American Airlines sues travel site after banning teen for using ‘skiplagging’ scheme

American Airlines is suing a travel site after a teen was banned from the airline for using the 'skiplagging' scheme.

In a bid to travel for less, many US travellers have been using skiplagging - a trick airline passengers can sometimes use to get where they're going for less money.

In some cases, the direct flight to a destination is more expensive than a flight to somewhere beyond that which goes via the place you actually want to be.

This is where skiplagging comes in - all you do is book yourself onto the cheaper flight and simply don't bother to get your connection, because you've already landed in the place you were hoping to travel to and saved some money to boot.

Teen Logan Parsons pulled this off when he wanted to fly from Gainesville, Florida, to Charlotte in North Carolina.

Facebook/Lisa Cain Parsons

A direct flight would have been pretty pricey, but a flight to New York via Charlotte didn't cost quite so much, so this is the journey Logan booked and since getting to Charlotte was his goal, he just didn't get on the plane to New York.

However, this method hit a snag when airport security clocked the teens North Carolina ID and took him to a security room to be interrogated, his dad claims.

According to Logan's dad, Hunter, the teen had his ticket canceled and he was forced to buy the direct flight.

Hunter later told Insider that his 17-year-old son had been banned from flying with American Airlines for three years because he'd tried skiplagging.

Following that, American Airlines is now taking legal action against Skiplagged Inc in a federal court case in Fort Worth, Texas.

In the lawsuit, American Airlines accused the website of deception and threatened to cancel every ticket that Skiplagged has sold.

Getty

The popular US airline also slammed the website of tricking customers into believing they can tap "some kind of secret loophole," adding that the website poses as a standard website to holidaymakers where they are told not to tip off the airline for the cheaper tickets.

American Airlines added that Skiplagged has never been authorized to resell tickets.

The airline said in the lawsuit: "Skiplagged’s conduct is deceptive and abusive. Skiplagged deceives the public into believing that, even though it has no authority to form and issue a contract on American’s behalf, somehow it can still issue a completely valid ticket.

"It cannot. Every ‘ticket’ issued by Skiplagged is at risk of being invalidated."

UNILAD has reached out to Skiplagged for comment.

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