One Way Flight to Europe from U.S., Is That Okay?

yes it will cause problems and you will have to explain your plans and how you will support yourselves and how you will pay for your return flight

I've never been asked for a return ticket, but I have been asked how long I intended to stay, nature of the visit. And to be honest, nobody would look at me and think I would be looking for a job. Just too much gray there.

Be honest and sincere that this is just a tourist visit and you have no intention of staying longer than 90 days. A wallet full of credit cards, a health insurance card (travel insurance in this case), a bank statement will go a long way to convincing them that you don't intend to overstay your welcome. Be prepared and have these documents as a backup in case they decide to give you the third degree.

And have a plan as to what airline you will use to return. A recent thread here was from a guy who bought some really cheap one-way tickets for his family, and then discovered that the return tickets would cost a fortune.

They never asked me anything, just compared my passport picture with me and stamped the passport. No return ticket, no insurance, no curiosity where I plan to stay. Well if it was instead of US passport Venezuelan one (just example) it very likely would be different. And it is also different when European comes to US. Without return ticket there would be some trouble.

You need to be careful about airfares. For some origin/destination pairs there are reasonable one-way fares, but I don't think that's necessarily true, especially if your home airport doesn't have international flights. I hope you're already looking at what it will cost you to fly back from any city where you might end your trip so you don't get dazzled by a low price on your outbound leg. Take a good look at the trip duration, too. Sometimes there are decent one-way fares, but the trips are 23 hours long.

If these are US passports, you are unlikely to have trouble. Will depend on where you fly into, though. I find the UK is always touchy.

There is a funny thing in online check ins for US departures. If you check in for your outbound flight online, the airline may ask you about when you intend to return since you are not ticketed for a return leg. There will be an option to check a box that says you don't know your return date. DO NOT CHECK IT. If you do, you will not be allowed to check in online. Even if you log out and try again. You will have to go to the airport early enough to check in and get your seats. I actually got bumped once because of this glitch. So if you check in online, give the system a return data that is compliant with a tourist visa.

Even when I do this, the airline requires me to show my Austrian residence permit at check in since I do not have a return ticket to the US. I am not sure how they would handle you at check in with no residence permit and no return date, but you may have more trouble with your airline than with EU immigration.

You might look at buying a changeable ticket. It might be cheaper and will avoid bureaucratic issues.

Note that you can only spend 90 days in the Schengen countries, not three months. You have to leave on the 90th day at the latest.

Terms include that you cannot work while there.

I wonder what your one-way ticket prices would be with only 2 to 6 weeks lead time. Maybe it wouldn't be an issue (availability or price) in February, but in August or September . . . ?

Also, you will be spending a lot of money on transportation in Europe. I know zip about rail passes, but you may need to know in advance how long a pass you need, if indeed it would be worthwhile to buy a pass. Unless you have some kind of a plan, trains are expensive, unless you prebook months in advance. Flight prices for short European "hops" go in only one direction and it isn't in your favor.

If you are on a budget, you need to plan ahead. If you aren't on a budget, wouldn't it be better to book a round-trip ticket and pay for a change if you decide you want to return sooner or later?

If it was me, I would buy a round trip using the 90 days. I know I could spend 90 days in Europe with no problems. I'd also try and figure out a plan of some sort. As in where to arrive and where to leave. But I'm not real big on not having a plan. Good luck!

Many people have reported being asked about return tickets when going through passport control in England.

I think Diana offered a great response to your question. Buy a return ticket to cover your entire stay. Get one that's changeable in case you want to come home early. I bet it will be a lot cheaper than purchasing a one way ticket at the last minute and will avoid any questions at the border. Sounds like a fun trip!

Thank you all for your helpful responses! Sounds like as long as we're not going into the U.K. we should be fine with a one-way fare. I also think that the changeable ticket is a good idea, but it will depend on how much more expensive those are.

One more question. Are we required to have trip insurance? Also, do most of you get it?

