Flight Itinerary Question- Second Leg

Hello all. I have a specific question that may have been covered here, but too hard to search with this specificity.
We are heading to Italy this summer. Four of us.
Flights out of ATL have been hovering around terrible and not great for a while.
There are much better itineraries out of JFK in terms of points and $.
Am thinking of flying out of JFK, have family up there, will go up day before.
Here’s the interesting part…there’s an excellent flight that returns through ATL.
Is there any reason we can’t just get off in ATL and not use the last leg.
Not sure Delta can do anything to me at that point as I’d be done with the trip, but I suppose bags would be an issue.
Any thoughts are welcome. Thanks.

That’s called hidden city ticketing; it’s a way to get cheaper flights but as you said there are some drawbacks like the bags.

If ATL is like JFK (and other international arrival cities, when you land), you claim your bag to get through immigration and customs. At that point, after you have your bags, you would re-check them for the domestic flight. In your case, just walk out to the street in Atlanta. We did this exact same thing several years ago. We flew home MAD/EWR/BOS, and drove home from EWR. [wink.gif]

Dan

Dan, any truth to ppl being booted from frequent flier programs for repeat hidden city ticketing?

Nice. This is what I was thinking!
Thanks for the responses, guys.

Assuming you are alright with violating your airlines contract of carriage, there are considerations. That said, it is not illegal but it can have consequences. Do it at your own risk.

There are risks with hidden-city tickets:

As a practice that’s against almost all airline tariffs, it’s theoretically possible that the airline issues a caution or penalty. In reality, unless you’re flying on a hidden-city ticket monthly, the airline will not notice or care.
Since standard airline practice is to cancel the remaining flights in a booking if a flight is missed, it’s best to do hidden-city ticketing as one-way tickets. That way, when you miss your flight to Toronto, your return flight to Los Angeles isn’t also cancelled.
You can’t usually check bags on a hidden-city ticket (though it’s possible, but certainly a hassle).
If there are irregular operations, like weather or flight delay, the airline is only obligated to reroute you to your booked final destination, not your intermediary stopping point. Say your flight from Los Angeles to New York City is cancelled, the airline may just reroute you on a direct flight to Toronto.
Airlines are not fans of hidden-city ticketing, since it bypasses fare rules and costs them revenue. United Airlines famously sued an online company that simplified the booking of hidden-city tickets.

Thanks, Michael. Appreciate the input. We are still weighing the decision.

There were limited incremental reports a long time ago. As stated above, if you’re doing this as a one-off, you’re good to go. If you do it regularly, don’t give the airline your mileage number. The way miles are awarded these days, even that doesn’t matter much.

My only real concern is baggage. I don’t want my bags going back to JFK once I’m here in ATL. If figure that out, I’m set.
Thanks, Dan for the info.

Your bag will be ticketed to JFK but U.S customs legally require that you pick up your bags in ATL and walk them through customs. At that point you would just leave the airport.

Like others have said this is against the contract of carriage. Will Delta do anything? probably not but they could. Lufthansa just sued someone for the fare difference.

George

Wasn’t there just a case last week this happened and the carrier is suing the person that did this?

Yep, 2 weeks ago - Lufthansa

Thanks you all for the continued input.
Kills me that the best itineraries from ATL to FCO (like half price or points) would have me go ATL to JFK to ATL to FCO and reverse return.

Funny, we’re planning a trip to Rome also. Same issues. Booked a not great trip via JFK using miles (got a crazy good deal actually), but not happy with the layover/timing. Would bite on a direct flight in a heartbeat if it got closer to $1200.

One worry is if there are IRROPS, you might get pushed to a JFK and not have an ATL connection to hop off of -