Anybody who has ever searched for an airline ticket knows that one-way prices are almost always higher than round trip prices. Travel agents know this and they are laughing at my naivety. I can’t afford to pay more for a one-way ticket than the Roundtrip fare costs.
Unless you are booking the simple Point A to Point B on a Friday night and returning on a Sunday night, this process is not convenient.
The airlines and travel agents know that the Point A to B flight pattern is popular and they have made it easy to book those flights. While at the same time making it increasingly difficult for people who fall outside of this category to find affordable flights.
While these one-way itineraries have been difficult to book in recent history the introduction of Online Travel Agents, i.e. Orbitz and Kayak, have made them more accessible. Studies have shown that your travel agent hates this.
One Way Hacks
One way fares are searchable on most every airline and OTA now. To efficiently survey the one-way pricing I would use kayak. Kayak will provide a broad range of airlines and prices that should give you an idea of what you can expect to pay.
Next up I would also recommend checking out the low cost airlines that serve your region; Frontier Airlines, JetBlue, Southwest, Virgin America to name the top dogs.
The nightmare of every frequent flyer, Spirit Airlines, is also a good option for these types of tickets.
Being flexible with your departure time and traveling in the middle of the day, when most business travelers are in their meetings, could be a good way to find better pricing.
Flexibility in your airports, use lesser known or airports further afield, can also help.
Roundtrip-less
Another common trick is to buy the Roundtrip ticket and simply not fly the return portion. The airline fare rules do sometimes have jargon banning this practice that is meant to prevent people from abusing this option.
It is also hard to enforce on one time offenders because you already paid for the fare and could not be flying the return portion for any number of reasons.
I will warn that doing this blatantly, often and on the same routes can raise red flags at the airline. That eventually lead to you being barred from flying with that airline any longer.
Be smart about it.
One Way Multi-City
have you ever stared at those Multi-City tabs and wondered what happens after you click them?
I know that it can be a bit intimidating but sometimes by creating your own routing you will find a cheaper one way ticket.
Furthermore if your ultimate destination is MIA and you know there are sales for ORD-JFK and JFK-MIA you might want to plug that in as a multi city ticket.
This could, again depending on fare rules, help you secure a cheap one-way fare
to your destination.
Remember, always sign up for the frequent flyer program of whichever airline you decide to fly with.