There are two kinds of travel insurance: insurance to cover cancellation of your plans and medical insurance.

The first is for people with pre-paid travels and bookings. The insurance will cover that if you have to cancel. This doesn't seem to apply to your plans.

The second gives you medical insurance that covers gaps in your regular insurance while traveling, and most critically, can offer medical evacuation if something serious happens. I would seriously consider this. First check carefully what your own insurance covers, then look for plans the cover any gaps and evacuation.

When my daughter moved to France for a year or so, I bought a roundtrip airfare on Iceland Air. It was less expensive than round trip fares in general. She then bought a flight home when she was ready. Later I was told that if I had contacted the airline, I could have purchased an open ended ticket so you might want to check that out. I'm not sure if that is accurate information. This was 2007/2008 so things might have changed.

When we checked in at LAX last summer for our one month trip to Europe the agent asked us where our/when our return flight would be. She asked for proof that we had a return ticket. We had booked a round trip flight using Airberlin and its partner AA but it wasn't showing up as a round trip. I pulled out my copy of the reservation that showed the return leg on AA and she was satisfied with that.

I would be uneasy showing up with ONLY a one way ticket.

I have been asked about my return flight on multiple occasions. Once at immigration in the UK and multiple times at the check-in counter when traveling with tickets from different carriers. The most recent time was in 2014 when I was flying on BA from London to Salzburg. The airline wanted to see that I also had a ticket departing the Schengen area.

Have you checked prices to see if two one way tickets are even cost effective? You may be better off to pick a likely date for return, buy a round trip, and pay the change fee penalty plus price difference if you change your mind.

OK I am sure I will be "trashed" but...

Really it's not that hard to get a "return" ticket.

Go online, book a flight. Get the receipt emailed. Go back into the airline sight, cancel the booking.

A couple of considerations. Book it on another airline than the one you are flying to Europe on. Make sure it's not a code share. I recently had to cancel and international booking on Delta that was flying on Virgin. I couldn't do it online and had to call. (I still got it cancelled, but it was a bigger hassle)

And the real truth is in this day of "etickets' most of us don't have any proof of our return anyway.

From the standpoint of the cost of one-way return flights, keep in mind that many (most? all?) airlines allow you to book one-way tickets with frequent-flier miles at half the mileage-cost of a round-trip. I have used that capability twice in the last two years, only booking my return when I was mid-way through my trip. I realize now that I might have had difficulty at my departure point or at EU immigration, but I did not. I was not traveling through the UK, which may be what saved me.

I don't think I'd hesitate to head out again with just a one-way ticket if I needed to, due to uncertainty of travel path as much as of timing, but I would carry a document proving sufficient financial resources. I always travel with multiple credit cards.

As Mona noted, it may be the airline that is the problem. Depending on EU rules, you may be denied boarding by the airline if you cannot show a return ticket or other plan for travel OUT of Europe. I have no idea if this applies to travel between the US and Europe, but it does elsewhere in the world. ( When traveling on a one-way ticket from OZ to New Zealand, we had to show prof of a flight out of New Zealand before we were Llowed to board the plane).

So be sure you know the rules that apply to where you are going.

Carol, an e-ticket still has an electronic record of transactions, including cancellations. An agent who wants to check databases will find it (unless different airlines are not available to one another(.

Get the insurance. The one that covers Trip Cancellation, Travel Medical and Medical Evacuation, up to $50,000.

Thank you all for the super helpful dialogue!!

Well if I fly to London on Delta and home on American I can tell you that 90% of the Delta agents are not bothering to try to figure out how to see if my ticket is still valid on AA.

Yes, they MIGHT be able to do that (Depending on the skills of the agents, some of them on some airlines can barely look up their own flights), but they are trying shove several hundred people down that jetway to get the plane out on time. When the plane doesn't go out on time because they were trying to link to some database that's not their primary I can tell you it's not going to be fun for them and they know it. So...

