ethics | Ep188 | 2-4-23
Frequent Miler on the Air
Frequent Miler
4.9 • 638 Ratings
🗓️ 4 February 2023
⏱️ 86 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Hidden city ticketing could save you a lot of money or miles, but it comes with both challenges and risks. Some find it appealing, others find it unethical. Greg and Nick discuss the details.
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00:00 Introduction
00:42 Giant Mailbag
05:19 Mattress running the numbers: Now exchange points between Choice and Radisson
https://frequentmiler.com/now-convert-radisson-points-to-choice-privileges-at-a-21-ratio/
13:04 The News: Delta 15% discount on awards for cardholders
https://frequentmiler.com/delta-launches-takeoff-15-cardholders-save-15-on-award-flights/
18:25 Awards we booked this week: JAL business class for 5
https://frequentmiler.com/wide-open-japan-airlines-business-class-space-not-all-phantom/
26:00 Main Event: Hidden city ticketing: techniques, challenges, and ethics
What is it?
30:25 Drawbacks / warnings
30:36 You can never skip anything but the final segment
33:01 Keep it simple: don't check bags
36:40 Irregular Operations (IRROPS)
39:39 Make sure you qualify for entry to the destination of your ticket
40:40 Techniques to find hidden city ticket opportunities
41:05 Skiplagged
42:36 One more warning: Airlines don't like this practice
45:39 Google Flights
49:17 Use cheap prices as a starting point for looking at awards
52:30 Look at flying to Mexico or maybe Canada
53:04 Look where regions meet
56:01 Mixed-cabin award pricing (Avianca LifeMiles, Cathay Pacific Asia Miles, and Virgin Atlantic for Air France or KLM)
https://frequentmiler.com/cathay-pacific-asia-miles-mixed-cabin-award-pricing-first-class-for-less/
https://frequentmiler.com/avianca-lifemiles-awesome-mixed-cabin-award-pricing-first-class-for-less/
00:13 Downside of hidden city award tickets
1:01:32 Seats.aero for finding these opportunities
1:03:50 Ethics: Is this practice unethical?
1:18:55 Question of the Week: Is relying on close-in award availability a viable travel strategy, or am I setting myself up for a world of pain?
Music credit: Annie Yoder
Mentioned in this episode:
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is a Voyescape podcast. |
| 0:03.9 | You can find all of our travel podcasts from around the world at voyescape.com. |
| 0:10.8 | Let's get into the giant mailbag. |
| 0:13.5 | What crazy thing did City this week? |
| 0:17.5 | It's time for mattress running the numbers. |
| 0:19.8 | Ready for the main event? The main event. |
| 0:21.6 | Frequent Miler on the air starts now. |
| 0:23.6 | Today's main event, Hidden City Ticketing, techniques, challenges, and ethics. |
| 0:33.6 | So, Hidden City Ticketing, it's a way to save bundles of miles or cash when booking flights. |
| 0:41.9 | And it is complicated. |
| 0:44.3 | There are pitfalls. |
| 0:46.8 | There are ethical questions about it. |
| 0:49.2 | So we are going to get into that for our main event today. |
| 0:52.6 | First, of course, giant mailbag. |
| 0:55.7 | Today's giant mail comes from Andrew who said great content on episode 176 do you remember 176 |
| 1:04.2 | next 76 that was the one where uh well yeah go right it well. Okay, you remember it well. Anyway, |
| 1:12.6 | that's the one that was called award travel is free. No, it's not, where we debated back and forth |
| 1:17.8 | whether when you book awards with Miles, if that's actually free. And he says, love listening to |
| 1:24.3 | your conflicting points of view. I probably should have first read the episode |
| 1:28.7 | description because I thought the episode was going to discuss ways to use points and miles to |
| 1:33.8 | offset those ancillary costs that go along with free travel, such as taxes and fees, |
| 1:39.5 | ground transportation, entertainment, food, and other costs involved with travel that may or may |
... |
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