Correcting myself here: this particular example isn’t fraudulent. You asked for something that was being offered, you paid the asking price, and you got it. They’d sell it to you whether you intend to eat the fries or not. They don’t care. So there’s no misrepresentation and no reliance. Those elements aren’t met, so no fraud occurs.

Services can be different than goods in this regard. In the airline example, the seller prices flights differently for different destinations. When you indicate an intent to fly to city B by requesting a ticket with that destination, and the airline offers you a ticket whose destination is the one you asked for, their offer is made in reliance on your stated intent. So if you intentionally abandon your trip sooner, you reveal your true intent: to fly to city C. And if the price for flying to city C was higher, then you deprived the seller of a benefit they’d otherwise have had because they wouldn’t have sold you the ticket for the same price had you revealed your true intent at the start of the transaction.

I am sorry but I am seeing an exact analogy, other than your statement that services are somehow different from purchases. I am also depriving McDonald's from the added profit of selling me a coke and a burger separately for more than a meal, and I do have the premeditated true intent of not eating the fries, that I reveal by tossing them repeatedly every time I order a meal. Maybe it's harder to prove that I toss the fries every time, but according to your logic McDonald's in theory can collect the difference and threaten my credit too.

Again, nested depth limit but: I could have told the cashier "I only want a coke and a burger please" revealing my true intent. In that case, the cashier would have sold me what I wanted, for more money. Since I concealed my true intent from the cashier and said "I want a combo meal please" I deprived McDonalds of this profit.

Now if you tell me that I violated some written United contract, that I had to explicitly agree to when purchasing a multi-leg ticket, that's another matter. But I will still argue that that contract is not enforceable. And to my knowledge, they do not have a clearly visible contract with an opt in in this specific case.

My point is that the burden is on the airline to prevent such loopholes by revisiting their pricing schemes, rather than attempting to bully its passengers (also for Streisand effect reasons).

I’m sorry to say that you’d lose.

Law school is expensive, but I’d recommend attending if you’d like to better understand beyond what I’ve already said here.

In this hypothetical, McDonald’s does not care what you do with the fries they sold you. Even if you told them that you were just going to throw them in the garbage, they’d still sell you the combo at the cheaper price.

United, however, does care how you use the ticket they issue. How can you tell? Because they would not have sold you the ticket at the discounted price had you told them your true intent (to fly to a city other than your ticketed destination). They offered you a particular fare because they relied on what you claimed. That’s the difference.

The key to analyzing these questions is, what would the other person have done had they known your true intent? If they’d have done something different, then reliance can be shown and that element can be satisfied.

No, because you did not make, and McDonald's did not rely on, any representation of your intent to eat the fries.

What representation did that person make of his intent to fly to the final destination?

I'm not agreeing with the upthread poster’s characterization of that transaction, either (for similar reasons); see my response to their post further upthread.

Not at all, eating is not part of the contract, only receipt. If you buy a meal at McDonald's and throw all of it in the trash, that's not fraud. It's yours to do with how you please.

What if I repeatedly buy non-stop tickets and don't show up? I have done it a lot. According to you, I breached my promise to fly to the final destination?

The question is, would United sell you a ticket knowing you have no actual intent to fly? If they answer is yes, there’s no problem. If the answer is no, then there’s a problem.

Where have I said that?

Technically yes? Here's why techincally I law system fucking sucks and favors large corporations, because how in the world would the small guy be expected to find against someone suing us for this?

What if I habitually don't like fries? Say I have done it 2000 times?

What is the point of this debate? Only the fictional McDonald's in your fictional scenario knows. It's an unlikely situation to begin with, so let's stick to the facts at hand.

We bought a Juniper router on sale for $120,000 and did not use some of its functionality. A base model without this functionality was offered at $150,000 by the same salesperson. I can get the quotes and the invoice. Can Juniper force us to pay the difference and report to D&B?

Can't respond due to nesting depth. But I fail to see the difference between my company buying a more expensive model for less and not using the advanced functionality, and them ditching the last leg.

We're talking about whether the actions here constitute fraud. Take your example and test your actions against the elements I posted above, and see whether a plausible case can be made. I don't think they fit, so that's why I said no.

No, what's your point?

What would the recompense be? They hold you hostage until you eat all the fucking fries they paid you to eat?

The difference in price.

So, "No, you can't have that to go: we're gonna watch you either eat the fries you were paid $0.25 to eat, or else ask you to return the $0.25."