Comment The case in December... (Score 2) 502
The court decision can be found here: https://www.franz.de/fileadmin/user_upload/urteil_ag_mitte_anonymisiert.pdf
The decision back then argued that LH can actually put in their Conditions of Carriage that if a leg of the flight is not taken, LH has the right to charge a price difference.
The reasons why it did not accept the argument:
* there is no transparency as to how the price difference is calculated. The passenger cannot check anywhere online what the equivalent price would be without the last leg, thus the clause cannot be made effective
* there is not a maximum amount specified nowhere, so that the passenger has no clue what would be the maximum consequence of not taking the last leg
* LH arguments that the tariff difference should apply to the whole round trip, that is the new calculation should be for the route Oslo-Frankfurt-Seattle-Frankfurt-Berlin (instead of Oslo as the last leg as originally booked, the passenger took a separate flight from Frankfurt to Berlin, which was paid separately). The court rejected this argumentation, saying the applicable route would be Oslo-Frankfurt-Seattle-Frankfurt. The fact that the passenger took another flight to Berlin should not play a factor here, as the airline only found out about it because it was booked with the same airline.
In summary, do not book the alternative route with the same airline
Sounds strange though that the court would admit the argument that you have to pay more for using less, as a way for the carrier to be able to protect their pricing structure.