[krisoft]

> The worst part is that there is almost no clear coaching for how a person is supposed to get through this type of situation.

Not true. Before you buy someone a skiplegged ticket you explain to them how this works. Why their ticket will say a different destination from where they want to go and why the airlines want to discourage the practice. Explain what things can go wrong (no checked-in luggage, things can go wrong with diversions).

If someone can’t understand the concept, or it confuses them, or they are too naive or too honest to play this “deception” or too busy to receive this information then just don’t and buy a regular ticket.

> What are you going to say?

Simple. They might ask you where you are traveling to. Answer “new york”. If they ask “but where are you really traveling?” answer “new york man, how many times you want to ask the same question?” if they ask you anything about New York answer whatever you want as long as the answer implies you are planing to go there.

[public_defender]

Hey, this is great advice. Maybe it is as simple as "just lie about your destination and don't give up any additional information." I don't think that's as easy as you make it sound, but at least it's a clear strategy.

On the other hand, I think a lot of the difficulty in situations like this comes from not knowing that this is about the "skiplag" issue (or not knowing if it's only about that issue). I think there's also a likely scenario where the airline starts investigating you for one thing and just sort of throws the book of accusations at you when they don't like how the skiplag interrogation is going.

My first comment was more about that: the private actor interrogating people without clear rules or limits.