Flying Under the Radar: The Art of Hidden City Ticketing

As a frequent traveler one of my favorite hacks is hidden city ticketing and while I haven’t used it but a few times, it has saved me over $100 on multiple occasions and I would love to share it with you!

What is Hidden City Ticketing?

Hidden city ticketing, also known as point beyond ticketing, is a way to find cheaper nonstop tickets by booking a connecting flight to a final destination beyond yours but ending your journey at a layover point.

So, for example, last year I had to make a trip to San Diego on relatively short notice. The round-trip flight was a bit extreme for my dates and I was looking at $350ish for Austin to San Diego and back. After some research I found a fight from Austin to San Jose with a layover in San Diego for only $220. That was a $130 savings right there!

How is this possible?

Airline pricing rules are complex and not always logical and that is why we are able to find flights like this where a flight going way longer distance has a cheaper price. Airfares are determined by the supply of flights and the demand for flights between those two cities, as well as some other factors. So, in the example above you can imagine that the Austin to San Diego flight had much more demand than did the…