Flying into one city and out of another

Jim,
My wife and I just came home last night from Rome. We flew to Paris last Thursday the 21st. I have found the best way to do this on Kayak.com. Choose the Multi City function like the others have said above. We have an awesome opportunity (as do you) to do this in a city like Chicago where you can fly direct to many cities in the world. We actully found these flights cheaper than either RT to Rome or Paris and it worked awesome. Good Luck.
Nate

Also quite possible - and no more "expensive" - for those cheapskates like me who use frequent flyer miles and never pay for a ticket. There's usually little reason to fly home from the city you fly in to.

This option, to fly into one city and out of another, is commonly called flying "open-jaws." It never seems to be called anything that simple on the travel websites!

On websites, look for something like "multi-city" when you're searching flights. On Lufthansa and United, I believe, you use the "multi-segment journey" function. Your first segment would be your home departure city, flying to your initial destination in Germany. Then your second segment would be the final destination in Germany (where you intend to fly home from) to your home city.

The fare itself may or may not be cheaper than round-trip. But when you factor in travel time and expense that you would incur if you were flying round-trip, and had to get yourselves back to your original city, then you do save money flying open jaws.

The principle cost savings comes from not having to back track to your original location. And sometimes it can be cheaper depending on airports used. A couple of years ago we fly into Rome and home from Zurich. It was about $200 cheaper than RT to Rome but never price a RT from Zurich. Recently checked for a friend on a Paris/London flight and it was $10 more expensive that RT to London. When using travel search engines you have to use multi-cities options sometimes under the advance search functions. It is always available just may not always give cheaper tickets.

Lexma is correct. We have started flying "open jaw" and though it may seem more expensive to do this, you do "save" yourself time, money and aggravation.

Going back to your starting point is a huge waste of time and money.

All responses very helpful. Thank you very much.

I just booked tix open-jaw from DC->Moscow and St Petersburg->DC. The total cost difference was only about $30 more than a simple round trip.

I don't know why people have so much problems booking open-jaw. Most travel websites allow you to do it easily.

For those using free air miles (like I do exclusively), you can always book a round trip and add an extra leg on the return flight home.

For example, on my most recent trip to Italy, I used air miles to get a round trip from SFO to Milan. We started in Milan and ended in Sicily. I simply added a one way from Sicily to Milan for about $50 with plenty of time to make the connection home.

I always use frequent flier miles, too, and use the free option of a "stopover" city. For example, last year we flew to Athens, with a stopover afterward (for a week) in Paris. Then we flew home from Paris. We didn't have to pay (or use extra miles) for the flight from Athens to Paris. Over Christmas, we flew into Brussels, stayed there a week, then flew from Brussels to Madrid, where we stayed 6 days, then flew home from Madrid, again not paying for the connection between Brussels and Madrid. All of these flights were on United or American airlines, and neither charged us additional miles for open jaws and the flights between the two cities. Delta, on the other hand, now tends to charge more miles for more complex itineraries. We always try to get the maximum value out of our frequent flier miles and stopover cities and open jaws routes accomplish this.