I had to show Delta proof I had a flight home from the Dominican Republic at Christmas. I showed them a receipt on my phone from SW. Agent typed in the date I was coming home and said "have a nice trip"

Now that was my receipt and I was on that plane, but it easily could have been cancelled.

So if you want to be REALLY sure just use a budget airline to book your dummy flight and fly a mainline carrier to Europe. A lot of the budget airlines don't pay for access to the fancy systems. (If you can't find them on Expedia, they aren't paying)

The first time I bought trip insurance was when I went to Prague-Krakow-Budapest. Two of the three countries (I can't remember which ones) required proof of medical insurance. Of course, nobody ever asked for this on my trip. Since then, I have always purchased trip insurance.

Aside from any game-playing, booking and canceling to create a "return" ticket, the main problem with buying a ticket at the relative last minute is the price. The closer you get to flight time, the less cost options you have. Even if money is not an object, you still might find some limitations with finding seats from your preferred place on your preferred date. Since you have not traveled there before, you can't anticipate how you will react to it. Maybe you will be anxious to come home after a month, and maybe you won't want to come back in 90 days (but you have to).

Thanks again for everyone's help! We ended up buying round trip tickets to Copenhagen. We got a really good deal! We figure we could start our trip there since it's our first time backpacking, work our way down france and spain, then loop through southern europe before heading back up to Norway & Sweden when weather gets better.

Are u going on SAS? They usually have great fares to Europe via Copenhagen or Stockholm that I've flown there 3 times from Chicago.

Do get medical insurance .. its so cheap.. there is zero reason to not get it .. and thousands and thousands of reasons to get it.. if you need it.. even for a sore throat.. you will regret not spending the 50-100 bucks to get it.
Have fun,,

When booking your intereuropeon travel remember you often pay more for walk up train tickets than for those booked in advance.. same with cheapo flights..

Going through Immigration in London LHR, I have never been asked if I have a return ticket home (I always do, but "they" don't that) and I don't mention anything about that, voluntarily, and obviously, have never had to show it at the airport. If it's Immigration in Frankfurt FRA or Paris CDG, they especially won't ask, ie totally non-verbal, and I can wait for that desired passport stamp. . Also, upon arrival I have never been asked if I had "travel insurance." which with the exception on one recent trip I've never bought it. Never had trip insurance prior to that one trip, likewise never bought trip insurance since that one trip.

One-way travel is the most expensive way to travel

Not when there is no discount for round trip travel. This is happening more and more, both domestic and to Europe.

For flights to Europe, I believe Norwegian Air has one-way pricing. And Iceland Air has good one-way prices, although I do not know if it is actually 50% of a roundtrip.

For domestic flights, Alaska and Southwest price flights one way at a time. There probably are others, but those are the ones we use.

Condor is another airline with one-way pricing. For instance, many flights all summer non stop Minneapolis to Frankfurt $380.

We're going on SAS on our return flight, Luftansa on our way to Denmark.

Zoe, how does Carol's recommendation of buying a 100% refundable ticket on a different airline back to the US (with no code shares) cause a problem if the buyer choses to cancel the booking after being in Europe for a day or a few weeks?

I don't think that's what Carol was suggesting. I think she was suggesting a way to create a fake return verification (hence her mention of a "return" document), printing it, and canceling it immediately, not after arrival in Europe. She suggested doing it on another airline so as not to link this fake booking with her real outgoing ticket.

I was referring to this quote:
"Really it's not that hard to get a "return" ticket. Go online, book a flight. Get the receipt emailed. Go back into the airline sight, cancel the booking."
This would seem to indicate that you book the ticket only for the purpose of getting a receipt, then canceling the booking. You could then presumably use the emailed receipt as proof of having a return ticket. I don't know that it matters whether it is canceled right away (which is what it sounds like) or later - you are still creating the receipt purely to provide a verified date of return when you don't intend to keep the booking.