When I saw this discussed on the tube years ago they were saying that your ticket is a contract & that you are contracted to be on the plane, see? If you are not, you breach a contract. Makes perfect sense to me.
Here’s one reason, even if it’s not common.
Last summer, when I was pregnant, Airman was flying to San Antonio quite a bit. The best, cheapest way for him to come down to see me (and to ensure that he could be there for the labor and delivery) was to buy unrestricted, one-way tickets on Southwest Airlines. This way, he wasn’t married to a return date, or risk eating half of a round-trip ticket. He could buy his tickets at his leisure, and fly when it was convenient for him.
Robin
Then why would anyone buy one-way? Either Bill Gates or his housekeeper can just as easily say “I’ll be returning on Tuesday”. And then toss the return tickets. This ain’t rocket science.
That quote is from the end of the column when he’s talking about frequent-flier miles, and has nothing to do with the price difference between full-fare and discount tickets. This is GQ, try to stick to the facts. **
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Is it the wannabe moderator practice forum?
Because the intent of this policy by the airlines is not to sell more oneway tickets (which they don’t sell a lot of anyway); it is to dissuade business travelers from buying two oneway tickets in the middle of the week, instead of the full priced roundtrip tickets, which they sell a lot of at a high profit. Airlines are not interested in providing discounted tickets to true oneway travelers, because they are a miniscule part of they market. Let 'em pay full fare, or worry about some sort of unstated sanction for throwaway ticketing. If it was a big problem for the airlines, they would change their policy; apparently it is not, and they like the way the system is working.
Then why did you buy the one-way? See what I’m getting at?
If you’re saying RT on one flight costs less than one-way on a different flight, you’re talking apples ans oranges, but if that condition exists on the same flight, one would have to be crazy to buy the one-way.
Unless a lot of people missed “Which one is bigger” on Sesame Street.
I’m obviously missing something here. 
Yes. Let me clear this up.
When you think of “air travel” you’re thinking of smiling happy people going to Orlando or Las Vegas for vacation, or grandmothers going to visit their sick sisters in Desmoins.
The huge preponderance of fliers on all domestic airlines are business fliers. They travel frequently, they travel because they have to, and they can’t change their dates to get a bargain. Their businesses pay the cost, because that is the cost of doing business.
The business travellers carry the real cost of air travel. The cheap prices charged for casual tourist travel are basically to fill up the seats and help defray the cost of gas for the trip the plane was taking anyway.
The airlines have a significant interest in making sure that business travellers continue to pay business rate fares. If everyone started “bargain shopping” their tickets for business travel, the whole discount ticket phenomenon would go away, and all the seats would cost what business tickets cost.
Please note, I’m not talking about business -class- versus economy -class- or first -class- on the airplane.
I’m talking about the travel pattern inferred by the airlines or booking agents from the travel dates specified by the traveller.
Ticket prices are adjusted according to these patterns. Business people have to fly to get to their sales meetings, so they pay $1000 for the same seat on the same flight that a casual traveler can get for $120. That causal flyer gets that price because the SEAT was going anyway, and the $120 helps pay for the gas.
I hope that helps.
~Wolfrick
You went to the column I cited and posted a quote from it out of its proper context. I had a responsibility to correct that.
We are talking about two different things. We must be.
What I’m asking is, if I walk up to the ticket counter and ask “How much for one-way on the next flight to Seattle” the agent may say $400. Still standing there, I ask “OK, how much for a RT on that flight, total, returning next Tuesday”, the agent would probably say something like “$190”?
Now because I’m a business person, I’ll say “Give me the one-way”? But if I’m a soccer mom, I’ll buy the RT?
Why is that logic hard for me to comprehend?
Yeah, sorry.
The column itself was out of context with the OP, btw.
Doesn’t make sense to me. Your obligation was to pay the money. The airline’s obligation is to let you on the plane and fly you somewhere. That’s the contract.
I don’t see how anyone could possibly be legally obligated to be on the plane, anymore than one could be legally obligated to attend that concert or go into that museum or take that dance lesson. You might not be able to get your money back, since the business upheld their end of the bargain by making the opportunity available. But you don’t have a legal responsibility to use that opportunity.
What happens if I buy every available seat on a given flight and then decide to stay home? You telling me I’m in violation of the law somehow? You telling me the airline–which already has the dough–is somehow harmed if I’m not on that plane? I don’t think so.
Wolfrick has it right. The airlines are engaging in a form of price discrimination or joint product pricing. Business travellers are less price sensitive than tourists - they care if they get there at 8am rather than 10 am. The various deals are designed to sort out those whose schedules are inflexible and those whose aren’t, and charge them different prices. The practice of throwing away the return journey on roundtrip tickets undermines the airlines’ capacity to segment the market, and that’s why they try to stop it.
It’s the same reason an old person can’t walk into a barber and buy a pensioner’s price haircut, then walk out and resell it to a young bloke.
