Brooklyn immigrant’s website uses hidden method to find airline discounts
A young Brooklyn immigrant from Bangladesh who graduated from Brooklyn Tech High School has invented a search engine that lets people find cheap air fares through a controversial method.
Aktarer Zaman’s site, Skiplagged, alerts users to “hidden city” fares. Skiplagged finds instances in which a ticket to fly from City A to City B to City C is less expensive than a direct ticket to City B. Instead of traveling to the final stop as he told the airline he would, the traveler departs at the midway point, according to NY1.
For example, a direct flight from New York City to Cleveland can cost $443, but a flight to Chicago with a stop in Cleveland costs $280, NY1 reported. The site is big enough that United Airlines sued Zaman. A judge threw the lawsuit out of court, but the National Association of Airline Passengers warns that “the fine print on most airplane tickets typically forbids hidden city fares,” NY1 said. Zaman warns airline passengers to use the site only a few times a year to avoid calling attention to themselves. And, of course, if you do use the site to go to a midway point, you can’t check your baggage — otherwise, it will end up at the flight’s final destination.
Brooklyn Boro
View MoreNew York City’s most populous borough, Brooklyn, is home to nearly 2.6 million residents. If Brooklyn were an independent city it would be the fourth largest city in the United States. While Brooklyn has become the epitome of ‘cool and hip’ in recent years, for those that were born here, raised families here and improved communities over the years, Brooklyn has never been ‘uncool’.