obelisk_complex

Sometimes, a flight that passes through the place you're going is cheaper than a flight that ends there. Skiplagged's real power is finding those flights for you. Much harder to do it manually.

I use Skiplagged all the time. Never noticed any penalties. A while back I started calling the airline's customer service to let them know that I won't make the next leg of my flight, just to be courteous so there's no chance they're waiting on me if everyone else is boarded early; once or twice that's actually even resulted in a partial refund.

I think you've just summed the problem very elegantly. Well done.