It is an airline booking strategy passengers use to reduce their flying costs. Hidden city ticketing occurs when an indirect flight from city A to city C, using city B as the connection node, turns out to be cheaper than the direct flight from city A to city B.

Hidden city ticketing exists because of the "hub-and-spoke" pricing model used by major airlines. In this system, airlines often price a connecting flight (e.g., New York to Los Angeles via Chicago) cheaper than a direct flight (New York to Chicago) to compete with other carriers on the longer route. This creates a "price anomaly" where it is literally cheaper to buy a ticket to a further destination and simply "get off" at the layover city. Airlines view this as a loss of revenue and a disruption to their inventory management, which is why they include "no-skip" clauses in their terms of service. For 2026 travelers, while sites like Skiplagged make these deals easy to find, the existence of this pricing structure is a result of airlines prioritizing market share on competitive long-haul routes over the simple "mileage-based" pricing that consumers might expect.