When is a ‘travel hack’ unethical? (opens in new tab)

I disagree with everything in this article. The assumption is that Americans should be scalped for airline tickets because, they're American and rich and deserve it. To take cheap tickets away from people in poorer countries by paying in Rupees or whatever is 'unethical'.

Well, airlines are a for-profit business. They don't choose their rates out of some public-service motivation. They charge what they think they can get away with. To re-cast that as some charity program that Americans shouldn't participate in, is pure fantasy.

Get the cheapest ticket you can, from whatever carrier you can find it from, with a clear conscience. Its business.

LOL, is this "native advertising" and is it for the airlines or the companies helping you buy cheap tickets?

Airlines are in my experience among the least ethically run businesses:

* They will cancel a flight at the last minute stranding passengers because it was "undersold".

* They will delay flights for reasons that have no accountability to consumers.

* They pass on 100% of the risk of flights being on time to consumers.

* They give gate attendants authority to claim your bag is "too large" for the overhead bin even when it fits just fine. They can even claim the overhead bins are full when they are not full.

* Airlines will try to make every seat on a plane "economy-plus" (when you have already purchased a ticket, but they haven't given you a seat assignment yet) when they are overbooked and the bump the passengers that don't pay.

On the contrary I challenge airlines to find one example where they act ethically even when their incentives are not to and the law would allow them to act otherwise.

Let's compromise. I promise to be totally clear, transparent, and straightforward in my ticket purchases as long as the airlines are totally clear, transparent, and straightforward in their ticket pricing.

Any takers? ...No?

I'm not sure why it would be ethical for a company to charge different for "location of purchaser's computer", but unethical of me to say "I am coming from a computer in a different location", particularly if I do it via legal means.

Would it also be unethical of me to call a (to use an example discussed in the article) Chilean travel agent to arrange the cheaper ticket for me? In that case, there would still be the implication that my location when purchasing is in Chile.

What if it's me having my Chilean business partner, or the travel pool in my company's Santiago office do the booking, since that is where I'll be traveling from on that leg?

I tried, I really tried, but I failed to be persuaded by an article shaming consumers for acting unethically towards shamelessly amoral corporations. Treat people the way you want to be treated, I suppose.

As long as airlines set prices in an unethical way (e.g. increase price the longer you look at an offer), there is no discussion to be had about the behavior of the buyers.

(Funny, so similar to the ad company / adblocking situation.)

Henry Flagler kept a quote in his office, "Do unto others as they would do unto you and do it first."

The airlines do everything legal to charge more and I do everything legal to pay less. The airline has an army of lawyers, lobbyists, and consultants and I have a VPN.

"Getting a good deal should comply with local laws and the travel company’s code of business conduct." Since when did an airline have the moral authority to declare a code of conduct for anyone but itself? Where did they find this lady?

When is it unethical for Facebook to pay less tax than the average working person?

When is it unethical for BP to say they're sick of cleaning up their oil spills and they're going to stop doing it?

When is it unethical for the bankers and mortgage lenders to do what they did in 2008?

When companies interact with us, they appear to have no ethical obligations of any kind, so it's amusing to think we're somehow bound to be ethical towards them.

Looking at the reactions of people to this topic, I come to believe there are two general approaches to life. Some people try to look at the whole game and want everyone to win, so they play by the rules. In terms of prisoner's dilemma, they choose to cooperate. Others notice that the market economy is designed around people being selfish, so they use it to justify defecting - minding only their own short-term interest.

As for ethics of this topic, I think the quoted government response about one such case is spot on - this is people acting in bad faith. Whether or not you think it's fine to act in bad faith depends on to which group you subscribe - defectors, or cooperators.

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EDIT: The article would make a much stronger point if it focused on the problem of "hidden city" tickets, where people choosing to reduce their travel costs are not just haggling over price, but breaking a deal and wasting airline's fuel.

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EDIT2: Took a shower, thought about it some more.

My initial paragraph isn't about airlines really, it's an observation made after seeing a stream of comments arguing for general selfishness.

As for problems with some of the travel "hacks", I have issues with two of those in particular. "Hidden city" flying is one, and using golden-card-carrying third party to buy you tickets is the second. Both of them introduce waste - the more people do that, the more often a plane flies with seats empty, wasting fuel that could otherwise provide utility by carrying other passengers. And speaking of other passengers, this is another thing to consider - if you use a travel "hack" that leaves an airplane with an empty seat, you're taking away the seat from another traveler, who could have used it. Or, given the discriminatory pricing, who could have paid less for it. So by using those kinds of tricks, people are not only hurting the airline, they're also hurting each other.

> But it also violates the airline’s fare rules, can get your travel agent in trouble and could lead to higher fares for everyone.

From a particular traveler point of view. Airlines are pretty few, and are consolidating, so in about 2 years you can find yourself banned from all 5-6 of them and have to take the train or drive. Has this ever happened I wonder? Can this happen? Airlines building private no-fly-lists and just refusing to do business with some people. Is that allowed legally.

