FAQ

You tell us where you fly from, where you are going, your dates and your booking class. First we price the ticket you would otherwise have bought from your own airport. Then we look for the same trip bought somewhere else: the identical seat, on a ticket that begins in a neighbouring country, or a routing no airline sells as a single through ticket.

Those are two different ticket shapes, and you choose the one you prefer before the scan runs.

Each scan prices either «Via home hub» or «Via foreign hub». If you chose «Via home hub», seeing «Via foreign hub» takes a new search.

Because a long-haul fare is priced by the country the ticket is sold in, not by the distance flown.

Hubs like Zurich, Frankfurt, Munich and Vienna are often far more expensive than other European hubs.

With «Via home hub» you get the seat on the same aircraft, but you start from a country like Hungary, Italy or Spain, and that is where the cheaper fare comes from.

With «Via foreign hub» we find the hub that gets you to your destination for the least.

No. Row One does not show connections an airline got wrong. We show connections the usual search engines do not look for, because they involve a stopover.

The prices Row One shows are the airline’s own published fares, from a hub you would not normally fly out of.

Our results are the prices the airlines are showing at the moment your scan runs. We read them live, the way SWISS, Lufthansa, Austrian and other airlines publish them, as well as the booking sites that sell them. Book directly on the seller’s own page and you get the price you saw on getrowone.com. Fares move and seats sell, so every result carries a link straight to the seller, where you see the price before you pay. To keep the price from moving, book straight after the search.

Row One compares live against the fare you would otherwise have bought from your hub, on the same dates, in the same cabin.

Which fare that is depends on the ticket shape.

When you ask for the same flights «Via home hub», you see the flights out of your hub listed and you choose the option you want the cheaper connection for.

When you choose «Via foreign hub», there is no aircraft to match, so the scan takes the cheapest flight on that same list: your home airline’s nonstop from your hub where it flies one, otherwise a routing within its alliance, otherwise the cheapest fare sold from there. The board names the benchmark above the results, so you can see what your saving is measured from.

No, Row One does not sell tickets – they have to be booked with the seller directly. Row One takes no commission and no booking fees on the results.

Row One runs on a subscription (details under Pricing).

No. Skipping a flight you have paid for is not a crime anywhere we operate. No passenger has been prosecuted for it and no criminal statute covers it.

What it can be is a breach of the airline’s conditions of carriage, which is a private contract matter. The distinction matters: the worst realistic outcome is a civil claim for a fare difference, not a legal record.

The one real test of this in Europe went against the airline. In 2018 Lufthansa sued a passenger who had flown Oslo to Frankfurt to Seattle and back, then got off in Frankfurt instead of taking the final leg home to Oslo, and claimed EUR 2,112. A Berlin court dismissed the claim in December 2018. Lufthansa withdrew its appeal in October 2019, making the dismissal final, and its own lawyer conceded that the terms it had relied on were incompatible with German law. In October 2025 the German Federal Court of Justice struck down Lufthansa’s blanket surcharge clause outright (X ZR 110/24), holding that it unfairly caught passengers who missed a segment for reasons outside their control.

That same ruling accepted that airlines have a legitimate interest in acting against passengers who book segments they never intend to fly. Airlines can rewrite their terms, and this is not settled forever.

That is your decision, and you make it before the scan runs. «Via foreign hub» is flown end to end: the hop out, the long flights and the hop home, and the saving is simply a cheaper fare bought in another country. With «Via home hub», the way back brings you through your own airport again, whether that is Zurich, Frankfurt, Munich or Vienna, and you can get off there. The board shows both numbers: what it costs to get off at your airport, and what it costs to fly every leg.

Two practical ones, neither of them legal risks.

Your checked bag. Luggage is tagged to the ticket’s final destination by default. You can ask for it to be short-checked to the point where you will actually get off, and agents often agree, but it is discretionary. Hand luggage removes the question.

Your frequent-flyer account, mostly if you fly US carriers. American and United name hidden-city ticketing in their contracts of carriage and reserve the right to revoke miles and close accounts. Both have sent passengers demand letters invoking it, in each documented case after a pattern of 15 to 38 bookings rather than a single trip. European programmes are drafted differently: Miles & More’s misuse rules address the buying and selling of miles, not how you use a ticket you paid for. Lufthansa’s answer to hidden-city has been to invoice the fare difference, which it tried once, in court, and lost.

Yes, and this is the part most people get wrong. Skipping the final leg is the low-risk case: there is nothing left in the booking for the airline to touch. Skipping an earlier segment is materially riskier. In 2023 the German Federal Court of Justice confirmed (X ZR 25/22) that an airline may cancel the rest of your itinerary and refuse to carry you, and owes no EC261 compensation when it does. We never build a routing that asks you to skip anything but the last leg.

No. Skiplagged looks for a cheaper city beyond your destination on a single ticket, and sold tickets itself. We look for a cheaper country of sale for the trip you were already taking, and sell nothing. The «Via foreign hub» option is flown end to end, and you choose the shape before a scan runs.

On a short hop, priced in the same scan and therefore already inside the total.

Economy for a Business ticket, Business for a First ticket, unless you choose otherwise in your profile.

Our results always include the hop. The hop and its seller are listed separately from the booking, because it is a booking of its own.

If your hop is late, the long flight is not held for you, and no airline owes you a rebooking. A late hop is the biggest risk of holding two separate tickets, but the search only shows results that respect the connection time you asked for. The default assumes checked bags and two hours.

