Why are one-way plane tickets more expensive than return tickets?
It seems like one-way tickets are always more expensive than buying round-trip. But what if I have two destinations? For example I would like to go on the following itinerary this March:
London --> Austin --> Rio de Janeiro --> London
At the moment the cheapest way to do this seems to be:
London --> Austin --> Rio de Janeiro --> Austin --> London
but that seems a bit ridiculous. Is there not a way to just buy a series of one way tickets that would follow the first itinerary? Please keep in mind, my main concern is price.
Best Answer
No, this is totally "normal" airline behaviour. I never completely understood the rationale behind this policy. It seems to have something to do with that one-way tickets are the normal fare and on round trips reductions typically apply.
If you need to travel on very short notice, the return is sometimes just the double of two one-way trips.
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Why is it more expensive to fly one way than return?
To answer the question directly, one ways are usually flown by business travelers or people with the money to do that. So the airlines price one ways high as they're generally not flown by vacationers saving up for a (round trip) holiday and so they extract maximum revenue.Why is return ticket cheaper than one way?
One way tickets can cost significantly more because of factors like scheduling inconveniences, taking advantage of the fact that business class travelers are willing to pay more to match their schedules, and simply trying to lock in return passengers to use the same airline with cheaper round trip tickets.Is it cheaper to book return flights or one way?
It can be cheaper When traveling within the U.S., airlines typically price one-way flights at exactly half the cost of a round-trip. There certainly are exceptions, especially for those that fly out of smaller, regional airports.Do return tickets cost less?
You may think booking a return ticket will lower your fares but this may not always be true. It's a good idea to check fares for round trip as well as one-way flights before you finalize. Budget airlines are usually cheaper when you look for a one-way flight.Why Are One-Way Flights More Expensive Than Round-Trips ? | Round-Trips vs One-Way Tickets | JayEcoN
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Answer 2
Kayak has a "multi-city" search option.
Using this, I found an itinerary LHR-AUS-GIG-LHR for US$1521, while the lowest roundtrips for LHR-AUS-LHR and AUS-GIG-AUS were a total of $1912.
Answer 3
In my experience booking US- and Canada-based air tickets, what you are seeing is perfectly normal. Or rather, expect to see unexpected prices for air tickets.
It may be that the prices you were seeing were for products that weren't actually comparable, and this could explain some of the differences.
- Were the flights at different times of day, or different days of the week? Expect travel at higher-demand times and days to be more expensive.
- Did the flights have different routing or different numbers of stops? Shorter, faster routes can be more expensive than longer routes, because they many customers prefer short and fast, so there is more demand.
- Did the flights come with different conditions about how far in advance they had to be purchased, how much it cost to make changes, or whether you could return them for a refund, or other terms? I'd suspect the one-way ticket had fewer restrictions, while the cheapest round-trip ticket probably had more restrictions. Typically, the cheaper th ticket, the greater the restrictions.
One important point to understand about air ticket pricing is that we customers differ. Some of us want cheaper prices and will accept restrictions to get them. Others want flexibility and will pay more to have it. Some can plan ahead, and stick with their plans. Some decide to travel suddenly, or change their plans unexpectedly. Consider a student planning holiday travel, versus a high-value company employee on urgent business travel. The airlines want to harvest as much money as they can from the collection of seats on each plane. So, on a given flight they may offer some seats at cheap, highly restricted fares, and the rest at more expensive and flexible fares. They get the student's money, but have a way to collect more from the company employee.
Another important point to understand is that seats on airline flights are perisable commodities, just like fresh vegetables. After a few weeks, the lettuce is wilted and the tomatoes rotten, so the store wants to sell them before that happens. Similarly, after the airplane takes off, the empty seat has no way to earn revenue for the airline. The airlines continually adjust the mix of fare rules on each flight all the time leading up to departure, hoping to get just a bit more money, or fill just one more seat, before the flight departs.
You might find the essay, Understanding Airline Ticket Prices: Why Your Seatmate’s Airfare Cost More (or Less) than Yours, by Rick Searney at FareCompare.com, explains some of these factors. Also, I agree with Doc's suggestion that the top answer to Travel.SE question One-way versus return airfare tickets will help answer your question also.
Answer 4
With conventional, as opposed to low-cost airlines, one way tickets are almost always more expensive. Sometimes much more so. However, if you plan a multi-city, circular, itinerary and can manage to do all legs on one airline, or a bunch of code shared airlines, you will find it hard to beat the quoted price with individual tickets.
Answer 5
To answer your question, there is a way to "buy a series of one way tickets that would follow the first itinerary?"
I created Stopover Search Engine that does exacly this. You combine several one-ways to create custom itinerary and get to use stopovers as additional destinations. Often cheaper then Round Trips but not always.
I wrote a blog post describing how to find flights using this technique.
Answer 6
As already pointed out, most airlines only offer full-price one-way tickets.
There are however exceptions. On Aug 11th, Norwegian will take you from SVG to JFK (via OSL) for 2.326 NOK (appr. 420 USD) and several airlines (American Airlines, Delta, United Airlines, US Airways) offer one-way tickets from JFK to ATL for around 150 USD, making a 570 USD total for SVG-ATL.
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