Insurance companies do it:

https://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs26-CLUE.htm

Why can't airlines? I imagine travelers who do it, would get pretty vocal online, so maybe some airline will respond publicly and say "we don't care, come to us?"...

I don't buy the argument that it is unethical to find clever ways to gain services for a lower price. If actual harm is caused to an individual, then ethics come into play - but corporations are not people. "Harming" them doesn't cause me any angst. Even if I did concede that corporations deserve the same ethical treatment as actual people, they control their own tools, methods, and processes. If they created mechanisms that harm their own business, then it is their responsibility to close those loopholes, not mine as a consumer to opt out of using them.

The author must be trolling.

I always get the cheapest price and do not care about the other nonsense.

Virgin Atlantic have a great service where, upon booking an economy ticket, you can then bid for an upgrade. The person who bids highest, wins.

It's such a simple concept, but fantastic in that a higher priced seat that might have gone unsold, instead goes for what someone perceives its value to them to be.

Considering how often major US airlines have sought to dump their pension obligations toward employees in deference to management types and investors, making the rich richer and the working class poorer, I don't think they deserve any portrayal as bastions of the ethichal highground.

Really? This is capitalism and a free market economy. They sold the tickets, it's their own damn problem. If they don't like it, they should fix their ticketing systems.

If anybody needs to be shamed, it's the airlines themselves for arbitrary price discrimination.

Companies "hack" their customers all the time but somehow it's unethical for customers to do the reverse? It seems to some people the "free market" means corporations can do whatever they want but not vice versa.

Paying in another currency isn't unethical; the airline is expressing a strong desire to avoid exchange expenses and risk by dealing in their home currency. I understand the FTC position that it's not an offering directed at US consumers, however.

Sometimes there may also be regional differences in assessed fees and when they are displayed (maybe the Chilean price shown at ticket selection includes a different checked bag allowance, or does not show any airport fees that would be shown at time of payment)

I am absolutely not clear how changing one's IP is different from any other form of currency arbitrage - which is what this transaction is, and also what explains the cost difference between currencies from the airline's point of view - their native currency is easiest for them to transact in, and they pay additional costs to transact in other currencies.

In fact, the airline probably appreciates being paid in its native currency. Airlines from countries with currencies that aren't always easily convertible, such as airlines from the developing world, probably have to keep substantial reserves in currencies their customers tend to use, to ensure that they can always carry out transactions in that currency. If you buy your ticket in the native currency, then you've not required them to dig into that reserve, which is a win for them.

Conversely, this is probably not a win for the original questioner, because they probably paid a fee for currency conversion to their bank, which was probably larger than that paid by the airline, because the airline has more market leverage with which to set pricing contracts for currency conversion.

If it costs the airlines nothing extra, why am I being charged more for a seat based on where I am at the time of booking?

Everybody in this thread is talking about the ethics of this in terms of our obligation to the airlines. But what about your obligation to yourself?

I'm not saying I wouldn't do this -- I probably would -- but deception in general makes me uncomfortable, and whether you think this practice is justified or not, it's clearly based on concealing intentions. That sort of thing should at least make you pause.

As a side note, I've noticed that people seem to get confused about this, in general. A cheating spouse will come up with all sorts of reasons that their behavior was justified, without ever addressing the core offense: they weren't honest about it.

Washington Post must be getting some expensive airline travel advertising accounts.

> For instance, although Klaeysen holds a PhD, she won’t book a flight with the “doctor” title, because it implies she’s a physician, which may afford her preferential treatment.

Anyone who thinks that 'doctor' is reserved for physicians deserves whatever his mistake costs him.

As for the broader ethical issues: if one party wishes to charge differing rates according to certain attributes, then it's a-okay by me if the other party wishes to signal different attributes. What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

It's easy to think that all travel hacks are ethical if you think price segmentation is unethical.

I'm not convinced that's true. I don't feel pricing has to be a continuous distribution that feels "fair" to be ethical. Gaps in pricing are allowed. If customers feel differently, a transparently priced airline should be able to eat everybody's lunch. That hasn't happened, which makes me think there's value to consumers to segment aggressively.

This is another example how you should hide all the possible information about yourself to not being singled out and exploited.

So... Travel agencies have been ripping me off for my entire life due to the fact that I'm American... effectively making me pay double what some other world citizens pay.. and I'm supposed to feel GUILTY about it?

This should be the biggest class action suit ever.

Its not unethical to turn a company's unethical behavior on themselves.

Which airline company or group do you think sponsored this article?

I think everyone has mentioned it but fuck airlines, the shit they pull on a regular basis means they are void from any form of sympathy, especially from a consumer.

What happened to the +/- 3 days search thing?

Airlines have gotten really bad about ticket booking and market sector discrimination.

Steam regions, anyone?

Of course it's ethical...It's unethical by airlines trying to trick the user, in my opinion