Rather than hassle, annoy and piss off their best customers, why don't airlines simply rationalize their pricing structures? No wonder people are flocking to Southwest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- This article was sent to you by someone who found it on SF Gate. The original article can be found on SFGate.com here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=3D/chronicle/archive/2002/07= /14/TR175499.DTL ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunday, July 14, 2002 (SF Chronicle) United plans to track users of 'back-to-back' tickets Ed Perkins United Airlines just announced that it has both the technology and the will to go after travelers who violate the company's rules on "back-to-back" tickets. The airline is referring to the practice of buying two cheap round-trip tickets, both requiring a Saturday night stay, when the intent is to take one actual round-trip without staying over Saturday night. "Foolproof" ways to avoid detection have already appeared in the press, but I'm not so sure they'll work. Given the risks, I suggest trying several other alternatives before trying to use a tricky ticket. The allure of the back-to-back tactic is based on the fact that round trips without a Saturday night stay can cost as much as five times as the cheap round-trips that do require Saturday night stays. The airlines' idea, of course, is to make business travelers pay a lot more than leisure travelers, although the restriction often hits leisure travelers as well. Here's how it works. Let's say you want to leave home on Monday and retu= rn on Thursday. On a big airline, the cheapest ticket for that trip would be unrestricted coach, for, let's say, $1,200 round-trip. Too much money, you say, so instead of paying that price, you buy two separate round trips, both with a Saturday night stay, for, say, $240 each. Trip 1 starts in your home city on Monday and is supposed to return sometime after the following Sunday. Trip 2 starts from your destination on Thursday, and also returns after the following Sunday. Your total back-to-back cost, at $480, is less than half of what the airline wants you to pay for the single round trip you really want. Most travelers simply fail to show up for the return flights booked on both tickets. If you want to, however, you can book the return portions of both tickets for a second round-trip within 30 days. "No more," says United. "We have the technology to catch you." Although United isn't saying exactly what it will do when it detects your trick, the most likely action is to bill you the difference between what you paid and what United says you should have paid, enforcing any demands under threat of penalizing your frequent-flier account and status. For years, the standard prescriptions for avoiding detection have been to fly two separate airlines for the two cheap trips or, on one airline, to use different versions of your name (for example, Joe Doakes and Joseph Q. Doakes) at different addresses (home and office) with separate frequent-flier accounts. Either ploy is safe if the airline's detection system is based on a trace of your name or frequent-flier number. But what if the detection method is keyed simply to being a no-show for the return flights? Most airlines, I think, would say that any failure to show up for the return portion of a round trip violates ticket rules. In that case, the only way to avoid detection would be actually to take the second round trip. (This would require scheduling the first trip to return at a later date - - or at least a later time on the same day -- than the return flight of the second trip, so you will end up at home.) If you did that, along with one of the standard ploys, I think you'd be 100 percent safe. As of this writing, no other airline had announced plans to copy United's program, but I wouldn't be surprised to see it. Given the risks, I can't recommend back-to-back. If you want to avoid overpaying for a no-weekend trip, I suggest trying some alternatives: -- Fly a low-fare airline that doesn't penalize you so much for not staying over a weekend, even if you have to drive to a different airport at either end, or both ends, of your trip. -- Find, or ask your travel agent to find, a discounted consolidator ticket that doesn't require a Saturday night stay. -- Submit a bid for your trip on Hotwire or Priceline. =20=20=20=20 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright 2002 SF Chronicle