NEW YORK, Sept. 2 — The story of skiplagging begins with a simple arithmetic problem: a flight from New York to Orlando for $350, or a flight from New York to Dallas that happens to land in Orlando first, for $170. For the traveler willing to abandon the second half of the journey, the choice is obvious.
That is the bargain at the heart of hidden-city flying, a tactic that has grown louder as U.S. airfares climbed 18% year-over-year, with the average domestic round-trip ticket reaching $628 in May 2026, according to Airlines Reporting Corporation data. Aktarer Zaman, CEO of Skiplagged, the search engine that surfaces these cheaper itineraries, says about half of his site’s bookings are made within a week of travel — precisely when last-minute fares spike hardest.
Skiplagged’s own statistics claim users save an average of 47%, or $180, per flight, and that 298,967 people skiplagged in the past year, saving a combined $53.6 million. Zaman adds that 99.7% of travelers who used the site to skiplag in the past month completed their trips without problems.
Why airlines are fighting back
Airlines see it differently. Jesse Neugarten, CEO of Dollar Flight Club, says the practice disrupts pricing models built on the assumption that passengers complete full itineraries, costing carriers revenue and complicating seat allocation. American Airlines has been the most aggressive in court: in October 2024, a federal jury awarded the carrier $9.4 million in its copyright infringement and “ill-gotten” revenue suit against Skiplagged — roughly half of what the airline sought.
The legal record is mixed. A judge dismissed a United lawsuit against Skiplagged in 2015, and Southwest’s 2021 suit was settled out of court.
American warns that skipped segments can create operational problems with checked bags and block other customers from booking seats, calling the intentionally created empty seats “an all-around bad outcome.”
A game of rules and workarounds
Skiplagging is not illegal, notes travel advisor Duncan Greenfield-Turk, CEO of Global Travel Moments, but it violates most airlines’ terms and conditions. Penalties can include losing miles and frequent flyer benefits, being barred from future flights, or being charged for the missed segment. For those willing to play, the strategy demands discipline: book one-way tickets only, never check a bag (it will fly to the final destination), carry just a backpack that fits under the seat, skip entering frequent flyer numbers, and avoid repeating the tactic on the same route.
Zaman’s argument is simple: if airlines lowered fares to hub cities, skiplagging would disappear on its own. For now, the question is whether carriers will change their pricing — or keep changing their terms — before travelers change their habits.
