I’m considering going to China this spring. If so, I will be returning by way of Barcelona and so was looking around for a one-way flight. One-way flights are consistently much more expensive than return flights. One airline took 12000 DKK for a one-way and 3800 DKK for a return. Another, 24000 DKK for a one-way and 5500 DKK for a return.
Cecil told us why air fares are cheaper when you stay over Saturday night, but what’s the deal with the expensive one-way flights? I mean, the only result is that I’ll buy a return flight and there’ll be an empty seat on the plane home.
To make sure you use their airline on the way back. The airlines don’t want you to be able to shop around for a trip back and get a better price than you would on the round trip, so they give you a discount for flying both ways with them. And since a round trip ticket ensures another seat will be filled, they can afford to give you a discount.
The best explanation that I have ever heard is that the vast majority of people want to fly round-trip and tickets for that trip become a commodity item that is constantly being revised by all major airlines in real-time. Their models are very sophisticated and you would likely find that different people in coach (or first class) paid many different fares for equivalent seats. So few people want to fly one-way that they don’t even bother and just post their standard fare without any discount. Standard fares, even for coach tend to be ridiculous at several times the rate that most people pay. They adjust the round-trip tickets but don’t worry about the one-way ones because it isn’t worth the trouble.
So, while I’m here and on the subject: What I want to do is fly Copenhagen-Shanghai on date X, Shanghai-Barcelona on date Y, and Barcelona-Copenhagen on date Z. How do I find the cheapest way to accomplish that? Can you call up an airline flying these routes and say “give me the cheapest itinerary you can find”?
Lots of people might fly round trip if the price were cheap enough, e.g. vacationers, so airlines often have specials or sales to lure those types of passengers. Very few people fly one-way unless they absolutely have to make the trip, for example they’re moving, or going some place for an extended period, so airlines know they hold the bargaining power.
For the same round trip itinerary there are usually many fares you can actually book, even if they all put you into the coach section of the plane. They are different booking classes, and they have different restrictions such as whether they are refundable, whether they earn frequent flier miles, etc. Usually at the major consumer-oriented web sites such as Travelocity you can only see the cheapest booking class still available, but a more sophisticated system will allow you to book a more expensive class if the restrictions are better for you.
The point is that in most cases it is possible to book a round trip ticket that is twice the cost of the one-way fare, but at a higher booking class than is normally the cheapest available. The other point is that the one-way fare is more expensive than the normally available cheapest round trip ticket, but because it is at the higher booking class it also comes with fewer restrictions.
Another reason is that business travelers are more likely to pay extra for the convenience of open jaw and circle trips while the budget traveler would not. For the budget traveler it would almost always be cheaper to buy two round trips.
Note that low cost airlines, like Ryanair, do not price the round trip but the individual legs.
I have flown quite a few times from Spain to China and my guess is that the circle trip is going to cost way more tyan two round trips. Chances are you would have to make a stopover in central Europe anyway. My guess is that the best way would be to buy a round trip to Shanghai and another one, possibly on a low cost airline, to Barcelona. Most likely you cannot beat that.
Airlines most certainly will help you book a multi-city trip, and some even make this available on their websites (I know Air Canada does, but I doubt you’re flying with them!) An airline rep will be able to help you.
And you can also get a ‘round-the-world’ ticket, which lets you stop in quite a number of places, as long as you keep going in the same general direction.
I think the reason cited by Shagnasty is overwhelmingly less true than it used to be for domestic flights, and in my personal experience, there is not little or no difference in airline pricing between round-trip and one-way fares for domestic fares.
Take a look at http://www.itasoftware.com, go to the QPX link, and look at flights within the United States using the 30-day search tool.
In my understanding, for international flights, one reason the one way/round trip price differential continues to be true is due to entry requirements and tourist visas issued at the airport. If you don’t have a return flight booked, most nations view you as a much greater risk to overstay a tourist visa. If the airline flies you to a nation that refuses you entry, that airline is responsible for immediately flying you back home again as well, so in a way they’re insuring themselves against the risk of having to find a seat for you on the next flight home or trying to discourage people from making international bookings without return flights in the first place.
Try the Danish kayak.com then choose the “Flere destinationer” button above the departure/arrival airport entry fields. Another screen will open with lots of spots for interim airports. If any site can find your itinerary, this will be it.
My take on the one-way trip being so much more expensive than round-trip: business fliers. Most vacation passengers know when they’ll start their trips and when they’ll come back. Business fliers, in the past, often didn’t know their full itineraries until after the travel began.