Here’s the deal. I’m planning a trip with my girlfriend next month, to visit her parents who live in Cincinnati. We’re flying there together, but then I need to leave 3 days later to return to New York, and she is going to stay for a while, so I am going to book her a one way ticket, and a roundtrip ticket for me. It turns out that with every online agency I’ve looked at - expedia, travelocity, priceline … her ONE WAY ticket is actually more expensive than my roundtrip ticket! It seems like it would actually make more sense to buy two roundtrip tickets, and then just not use the second remaining ticket. So my two general questions are, why is this pricing scheme in place, and are we going to hit any snags if we use this loophole by buying a roundtrip ticket, not intending to use the returning flight?
That is a rather common finding. Airline ticket pricing is rather complex (as in there is no one person that understands the whole thing). The pricing models discount tickets based on a huge number of factors until the seats are selling at the rate they desire. Unfortunately, the demand for one-way tickets is so low that the airlines don’t bother with discount programs for them. That often makes the prices more expensive than round-trip tickets. The airlines frown on trying to hack their ticket pricing schemes but there is nothing they can do to someone that buys a round-trip ticket and doesn’t show up for the return trip. They have no proof of anything.
It’s probably fairer to other passengers (and the airline of course), if you call in the cancellation beforehand, so the ticket can be resold, but otherwise, how could they stop you for your non-attendance on the return leg?
“Yield Management” is part of it. The airlines constantly tweak prices based on predictions of seat availability, future jet-fuel costs, you name it.
Part of the equation comes in predicting the behavior of business travelers. Airlines like to soak these travelers because (1) it’s usually a company rather than the individual paying the fare, so there’s less of an on-site protest over the cost, and (2) Business travelers often require a high degree of flexibility in their travel plans; leisure travelers usually choose their airlines and pay for their flights weeks in advance, so they commonly have a more restricted ticket.
Obviously, leisure travelers are far more likely to buy round-trip airfares than business travelers. They are also more likely to book in advance and stay over a weekend, which is why typical round trip ticket has restrictions like 21-day advance purchase and Saturday-night stay.
Bottom line: Airlines are trying to segregate ticket purchases for leisure (round-trip) vs. business (one-way/quick roundtrip turnaround) travel. This allows them to raise fares on one-way/turnaround tickets, since the cost is then expensed to a company rather than actual people who have to shell out their own money.
In the past, people could find creative ways to get around this problem, e.g. buy a round-trip ticket and sell your return trip ticket/voucher once you arrived at your destination. Better yet, if you wanted to avoid a Saturday-night stay, you’d buy two round trip tickets–say NY to Chicago leaving Monday and returning in a week, and Chicago to Boston leaving Friday and returning in a week–and just toss or sell to someone flying from Chicago the following Monday the second halves of the round-trip tickets; in some cases, two tickets with a Saturday-night stay were cheaper than one without! Rules after 9/11–which includes photo ID checks at security and (until recently) the gate put the kibosh on that little scam, and this (not added security0 is the real reason the airlines are ID-happy these days…
Because you can check-in, but you can never leave. 
So it is a JetBlue thing… :eek:
A decent airline will allow you to book two roundtrip tickets with the same destination date/time but different return trips home. I’ve done this several times by checking for flight availability of all three flights, then immediately calling up that airline and explaining what I wanted to do. They were more than happy to ensure everything worked out as planned. I was able to book one flight completely online (while I had the airline rep on the phone), and then “we” completed the details for the second ticket on the phone.
Surprisingly, I wasn’t charged an extra handling fee for booking via the phone instead of just through the web site. I guess it also pays to be a frequent flier.
I’ve done that a couple of times to get around the ludicrously expensive one-way ticket price. I’ve never had any trouble.
Can’t you book her a round-trip ticket with an open (i.e. unsepcified date) return? You used to be able to do this.
Buy her the RT if it’s cheaper. If her stay is indefinite, do not simply be a no show for the return. Call and cancel the return trip after you make the outbound leg but before the return is due. Depending on the cost of the ticket and a number of other factors such as the exchange fee on that airline for a different flight, the return half may retain a residual value which you can apply at a later date.