Is it better to book an airline ticket roundtrip, or as two one ways? Things are different now than they used to be.
Fares aren’t usually cheaper when you book roundtrip the way they used to be. And, outside of basic economy fares, there usually aren’t change fees anymore – so buying one way tickets won’t ‘double the change fees’ if you have to cancel a trip the way that they used to. So much of the time you can take advantage of the flexibility that separate tickets offered.
- The elimination of change fees on most itineraries change the calculus on one way versus roundtrip. It used to be that if you cancelled an itinerary you’d hope to be on a roundtrip ticket so you only paid the change fee once. Two one-ways meant double the change fees. So the elimination of change fees makes one-ways easier to book.
- Bear in mind that basic economy tickets don’t have the same ‘no change fees’
And if you’re dealing with international travel, your flights departing the U.S. may not have change fees but check the fare rules for trips that originate outside the U.S. because those may still have change fees – making a U.S.-originating roundtrip desirable.
- One way tickets can make it easier to combine different airlines on a trip. Airlines generally don’t sell non-partner carriers (though there are exceptions) so if you wanted to fly American one way and United the other you may need to book them separately, or book through an agent, whether brick-and-mortar or online.
- Booking through an online agency like Expedia probably means cringe-level service when there are schedule changes, so if one ways don’t drive up price you’ll prefer booking directly as two one-ways.
- If your flight cancels or delays and you throw in the towel on a trip, you can only get that ticket refunded – if you’re on two one ways that means getting money back for your outbound but not for your return. As long as you have no change fee tickets that may be ok – you’ll use the credit later. But vouchers aren’t as good as money, and if it’s with an airline you rarely fly the voucher may be tough to use.
Using separate tickets as part of a one way journey can be more problematic. If you misconnect due to a flight cancellation or delay, your second ticket may be useless. Your original airline has to get you to your ticketed destination only, no where you’re trying to go.
I’ll often buy positioning flights. Maybe my award ticket originates in New York and I’m in DC, so I buy a ticket up to New York (no award space was available or I couldn’t include it in the award). But I’ll give myself plenty of time to get there, with backup flight options available.
Bags are another issue on separate tickets. American Airlines won’t through-check bags on separate tickets (unless one ticket is an award and both tickets are booked in the same reservation on oneworld airlines). As of the last time I checked they would still, however, protect you if you misconnect on separate oneworld tickets.
I generally book one way tickets. The lack of change fees gives me that flexibility (since I no longer have two change fees with two one ways instead of a single change fee on a roundtrip). However I’ll compare the price of a roundtrip versus two ways before I do. When plans for your outbound change, a roundtrip ticket means repricing the whole thing not just the first one way.
I often don’t book both directions of travel at the same time, I might lock in my outbound because I know exactly when I need to be somewhere or because I can confirm upgrade availability. And I might wait on the return, perhaps because of price or lack of upgrade space or because I just haven’t figured out plans yet. Booking one ways suits my planning style and no longer has the downsides that it used to.
@Gary: Also, with award bookings, many airline sites are opaque as to how they arrive at mileage required. Booking one-way awards often gets a lower cost or allows using differnet airlines for each direction.
My travel is constantly changing due to persnickety clients, travel disruptions, and a somewhat ineffective travel department that think business travel only occurs M-F 9-5. I book everything one way (and refundable) so that I can quickly rework travel in the moment, as needed.
Though generally true, I’ve noticed recently that on United, the upcharge from BE to regular economy is less if you book a RT vs a one-way.
I think the savings isnt enough for me to give up the flexibility of changing just one direction though, unless the fare I see is one that I know is really good.
As mentioned in the article, it is wise to compare RT vs one-way pricing before purchasing. While it is often the same per leg, I have found several instances where RT is significantly cheaper.
Actually BA is still cheaper by booking RT….i checked this the last time i booked to LHR….
Delta is notably cheaper on RT F domestic, at least the time I checked.
Agree. Very often (but not always!) we purchase our outbound & return flights separately, be they on the same airline or different ones.
In an era when Saturday night stays are no longer required (hallelujah!) & discounted fares are no longer “each way based on roundtrip purchase” (domestic & select international markets), plus as Gary notes, there are no penalty fees assessed for changes or cancellations for most fares (except ULCCs & basic economy), very often it makes sense to book flights separately.
We do it for most of our domestic trips, but also did it for a trip to Singapore late last year.
For us, it provides added flexibility overall, but also because one of the travel dates is usually more certain than the other, so this allows us to begin planning the trip around the date we have confidence will hold, while filling in the rest as everything else becomes clearer.
