Buying roundtrip airline tickets to save money?

john, did you look at booking it as a "multi-city" flight, also called open-jaw? That is into one city, return from the other. This gives you pretty much a round-trip fare, that is almost certainly less than two one way tickets. No one would book this as two, one way flights.

I agree that multi-city (open jaw) is probably the way to go.
Could also look at the cost of a RT ticket to someplace like Amsterdam and then using low cost European carriers to get you from there to your final destination and return. Might be a cheaper option, although the extra travel time and hassle involved may not make it particularly cost effective for you.

I was curious about this, so I took a quick look at airfares on Google Flights. For the randomly selected dates of May 2 - May 16 and flying out of ATL (GSP might well be more costly), I found some options around $1400 going into Dubrovnik and out of Ljubljana. If you're willing to buy from a booking site like Expedia, Vayama, etc. (I would not), you can save $100 - $150. There are a few one-stop itineraries out of ATL, but most are two stops.

It might be worth taking a look at returns from Zagreb as an alternative to Ljubljana, just in case there's a substantial difference in fares or flights are more convenient for your schedule. The two cities aren't very far apart, and Zagreb is also worth a visit. (I'm not discouraging Ljubljana; it's very nice.)

You want an open jaw flight plan. Be very careful about skipping legs of your trip to save money. Some airlines will cancel your entire itinerary if a leg is skipped and you take no action with the airline. If you are in the middle of a trip when this happens, your only recourse is to buy a one-way return ticket at an exorbitant price.

I know you all love the RS doing it yourself way and all the hype that the internet booking advertising is going to save you, BUT we have saved money and headaches by using a travel agent (YES they are still out there!) They can book these "open jaw" things you all talk about, they can get you your seats assigned at time of booking, they can deal with any changes you may need and their price for all this is very low. You may save a lot of money buy spending a little... Ask yourself what does the headaches of searching the internet do to you. I'll spend the $50.

Travel agents can be helpful, but if you're just planning to book an open-jaw (multi-city) airline ticket, you don't need a travel agent. That's not really any harder than buying a plain-vanilla round-trip ticket. You just tick a box on the web page and type in 4, rather than 2, airport codes. And going multi-city saves the hassle (and expense) of arranging return transportation back to the airport you flew into.

I do both, the open jaw and the r/t.

The main thing is whether you are oppose to backtracking as regards to time and expense. Most of the time I don't mind backtracking, sometimes you do that to accommodate your schedule to that of someone else.

If you prefer a direct return flight, how often is that available when doing open jaw, where instead of taking a flight of 11 hours back to SFO, (as an example) you have to change once or twice thus making the total flight time 16 to 20 hours, if the savings are ca $200? Various factors at play here, if one is traveling with family or solo, expense, number of plane changes and at which airport, ie, some airports in the USA I would rather just avoid going through.

The options can keep you guessing for weeks. Here is something on the one way ticket issue: http://traveltips.usatoday.com/use-roundtrip-ticket-one-way-13381.html

I am often pretty successful with an open jaw with a couple of one way discount airlines connecting the arrival and departure cities on the Open Jaw. For instance Dubrovnik to Zagreb is only $60 on Croatian Air. Then a short bus to Ljubljana.

here is what I am finding as I plan a trip for May 2017 (02-17). Using Skycanner, I chose multi-city so that I could start a tour of Croatia in Dubrovnik and end it in Pula or Rovinj. I thought the most number of flights and best prices might be through the larger cities so I chose Denver-Rome outbound and Venice-Denver as my return. These two flights together cost $471. My arrival in Rome is at 0905 and I pick up the Rome-Dubrovnik at 1450 of the same day for $48. I plan on using the Bus Croatia website where you can see fares and schedules and make reservations for inter-country travel. Try Croatia Ferries for the ferry schedule. My Rovinj-Venice ferry is around $70. Total, except for bus and taxi is $589.

To your question, I did it once on a short trip within Europe. It worked out okay, but it's the second leg you have to skip or the ticket will be canceled.

An alternative to an open jaw (which probably will work out best) is to fly RT to a cheap major hub that has discount Airline connections to Dubrovnik and Ljubljana. These flights can be well under $100. Google Flights has a great interface for that sort of planning as you can choose search parameters such as DUBROVNIK, NONSTOP, EUROPE. to see all the possible nonstop flights out of Dubrovnik. Do the same with Ljubljana and see if there are any common destinations, then check for RT to that destination.