
Lufthansa Sues Passenger Who Missed His Flight – 'Hidden City' Trick - boogdan
https://yro.slashdot.org/story/19/02/12/167235/lufthansa-sues-passenger-who-missed-his-flight-in-an-apparent-bid-to-clamp-down-on-hidden-city-trick
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detaro
previously
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19144006](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19144006)

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bootlooped
It's kind of insane that airlines both overbook flights in hopes that somebody
will accidentally miss a flight, but also get upset or sue people when they
intentionally miss a flight. They shouldn't be allowed to have it both ways.

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bufferoverflow
If they make a profit on a roundtrip, they definitely make even more profit if
the passenger skips a flight. So how can they claim damages?

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alkonaut
Flying A->B is more expensive than flying A->B->C. So you can get a cheaper
A->B flight by booking a leg to C that you never intend to use. (For example
because C is a destination the airline needs to compete on price aggressively
with, while B is a destination with less competition so the airline sees an
opportunity to have high prices there).

I have no idea why Lufthansa thinks this is within their rights according to
the law, so it will be very interesting to see.

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detaro
Because the courts have found it is acceptable? (The court here references a
decision of the highest German court saying so, and rejected the claim only
because Lufthansa wasn't transparent enough in how they calculated the
difference)

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alkonaut
Let me clarify: I have no idea how a legislator or court would think this is
reasonable either; I'm equally interested in a courts justification to how an
airline can force a customer to use both legs and this NOT being equivalent to
e.g. McDonalds requiring people to finish both the burger+fries if the meal is
cheaper than just the soda+burger.

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detaro
The main argument against in this case seems to have been that it's a
surprising clause in the terms (which would invalidate it), with the counter-
argument being that it's well known that these price differences exist, and
thus shouldn't be too surprising to a consumer that the airlines added rules
against their "clever trick", because otherwise the pricing wouldn't make
sense. Without a rule forbidding it, it's contractual freedom.

The case in front of the higher court was against airlines that cancelled
tickets (and denied transportation) when a leg wasn't taken, and the court
decided that this was too too unfair against customers that had legit reasons
to not make use of the leg and offered the requirement to pay the difference
as a compromise that still discourages passengers that plan this
intentionally.

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cft
If I order a combo meal in McDonald's but don't eat the fries, will I be sued,
because a burger plus coke separately is more expensive?

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wonthegame
Where I live a combo always costs slightly more than a burger+drink or
burger+fries. Where the third item is “only” 25 cents more, for example.

