Flying open jaw

Good question Sue. Something I always wondered about. I think the responses you are going to get are the value of time and expense in trying to get from a city you are starting at to the city you are ending at. But in my books, I just try to avoid this when planning my itinerary. Why pay more for your airline ticket if you don't have to.

I think the open jaw tickets aren't much more expensive than the round-trip, often, if at all. You don't buy 2 one-way tickets (which can be more expensive EACH than a round-trip). Many airlines now enable open jaw bookings online. If not, a travel agent can usually get them for around the same price.

I am planning to go to Paris before a cruise that starts and ends in Amsterdam. My preferred airline wants $20 more to return from Amsterdam than from Paris. That saves me a train fare and at least one more hotel night, a whole lot more than $20, not even taking into account the hassle avoided.

What we have done in the past is fly to London on American and then to Rome on Ilitia. And then repeat on the way home with a two day stop in London. That is what I want to do. Fly to Rome but stop on the way home in London for a couple of days.
My husband does all this on line and would nor use a travel agent.

I flew into London and out of Rome and I paid about $20.00 more. If you flew into one city and out of another here in the States, you would pay a fortune.

I've been watching flight prices for a May-June 2009 round trip. I've discovered that the round trip flights to/from the same city are about $100 less than the multi-city flights I've been doing searches on. I would rather pay the extra $100 to do what I want on my trip.

When ordering tickets online you will be given a choice: one-way, round trip, or multi-city. Multi-city is "open jaws," and will cost less than two one-way tix. You will be given the boxes to fill out for the legs of your trip. I'm looking at schedules for next year flying into London and back to San Francisco from Frankfurt on United Airlines. The cost is close to what it would cost to fly round trip to either city.

Because you need to consider both the costs (which alone may make open-jaw cheaper) and the value of your time.

Example: you fly into Rome, work your way north thru Tuscany and the Cinque Terra, end your vacation in Venice. With a standard round-trip ticket you need to get back to Rome for your return flight. Train tickets aren't free. And since it's over a 4-hour trip by train plus another hour to get to the airport from the central Rome station, and since you need to be at the airport 3 hours before the flight, you probably can't count on catching any flights before late afternoon. So add on another nite's hotel stay in Rome if your flight leaves earlier.

In sum, even though the open-jaw costs more than the round-trip ticket the TOTAL transport-related cost may be less. Plus many people find its worth something to them spending their last day overseas sightseeing rather than trekking back to their starting point.

I think you have to be careful claiming that open jaws are ALWAYS more expensive. Last summer in June it was $200/person cheaper to fly to Rome and home from Zurich than RT to Rome. About the same time priced a ticket for a friend and it was $10 cheaper to fly into London and home from Paris.

To answer Sue directly -- you don't buy one way tickets. You are buying a round trip ticket. Most search engines refer to it as multi-city ticket. And the same is true for within the US. Years ago used to sometimes link three or four cities in a round trip. But trying to break a trip for a couple days is much harder to do. I think the rule is about 24 hours before the airline considers it a new leg and not a continuation.

I booked our flights into Paris and out of Rome and it was the same price as a round-trip to Paris. If you have a limited amount of time I think it is the best option.

I think that the typical pricing for Open Jaw is along the lines of the sum of half the fares roundtrip for the two cities. Example: London is $600 round trip, Paris is $800 round trip (all before taxes and fees) so an open jaw into London and out of Paris would be roughly $700 (plus the taxes and fees). Of course, to get a good price, you also need to pick two cities that are served by the same airline or alliance directly, or savings will diminish. An exception to this would be going through a ticket consolidator, they have more flexibility to mix and match airlines (Say Northwest/KLM into Amsterdam and American Airlines/British Airlines out of Manchester, England) based on what tickets they have available.

Now tell me why a one-way ticket is MORE than a round-trip ticket? 2 years ago, I moved back to Israel from California. I ended up buying a round-trip ticket, because it was well over $100 less! Exactly same flight outbound, then I just didn't use the return.

Once upon a time Round trips were significantly cheaper than two one-way fares. Now fares are based on adding up segments. It's not as simple as that because some segments are lightly booked and thus very cheap while other segments are heavily booked and more expensive. An airline computer - I'm pretty sure the same one from 2001, A Space Oddysey - figures it all out and spits out a price.

Some destinations in Europe are always more expensive than others, Rome is a good example. An open jaw that includes Rome on just one leg will be less expensive than RT to Rome. Other destinations vary widely by time of year, including those at certain times can really help the travel budget.

With internet searches you can explore a wide variety of options and save thousands. Always try a variety of departure and return days and check prices for every feasible departure and return airport.

Even if an open jaw is more expensive. Rick's point is that you save the time and expense of backtracking to get back to your departure airport. I like to cut a logical swath across Europe on my vacations rather than doing a circular route back to where I arrived.

Once you figure out how the airlines price their tickets, move onto the the US Tax Code for a simpler cerebral exercise. Two recently purchased open jaw tickets (into Amsterdam, out of Paris and into Rome, out of Venice) were almost identical in price to one city round trips. When I considered taking a cruise home from Italy this fall, my Delta Columbus-Rome-Venice-Columbus round trip ticket would have jumped from $1100 to $3000 for one way!

We tried every combo of how to fly from California to see Athens, Italy, Germany and Austria. Here's what we finally wound up doing: Round trip to Vienna and immediately got on a plane to Athens. Then a few days later flew to Rome, then train everywhere else, back to Vienna and flew home. This was cheaper than anything else - and believe me I tried it all.

Doreen pointed out a third option that can work well for cities incompatible with open jaw flights (maybe where they are not served by the same airline/alliance or a smaller city) and that is to create your own version of an open jaw. Best example would be fly round-trip to London, which is usually one of the lowest European fasres, the later the day of arrival, fly a budget airline to Rome and work your way by land back to London. The catch is if you have problems with your US/London flight you are out your budget ticket if you miss your flight. Might consider spending a night in London, since you most likely will be switching airports, but this offers another option.

Sue, the airline doesn't look at it as two one-way tickets. As others have pointed out, open-jaw can end up being cheaper since some airport taxes and fees are less than others. I used to limit myself to flying round trip but with the difference in cost being minimal compared to return transportation and time, I always fly open-jaw now. Another thing to consider when using open-jaw is to reverse the airports you fly in and out of. I'm going to Italy in less than 2 weeks and the ticket to fly in to Rome and out of Milan was less than the reverse. Go figure!