The column was not out of context. It explains why airlines offer discounted fares and why those discounts are not available on one-way tickets. (With the result being that one-way travelers can save money by buying a discounted round-trip ticket and not taking the return flight.)
This creates a bit of a loophole in the price structure. The airlines tolerate it for now because there aren’t very many one-way travelers, and it would be hard to prove that it was done deliberately (someone could claim that their plans changed in the middle of their trip).
It would be possible for a business traveler to take advantage of this. Instead of a round-trip, full-fare ticket, someone could buy two discounted round-trips and use only one flight from each. But I’m sure the airlines would catch on to that. The reservations are kept in a computer and it would be easy to detect that sort of bogus round trip. If people abuse the system too much, the airline will crack down. And according to the OP, that’s starting to happen.
Because I did not know better at the time. It was the NBA that was picking up the tab anyway - if any business can afford full price it is the NBA.
Times when I have bought a car out of town, I only needed a 1-way, but found it was cheaper to buy rt/weekend stay, use the go to ticket - toss the return and drive back.
I don’t make the rules, just try to do the best I can with the situation that is presented. There have been many times that I have done the head smack and thought - that would not cost that much if it was not a business use item.
It seldom makes sense, from the outside. Inside, who knows.
medstar, in the post after yours, mentions the concern about checked luggage staying on the plane after a passenger disembarks–they don’t like that for the same reason that they stopped letting cars remain at the pickup areas without a driver. Fear of bombs.
Years ago, I was getting ready to travel home to a small Rocky Mountain town. Air travel to the town itself is usually expensive so I often fly in to Denver, and drive from there. Roundtrip to Denver was $341. On a whim, I asked how much to continue on to the small town. $340, round trip air, with a stop over in Denver. We flew home.
No, in that scenario, you’d choose the round-trip ticket, whether it was a business trip or a pleasure trip.
But businesses don’t always buy tickets that way for their frequent travelers. If you were a business traveler that needed to fly to Seattle each and every Monday, they might have bought you your tickets months in advance, and paid $400 apiece, because that’s what it took to ensure that you’d have a reservation on a flight to Seattle every single Monday.
But on this particular Monday, there might be some sort of discount in effect, so that when the soccer mom goes to the counter, she can buy a round-trip ticket for $190. But she might also be told that the flight is fully booked and that she can’t buy a ticket at all while, you’ve got your ticket for that same flight in hand. Or she might be told that a round-trip is $700, because prices have gone up for some reason.
mangeorge: I think you’re working from the assumption that airline pricing makes some kind of rational sense. It doesn’t.
All the rest of business, by and large, charges whatever the market will bear. Business people, bye and large, seek ways to save the company money. Management requires it. If my secretary (admin. asst.) purchased tickets for me to go to Seattle, I would expect her/him to get the best price. Most companies use travel services, either in-house or contracted. Airlines can’t (won’t, anyway) say "No, you’re a business person. You can’t have a RT ticket.
Actually, Green Bean, I’m working from the assumption that most people have common sense. Enough, at least, to not pay a high price for something they can get much cheaper.
Don’t get me wrong. If I were filthy rich, I’d always fly 1st class.
Wow! Thanks for all these posts. You’ve all pretty much answered my first question, what about the second? How can an airline punish me for buying a roundtrip ticket, using one portion and disposing of the second portion? If they tell me to pay the difference between the roundtrip and the oneway price, what can they do if I say no? I’ve already paid and taken the trip, I don’t see how they can legally punish me.
If someone meets the requirements for a discounted ticket, the airline will sell it to them, even if they’re wearing a three-piece suit and carrying a briefcase. Usually that means flying someplace and staying there for the weekend. And many discounted tickets must be purchased some number of days in advance.
Most businesses are willing to pay the full fare so they don’t have to put up with those restrictions. If I’m running a business, and I decide that one of my salesmen (or whoever) has to meet with someone in a distant city, I want them to meet and get things worked out right away. I don’t want to cool my heels for two weeks just to save a couple hundred bucks. For the person who’s traveling, that travel is part of his job. He doesn’t want to be working on the weekend any more than you do. He wants to fly somewhere on Monday, come home Friday and have the weekend to himself. And flying home on Sunday would mean the company pays for two additional days in a hotel, meals, and overtime, so they might be saving money to pay the full fare to get him home sooner.
I did a little pricing on a few of the airlines’ own sites, and here’s what I found; Same flight outbound. Man, what a hassle.
Departure, morning of Aug 14
Return, morning of Aug 19
Ok, round trip;
Alaska $342
Continental 273
United 297
One-way;
Alaska $125
Continental 136
United 154
I can only surmise that I’m picking the wrong days. So how does one find the specific flights that get you the savings. Is there an agency? Weekends only?
I also checked Expedia, where they list flights on the same page, and didn;t see any examples of what the op (and the rest of you ;)) claims.
I’m up for saving money if it doesn’t inconvenience me any.