Aktarer Zaman was just 20 years old when he launched Skiplagged in 2013. Fresh from a year as a software engineer at Amazon, he identified a problem that experienced travelers had long known about but couldn't easily exploit: hidden city ticketing.

The Hidden City Loophole

Hidden city ticketing works like this: sometimes it's cheaper to book a flight with a layover in your actual destination city than to book a direct flight there. You simply exit at the layover and skip the final leg.

"I identified a problem - the seeming arbitrary nature of airfares - and attacked it," Zaman explained. He built hard-to-replicate searches that could find these hidden city fares automatically.

United Airlines Fights Back

In November 2014, when Zaman was just 22, United Airlines and Orbitz sued him. They claimed his website violated their terms of service and helped travelers circumvent airline pricing.

But Zaman didn't back down. "It's been a fun journey," he said. The lawsuit brought massive publicity to his small startup, and traffic exploded.

David Beats Goliath

The case was eventually dismissed. Skiplagged had won against one of the world's largest airlines. The publicity turned what was a niche tool into a mainstream travel hack that millions now use to find cheaper flights.

Today, Skiplagged continues to operate, helping budget-conscious travelers save money on flights by exploiting the same pricing inefficiencies that airlines don't want you to know about.