Buying airline tickets can be painful on the wallet and hard on the brain.

Often it involves endless searches, pouncing on sales and the sale of a limb to scrape an economy ticket.

However, there is a controversial  trick that can save you up to half of your ticket – but airlines hate it.

Some airlines have even pursued legal action over people employing this hack known colloquially as “skiplagging”.

Skiplagging involves booking a flight with a layover where the layover location is actually where you want to go – and just skipping the secondary flight.

This is typically done when the flight actually costs less than a direct ticket to your destination.

Aktarer Zaman founded a website called Skiplagged in 2013 to help travellers unearth these deals. The site offers information rather than actual ticket sales.

It will show you “hidden city flights” – another term for skiplagging – but the actual ticket sales will go through the airlines or travel agencies.

Speaking to the New York Times, he revealed that the tactic is despised by airlines. United Airlines, American Airlines and Southwest Airlines are among the firms who have sued Zaman’s company.

“We work with big companies like Priceline and other travel companies, and pass along customer information but we don’t actually do any of the ticketing. The information is what people come for — most of them are just getting information and price comparison.”

Most recently, Skiplagged was ordered to pay American Airlines a whopping $9.4 million.

However, Zaman says despite the controversy, his website was used by more than 12 million people in the last year, offering incredible savings. 

He said: “Every month, about 25,000 people are skiplagging through our platform. We tell people not to do it too often with the same airline.

“I don’t agree at all that the airlines are losing money. It’s very possible these sales wouldn’t have happened otherwise. And let’s not forget that these travellers are actually paying for both the segments, what they’re flying and what they’re skipping.”