Buying One Way Flights
Thanks for this tip. I had problems in the past with one airline. It was a very stressful situation and we had to buy refundable tickets but it took us almost a month in Colombia to finally get it refunded! Anyway I will check that company as we will be taking one way flights in south east Asia.
buying one way flights
I had a great experience flying one-way from Miami to Rome, Italy, just like this writer had with Spirit going from Miami to Honduras. I was told by the AA ticket agent at check-in that I had better purchase a return fully refundable ticket to the U.S. from Rome. Italian customs, he warned, especially those at Fiumicino, would give me a hard time. I had never considered this and had no idea one-way tickets on international flights could pose a problem. I had planned to spend a few months in Italy and the Balkans and buy a ticket later. The one-way fully refundable ticket from Rome to Boston (the cheapest flight) would cost me $2,750. But once through Italian customs, the agent explained, I could simply go online and cancel it. The U.S. agent, who himself was born and raised in Italy, had saved me.
My son and his friend are going to finland to stay with family for a month and then backpack through europe, will they have a problem with buying a one way ticket. Any advise would be greatly appreciated.
Absolutely brilliant post Marek. I was just asked this by a few friends who are traveling to SE asia with me and even after explaining it in detail they were still asking questions so we found this post on google. Basically if you have no solid plans of dates or locations to travel to just get a one way and as marek said, if you are told you must have an onward flight ticket out of the country just go online and purchase the cheapest one to the next neighbouring country to show as proof. Air asia I have found very cheap onward flights from the closest airport to a neighbouring country arriving at the closest airport in the next country for less than 15. This is really not a huge issue at all and its what a lot of people need to do if they plan to travel and want to have maximum flexibility
Many people book one way tickets when they're moving to a new country, or if they're travelling or going on a holiday for a long period of time and have not decided when or if they want to return. Look at our step by step guide on how to book one way flights.
Booking two one way tickets from separate airlines can sometimes be cheaper than buying a round trip from the same airline. It's really easy to compare the price of one way tickets from separate airlines with the price of a round trip from the same airline with Alternative Airlines' search form. Here's how you do it.
By definition, a one way flight is a service that flies you to a destination and doesn't fly you back. People buy one way flights when they don't want to return to the destination that they departed from in the near future.
You can get cheap one way flights right here on the Alternative Airlines website. We provide comparisons for an infinite amount of one way flights. Just use the search form at the top of the screen to start comparing.
Not always. Sometimes booking two separate one way flights from different airlines can actually be cheaper than booking a return flight from the same airline. It's really easy to compare the price of one way flights with round trip flights with Alternative Airlines. Just use the search form at the top of the screen.
One way flights aren't always more expensive than round trip flights. If you were to book two one way flights on the same airline as two separate bookings, it'll most likely be more expensive. However, when you book two one way flights from separate airlines, it can sometimes be cheaper than buying a round trip from the same airline. You might also be able to get a cheap one-way flight by booking at the very last minute - take a look at our last-minute one-way flight guide for more information.
One way flights can be bought to fly anywhere, to both domestic and international destinations. At Alternative Airlines you can buy one way flights from any international destination to another on any of the airlines that we offfer.
Click on these airlines that fly to the USA - you can search and book one-way flights to New York, one-way flights to Denver and one-way flights to Oklahoma City as well as other popular US cities, with these airlines.
Love the article and thanks for sharing the information.! Can you do another info session on security of buying tickets on line? I recently used a travel agent because of the number of warning feedbacks, but it was very expensive to do so.
If one-ways cost less than half the price of a roundtrip, everyone would just always buy one-ways and never roundtrips. Instead the airlines make one-way flights more expensive to get extra revenue out of the small subset of people who can't book their return flight quite yet.
If your reasoning for booking a one-way is because you are departing from one airport (say, Paris) and returning from another (such as Barcelona), it's likely cheaper to book an open-jaw ticket (often referred to as a multi-city itinerary in flight searches) than it is two one-way flights.
While many of the major legacy airlines (United, Air France, etc.) will charge more for booking one-way legs versus a roundtrip ticket, a rising number of low-cost carriers offer cheap one-way flights that are roughly half the cost of a roundtrip ticket.
Southwest Airlines recently added service from the US to several Latin American and Caribbean hubs like Nassau, Grand Cayman, Cancun, Belize City, San Juan, and Punta Cana. Though again, remember that Southwest flights don't show up in Google Flights so you'll have to go direct to their website to compare prices. JetBlue, Avianca, and GOL are also great options.
One exception to the above: one-way flights from the US on Air New Zealand are more expensive than half a roundtrip, while flights within the region are not. For flights within Asia and Oceania, AirAsia, Jetstar, Qantas, and Air New Zealand are all solid options, though only Qantas and Air New Zealand offer bags and seat selection included in the price.
The Southwest Companion Pass is arguably one of the best benefits in travel today. When you earn the Companion Pass, you will be able to bring a companion on any Southwest flight for just the cost of the taxes and fees on the second ticket ($5.60 each way on domestic flights or about $75-$100 each way on international itineraries).
A-List Preferred status includes a couple of extra perks including 100% more bonus points on your flights and free Wi-Fi. The free inflight Wi-Fi is a nice perk, especially if you like to get some work done while traveling. This usually costs $8 per day, so for each round-trip flight you take, this benefit would be worth $16. If you fly once a month, you would get $192 in value from this perk yearly.
To qualify for A-List status you need to fly 25 qualifying one-way flights or earn 35,000 tier qualifying points. To earn A-List Preferred status you need to fly 50 qualifying one-way flights or earn 70,000 tier qualifying points. To earn Companion Pass you need to fly 100 qualifying one-way flights or earn 125,000 qualifying points.
Simply put, round-the-world (RTW) tickets are one of the most convenient ways to travel around the world. They make planning your trip simple and straightforward, allowing you to visit the destinations you want to see without having to worry about booking flights along the way.
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I was wondering if EU immigration would be okay with me buying a 1 way ticket to Europe? My wife and I want to backpack but we're not sure if we want to stay for 2 months or 3 months. We figure about 6 weeks into the trip we'll have a good feel of when we'll want to fly back home, and would buy the return ticket then.
You need to be careful about airfares. For some origin/destination pairs there are reasonable one-way fares, but I don't think that's necessarily true, especially if your home airport doesn't have international flights. I hope you're already looking at what it will cost you to fly back from any city where you might end your trip so you don't get dazzled by a low price on your outbound leg. Take a good look at the trip duration, too. Sometimes there are decent one-way fares, but the trips are 23 hours long.
From the standpoint of the cost of one-way return flights, keep in mind that many (most? all?) airlines allow you to book one-way tickets with frequent-flier miles at half the mileage-cost of a round-trip. I have used that capability twice in the last two years, only booking my return when I was mid-way through my trip. I realize now that I might have had difficulty at my departure point or at EU immigration, but I did not. I was not traveling through the UK, which may be what saved me.
Yes, they MIGHT be able to do that (Depending on the skills of the agents, some of them on some airlines can barely look up their own flights), but they are trying shove several hundred people down that jetway to get the plane out on time. When the plane doesn't go out on time because they were trying to link to some database that's not their primary I can tell you it's not going to be fun for them and they know it. So...
Aside from any game-playing, booking and canceling to create a "return" ticket, the main problem with buying a ticket at the relative last minute is the price. The closer you get to flight time, the less cost options you have. Even if money is not an object, you still might find some limitations with finding seats from your preferred place on your preferred date. Since you have not traveled there before, you can't anticipate how you will react to it. Maybe you will be anxious to come home after a month, and maybe you won't want to come back in 90 days (but you have to). 041b061a72