Or sometimes it’s because roundtrip fares are much higher than when purchased as separate, one-way itineraries.
Such is the reality of algorithms and dynamic pricing, where the desired fares on the dates you need/prefer (at the times you want to travel!), in the direction you’re heading, are often found on different airlines.
Or as is common, too, the desired fares may be found on the same airline, just on vastly different flights/fares search dates (or when notified using fare tracking apps!), & one needs to be willing to trade-off “one-stop shopping” with a little bit of added time & patience to book their trips over a period of time as they wait for fares to become available at their desired price point*.
*the term “desired” fare/price point is used instead of the lowest fare because others’ needs/preferences vary, so we search for fares based on our needs, which usually includes advanced seat selection, a checked bag & extra legroom row seating, especially for flights longer than 2-3 hours.
Yes, this may take additional time & effort to execute (or undo if the entire trip needs to be changed/canceled), but additional savings vs. “convenience” of purchasing roundtrip airfares via one-stop shopping may be a trade-off worth taking for some!
Gary, one thing that you left out is that most airlines use “marriage segment” logic. So if you book roundtrip and you change either the outbound or return trips, the airline will reprice your ticket based on the current price of the round trip. It is better to book two one-ways.
To clarify:
“Vastly different flights/fares search dates” in the above means searches done separately at separate times and/or dates for travel on the same date as would be for the roundtrip itinerary.
Apologies for any confusion.
@Steve: Are you assuming repricing goes up more than down?
AA used to be pretty consistent with pricing between one-way and round trip, but that’s seemed to have changed in recent months. Have booked several domestic trips since January where RT pricing was $60-120 cheaper than booking two one-ways on the same flights. As someone who always books one-ways for flexibility, this has been yet another unpleasant development with AA
Recently our friends at AA have been charging more taxes for a r/t award than the two one ways. Isn’t that nice them?
Good advice. I learned the hard way about the advantage (and disadvantage) of booking separate one-way tickets instead of a single round trip ticket or forward connecting tickets.
I’d booked a round trip business-class award ticket on SQ from SIN to BKK and back. Then when Hong Kong relaxed its pandemic rules to allow visitors in, I decided that instead of my original
SIN => BKK => SIN => EWR
itinerary, I would instead visit Hong Kong where I’d been every year before the pandemic, but had not been during the 2+ years of the pandemic. So, I decided to change my original itinerary to:
SIN => BKK => HKG => SIN => EWR
I searched for flights to do new BKK=> HKG => SIN itinerary and easily found ‘cheap’ business award tickets for BKK => HKG on ET, and for HKG => SIN on SQ. I booked the tickets for the new segments before canceling the ticket for the original return BKK => SIN segment.
I was still in the US when I was making these changes. After securing my new itinerary, I contacted SQ’s NYC support team by phone to cancel the now obsolete BKK => SIN return ticket, but was told that they could “cancel” it, but won’t refund any miles. I said, what? SQ does allow award tickets to be cancelled, with perhaps a redeposit fee, so why would I not get refunded the miles for this particular award ticket? I got no explanation other than that is the way it was. I called back a few times and got nowhere, so I decided that when I arrived in SIN I would take the matter in-person to SQ support at their offices in the ION building on Orchard, a mere 10-min walk from Hilton Singapore Orchard where I’d booked a 5-night award stay.
At the ION, I found out why no one at NYC phone support could help. In order to alter my original round trip SIN => BKK => SIN award ticket, the entire reservation had to be canceled and then just the desired SIN => BKK segment rebooked, without the return BKK => SIN segment that I wanted canceled. At the time of my phone cancellation request, there were no longer business-class award tickets for SIN => BKK. So, the NYC agents’ solution was simply to do nothing, i.e., keep the original reservation that would get me to BKK in business, but then simply leave the return ticket unused. The result was that I would lose the associated 24K miles !
Of course, the folks at the ION could do whatever they wanted and were able to cancel the original reservation, “force” the availability a SIN => BKK business award ticket, cancel the return BKK => SIN segment I no longer desired, and refund me the miles. At the same time, they were able to “marry” by new HKG => SIN with my original SIN => EWR segments to enable my checked baggage to go straight from HKG to EWR.
None the ‘gymnastics’ would have been necessary if I had originally booked the SIN => BKK and BKK => SIN flights as separate one-way business-class award tickets !
My original SIN => BKK flight was actually preceded by a separate MLE => SIN award flight with a 2h layover in SIN, so I took the opportunity that I was at the ION to also request that they “marry” my MLE => SIN with the SIN => BKK segments to enable my checked baggage to go straight from MLE to BKK.
