Sometimes my local grocery store puts something on sale where a larger
package sells for less than the smaller one. Even if I can't use it all, I
will buy the large size and can throw away, give to a friend or sell the excess.
You can't do that with airline tickets. If it's cheaper to fly from
Detroit to Omaha via Minneapolis than to go only as far as Minneapolis, you
can't buy a ticket to Omaha and get off in Minneapolis. You must buy the
higher priced ticket if you are going to Minneapolis. If it's cheaper to fly
from New York to Columbus via Detroit than to go only to Detroit, you can't
buy a ticket from New York to Columbus and get off in Detroit.
If you buy a car, the automobile manufacturer can not have an agreement
with the dealer that prevents you from reselling the car to someone else.
However, that's exactly what the airlines do. If the person to
whom I wish to sell my ticket can pass the airport & airline security
checks, that's all that should matter. Using the automotive analogy, if you
sell your vehicle, the manufacturer will disable your car so that no one else
can drive it. The person to whom you sell the car will have to pay the
manufacturer for a new car if they want to use it. You could elect not to use
the car but pay $100 and use the value of the car on a new vehicle. But sell it
to someone else, absolutely not.
The airlines have agreements called contracts of carriage that prohibit you from buying
a cheaper ticket and using only part of it or reselling the ticket or a part
of it. To use only a part of a ticket or use the ticket parts out of sequence
is also prohibited. No, it's not criminal law but civil law. If
you don't agree to their terms, don't buy their tickets. I'd love to have
it challenged in court.
