One Way Airfares are Showing Cheaper than Multi-City Fares

Contrary to your experience (but I believe you, cause none of this makes any sense), but if you want to make one way trips within Europe its often cheaper to buy a round trip ticket. I cant imagine what the penalty would be for missing the return leg? Sometimes the one-way is twice the cost of the round trip ticket (why???).

Often for convenience as much as price I will book round trip to say Frankfurt, then use discount carriers to get to the rest of my trip and returning to Frankfurt for the trip home. One thing I have learned is there is no one perfect method. You have to just keep testing ideas until you find what works best for you.

Thank you for responding. When I’ve traveled in the U.S., it has been more expensive to book two, one way trips rather than a roundtrip or open jaw one. I’m not experienced with foreign travel so was curious why my searches are showing the opposite. I’ll keep checking…..

www.skyscanner.net is a very good search engine for flights. If you click for the WHOLE MONTH view - it is easier to spot days when fares are lower - or even that flights exist. However, just like going on the sites of airlines, the minute you click a cheap outward flight, the return prices seem to automatically jump upwards.

Wowair of Iceland are offering cheap flights between N America & Europe (via Iceland). One way savings can be made is by flying with them to smaller airports. For example, you plan to visit London and southern Britain; with Wow, you could fly into Bristol - which is very near to Bath. Being as you plan to visit Bath in any case, by using Bristol are are getting cheaper flights (hopefully) than you would by landing at Heathrow - where airlines have to pay higher landing fees.

AirTransat are another carrier with relatively cheap trans Atlantic fares.

Don't assume that to get to the UK you have to use London. Other airports such as Manchester & Birmingham also have trans Atlantic flights. You can also fly direct to Scotland. Cardiff does not have trans Atlantic flights but is trying to get them.

Hi Pamela,
I've never thought to compare two one-way flights to a multi city booking. I do compare r/t and multi-city options though. For me, I have some priorities that I consider in addition to price:

-minimize the overall travel time

-avoid connecting in the mid-west/east coast

-two-aisle plane over a 757

-later arrival times preferred to help with jet lag

-frequent flier miles

If you have a place to stay and leave your car in Seattle or Portland, these might be good options if you can avoid connecting at another airport on the way home in the USA and having to have the long connection to go through immigration/customs.

Nordheim, you left out "appropriate" layover times.....

Nothing surprises me anymore as to airfares. One must run all the permutations to find the best price. Think creatively.

Our experience with most trans-Atlantic carriers is that one-way is usually more expensive than either roundtrip or multi-city, for instance on Delta's direct Seattle-Amsterdam flight. However, Iceland Air is known to have reasonable one-way fares from Seattle (as do budget carriers within Europe).

I saw low one-way fares to Europe using American Airlines through consolidators, but I didn't click through to see if these fares were real. They were one-third the price of the other legacy carriers and on third party sites, not AA.

Oddly enough, I recently had the same experience using one-ways vs a multi city itinerary using Icelandic with Kayak. Going, my one-way is RDU-BOS-KEF-FRA. and the return is FCO-KEF, and KEF-BOS-RDU. The major saving(in time and cost) was using Germanwings FCO-KEF rather than Icelandic. Same happened fro wife and grandsons' tickets to meet me in AMS(they going IAD-KEF-AMS) and flying back with me. Dates going for them were 5 June returning 23 June.
AS an aside, have found better deals over the last year using Emirates or Turkish or EU partners of U.S. carriers even though the UA is either refusing to issue points or discounting points with their partners. Fare-wise it's really a jungle out there.

I wonder if this is a new trend. Not Europe, but we are making college visits to Florida in April and it was cheaper for me to book 2 one-way flights on Jet Blue rather than their roundtrip for the exact same flights. The only issue was that to do so, I had to open up 2 different search engines (google chrome & explorer). Otherwise if I just opened another tab, it would revert to the higher price.

Interesting - I thought it was just a fluke.

OK, so if an airline quotes fares as one-way prices (Icelandic, Norwegian, Southwest) it might be cheaper to do 2 one-way -- but on many major airlines a one-way flight signals "I'm ready to pay anything just to get there"
Good reminder to check alternative routings.

I would love to see booking one ways to Europe be cheaper or at least equal to buying r/t. I haven't seen that yet.
Both my daughters are going to school where they have to fly home, one in France and one in AZ. I'm finding that flying within the US, 2 one ways end up being the same price as buying r/t tickets. Southwest and Jet Blue even show their fares separately for each way. I buy my daughter that is at the UofA in Tucson one way tickets all the time. Now my daughter in France, buying r/t is typically a lot cheaper than one way tickets. She is doing her Master degree in France and they require internships at the end of each school year, her internship last year was in Quito, Ecuador. She flew Paris to Quito, Quito to Boston, Boston to Paris within 5 months for just under $1200 on American. We pretty much knew when and where she needed to be so we were able to buy her tickets together. This year on the other hand, she didn't learn exactly where her internship was going to be until after her intended date to fly home from France for Christmas. So I had to get her a one way ticket Paris to Boston. It was $639. She found out after Christmas that she was going to Ecuador again and has to be there for a Jan 11 orientation. Its a minimum 6 month internship but she isn't sure when she will come home so again we did a one way Boston to Quito for $359, (round trip Boston to Quito, Quito to Boston the day we booked her flight was $529). By far the most expensive leg will be Boston back to Paris but we are going to deal with that when the time comes. When I was looking at airfares Paris to Boston for her the $639 was Aer Lingus, Air France wanted $2800!
We booked r/t Boston to Nice(through Paris) and then Paris to Boston back in Sept/Oct to visit her and paid $895 on Air France.

If ever looking at WOWair, check their fees before booking. They charge for a carry on(15lb max) $48 if paid ahead $57 if paid at the airport and that is per leg. So Paris to Boston through Iceland would be 2 legs. Checked bags are $67 if paid ahead, $86 if paid at the airport, per leg. And they have a 20kg/44lb max weight.

http://wowair.us/travel-info/fees-charges/

Thanks all! I appreciate the tips and your time in responding.

My experience is multi-city flights are generally an approximate average of round trips to two cities.

I agree with the above comment, you have to consider all the permutations - be creative.

I've saved on flights by simply reversing my route. For example flying into Rome and home from Munich. There are dates (sometimes seasonal, sometimes simply related to supply/demand) that are cheaper into one place or another. Try moving the more expensive end to the date furthest from high season or high traffic dates.

I generally set up fare alerts on a bunch of options several months in advance. I'll then watch the price for a few weeks to get a feel for what a decent price looks like while thinking up (and setting up fare alerts) on new options. I'll continue to watch and book either when I see a particularly good deal or when seat assignments on the better itineraries start to book up.

Try moving your dates forward or back a few days to see how that affects fares.

I never go online, enter one option and book right then. Prices fluctuate regularly, both up and down. If the price goes up, don't panic. It's likely to go back down.

In addition to Pasco, Seattle and Spokane, consider Vancouver (both U.S. and Canada) and Portland (and maybe Pendleton), Oregon. You never know the option that will work out best until you check them all out.