So, while booking one-way revenue or award tickets offers more flexibility, if there are forward connecting one-way tickets, one has to be sure to allow enough connection for checked bags to be routed through to the final destination. You book one-way reservations, you are responsible for making sure that any bags that you check in will make it to wherever you will end up.
Amex Platinum trip delay coverage terms state “if you purchase round-trip…”
I find one way often makes sense for domestic paid flights and award flights, but for paid international flights, RT is almost always much cheaper.
I find one way often makes sense for domestic paid flights and award flights, but for paid international flights, RT is almost always much cheaper.
Actually I have to agree. For a number of years you were correct, I would price both ways and there was no benefit to buying a RT vs 2 one-ways. But the past several months things have changed back. Every time I have priced both ways it is at less to do the RT. I’d say at least $100 less. (Note only United, Delta and Alaska fly to my city so almost all my experience is with them.)
I’ve been wondering what flexibility you have if you book a RT and want to change only the return.
As I found out with a SQ RT award ticket (see above), it might not be flexible because a RT reservation needs to be canceled and then rebooked to change a segment. If alternatives to flights that one wishes to retain or change are available then there may be no problem, although the cost may go up (or down) on rebooking.
For award tickets, booking separate one-way rather RT as I did makes more sense because the cost in points should be the same.
This article described me.
Nine times out of 10, it’s better to book ALL award tickets and ALL domestic flights as one-ways. It just gives you more flexibility at no additional cost. With more tickets refundable these days, the advantage is even greater for making changes. But there will always be weird exceptions.
Just last month I was travelling abroad to a county that required proof of a roundtrip ticket. My award ticket on UA was one way. I had another award ticket on UA for the return. I was required to check in at the airport (for a 6 am flight!), instead of online, to show proof of a return flight. Nobody at UA reservations could fix this otherwise. So it’s worth checking a country’s entry requirements.
If you’re travelling to a Muslim country, you might also want to put your return on the same ticket as Homeland Security has been known to SSSS travellers without roundtrips. Getting this status (which subjects you to extremely rigorous airport screening for many months) is a traveller’s worst nightmare, so you don’t want to mess with that.
@ Gary — Generally, domestic one-way, international round-trip.
Airline matters. JetBlue gives bonus points at 3, 7, and 10 round trips per year
If you’re using miles for an award ticker on UA, many forget about the Excursionist perk. So two 1-ways and you won’t get it.
The perk allows for a flight within the same region for 0 miles.
Ex: NYC-Bkk then BKK-DPS for free and DPS-NYC as a round-trip reward redemption.
Not mentioned – and perhaps off-topic to the article, but I’ll go there anyway – are the price advantages sometimes available for multi-point reservations, over both r/t AND two o/w tickets. This is especially worth looking at where there are multiple airports in a metropolitan area serviced by the same airline.
Just a word of caution on international travel. Depending on how far out you book your one way, and to where, you could be TDA shortlisted with SSSS on future flights…
Another factor is convenience of schedule.
Normally use RT, but have used one airline in and another for return , especially to garner non-stop service which is more important to me.
From past experiences, in South East Asia and East Asia, one way fare will be 70% or even the same as the Return Trip fare.
So if you are booking 2 one way trips, you will end up paying 140-200% of the Return Trip fare.
The main focus here is commercial booking (paid fare) of full service airline (e.g. SQ, MH, CX, GA, etc.).
Single trip in LCC is close to 50% of return trip fare.
For data point, CGK-HKG return trip using CX on 28 June-5 July is roughly USD 400 on 1 April (no, not an April Mop).
Single trip from CGK-HKG using CX on 28 June is around USD 350. Haven’t checked HKG-CGK single trip though.
@ Gary. On what site do you find 2 one way tickets (in J) cheaper than a round trip ticket. Certainly not on AA website. I’ve searched for years using miles one way and purchasing a one way ticket for the other and it’s ALWAYS near the round trip price to buy a one way ticket on international flights.. The exception being SWA as they show prices one way.
I fly often to Europe and it’s always significantly cheaper to book RT. I used to fly low cost with Norwegian, or WOW, but over the past few years I’ve flown Turkish and Qatar Airlines, both are slightly more expensive than low cost, but service is way better. And I no longer have to switch airports, book additional flights because I landed in a different country.
It always pays to check the rt vs one way prices. For AC domestic trips are usually the same. International can have small differences in Y and are often double in J if booking only one way!