You can cut that time down by travelling with hand luggage, or set it yourself. Row One recommends booking the hop the evening before if you want more of a margin. The results show when a routing needs a night away. The price of that hotel night is yours to budget for.

Sometimes, and where it works we say so on the result. The aeroplane that flies you out to the start city is often the same one that leaves again as your ticket's first flight, about fifty minutes later. If it runs late, your first flight runs late with it, and your first flight is part of the long-haul ticket. If it is cancelled, the long-haul ticket does not cover it, because the hop is still a booking of its own and the risk of holding two separate tickets is yours. It is hand luggage only, you check in for the long-haul ticket before you go, and we work the aeroplane out from the timetable rather than being told what it is.

With both «Via home hub» and «Via foreign hub» you collect your bag and check it in again. It is always two separate bookings, so the bag is not checked through. That is why the default connection floor is two hours rather than one.

That depends on which ticket shape you chose.

With «Via home hub» the way back brings you through your own hub before the ticket ends in the start city. You get off there and you are home. You only need the hop on to the start city if you want to fly every segment, so the board lists it as a leg you can leave out and shows both totals.

With «Via foreign hub» the ticket ends where it began, in the start city. The hop from there back to your own airport is part of the journey and sits inside the total. A routing only reaches your results when that flight home exists on the same day; where it does not, the routing is not shown.

It depends on which airline operates the flights. The country the ticket was sold in changes nothing. On another airline in the same alliance, award miles and points are credited but status points are not, so this does not affect Senator and HON status.

Leaving Europe, EU Regulation 261 applies, and it protects you against delay, cancellation and denied boarding. EC261 covers any departure from an airport in the EU or in Switzerland, whichever airline operates the flight. Coming back, this applies only if the airline is from the EU or Switzerland. A non-European airline flying you home carries no EC261 compensation for a cancellation or long delay. UK airlines sit outside EC261 since Brexit, under their own regime.

Row One shows the seat type the airline reports for every long-haul leg, and flags it when a recliner is sold instead of a flat bed.

The long-haul ticket is protected by the airline that sold it. What is not protected is the relationship between your two bookings: if the long flight moves a day, the hop you bought separately does not move with it. Cheap fares are usually heavily restricted, so check the rebooking and cancellation rules on the page of the seller / the airline before you buy. The terms that apply are those of the airlines or of the seller directly.

Possibly. A ticket that begins in another country means an extra border and sometimes an extra Schengen entry. Row One takes no responsibility here, and you have to check for yourself whether you need a visa.

Zurich, Frankfurt, Munich and Vienna for now. Other hubs are being evaluated over time. If you are interested in a particular hub, write to help@getrowone.com.

Row One covers Business class and First class, to show you the best possible routings and savings. The Explorer plan includes Business class connections only. The Pro and Suite plans also show First class connections.

One scan at Row One is around a hundred live fare lookups. The search usually takes 2-4 minutes, because in that time we price your whole trip once and check every connection and every fare live.

Row One looks up your travel dates and fares live. Every one of those lookups costs Row One money, and that is why your plan decides how many scans you get.

If your scan returns no valid results, Row One says so, and a scan like that costs you nothing.

On a monthly plan, unused scans expire. On an annual plan you get the year’s allowance at the start, the scans for all 12 months, and you can use them as you like until the year ends. Your account page shows how many scans you have left and when they expire.

No, there are no free plans at Row One. You get a preview in your first scan. That already shows you your savings. To see the exact flight connections you have to take out a plan. The plan opens the scan with the exact flight connections and sellers.

The preview scan is a real scan. It prices the fare from your hub, searches the start cities around your hub, and shows each routing that beats the hub fare as a saving: the amount, the percentage, the cabin, and whether that saving assumes getting off at the hub on the way back. The start city, the airline, the flight numbers and the sellers stay hidden and are only shown once a plan has been taken out. The scan is kept in your history, and the day you choose a plan it opens in full, with the details.

Three ways, and all of them work. The cancel button on your account page ends it in one step. The billing page in your account opens Stripe’s own page, where your card lives. There is also a cancellation form at getrowone.com/kuendigen that needs no sign-in, which is the one to use if you cannot get into your account.

Change or cancel your plan any time. Moving to a bigger plan takes effect at once: the searches you have not used are valued at what you paid for them and credited against the new plan, never more than the period cost you, and a new billing period starts that day with the new plan’s full allowance. Anything left of the credit stays on your account against later invoices. Moving to a smaller plan is not a change but a cancellation: cancel, keep your current plan and all its remaining searches to the last day of the period you have paid for, and subscribe to the smaller plan after that. Packs and bonus searches are not touched either way. If you are billed yearly you can only move to another yearly plan; to be billed monthly instead, let the year you have paid for run out and subscribe monthly after that. A cancellation takes effect at the end of the period you have already paid for, and your access runs to the end of it.

Your last 25 scans stay in your search profile.

With the Pro and Suite plans you can actively watch routes. Pro includes one watched route, Suite includes five watched routes. A watched search is a saved search we run again for you once a week. Pick a trip in your results or in your history and press “Watch this route”. Every week we run the search again with your search criteria and send you the result. This weekly check does not use one of your scans, because it is included in the Pro and Suite plans.

Row One is operated by Luceris GmbH, a Swiss company. Contact us at help@getrowone.com if you have any questions. The registered address is in the Impressum.