This Skiplagging Travel Tip Will Protect Your Flights

Whenever a travel article hits a nerve with our readers, it can be tough to pinpoint exactly which nerve that is. Take Men’s Journal’s recent coverage on skiplagging—a slick, airfare-saving hack that travelers are either interested in learning about, possibly trying, discovering they’ve been routinely doing for years (without realizing there was an actual name for it), or confirming that it’s something they’d never risk.

While no web metrics can parse exactly why What Is Skiplagging—and Is it Worth the Increasing Risks? was one of our most popular travel reads of 2023, what’s become clear for 2024 is that now's the time to stop skiplagging, or refrain from starting.

Related: What Is Skiplagging—and Should You Risk It?

If you’re hooked on the practice, which is technically not illegal but prohibited by airlines, we’d at least strongly advise you to temper the habit. Like counting cards in Reno, the house always ends up tapping you on the shoulder at some point. In the case of skiplagging, that time appears to be coming—along with some of the harshest consequences imposed by companies determined to quash it.

Skiplagging works by finding a cheaper flight to an inexpensive hub with a layover in your actual destination. Then you hop off in the layover city instead of re-boarding for your connecting flight to a ticket’s final destination—thus capitalizing on the often lower airfares to hub cities you have no intention of flying all the way to.

The question skiplaggers ask: If it’s significantly cheaper to fly from Hartford to Chicago than Detroit, or from London to Istanbul than Athens—why wouldn’t a Detroit- or Athens-bound traveler (without checked baggage) opt for a cheaper ticket to where they're headed via a layover and bail at their secret final destination halfway—even if the airlines obviously don’t want us doing that?

Related: Need a Passport Fast? Here's How I Got Mine in Under 7 Hours

Answer: Because the airlines really don’t want us doing it now; and they’re making it harder to pull off, with greater consequences if caught.

“Intentionally creating an empty seat that could have been used by another customer is an all-around bad outcome,” American Airlines told Men's Journal in a prepared statement. The airline claims the practice can severely impact other travelers, lead to flight delays, cause checked baggage problems, and undermine pricing systems which can end up biting back on consumers.

The worst outcome of all at this point is likely to be for the perpetrator. Skiplagging detection has gotten more sophisticated, penalties are now stiffer, and stories of busted skiplaggers seem to becoming more frequent—and dissuading.

Travelers caught in the act can now be fined, banned from future flights, stripped of mileage points and loyalty status, and have return flights canceled entirely if skiplagging is attempted on a roundtrip flight.

First-time offenders shouldn’t expect any leniency. Last summer, American Airlines famously detained, interrogated, and yanked a teenager from a Florida flight to New York—on his first ever flight alone—after pegging him (correctly) for planning to jump ship at his layover connection in Charlotte.

The young traveler’s family claimed to have skiplagged for many years without incident, but as airlines are more determined than ever to keep the practice in check, these interventions are now reportedly on the rise. Increasingly, “it’s like playing a high stakes hand in poker,” says Timon van Basten, a longtime skiplagger based in Europe.

Travel is filled with an assortment of calculated risks. From the moment we audaciously decline that Allianz flight insurance when buying our ticket, to the minute we throw total caution to the wind and order those airport ribs and a cocktail at 10:30am (because time of day isn't relevant here, right?) before boarding a five-hour flight, we're playing certain odds.

The way we plan and conduct our travel these days (often without dealing with a soul from ticket purchase to gate) might lead us to feel like nobody’s really watching. If there’s a takeaway from our closer look at skiplagging this year, it’s this: They are, and closer than ever.

Saving a little dough on a plane ticket with a tactic that can get you seriously burned while aggravating other travelers in the process may not be against the law (they're working on it), but it's now officially penny wise, pound foolish, and probably bad travel karma to boot.