One Way vs. Round Trip

Bmibaby, going through Dublin is not recommended for people who need their visa stamped.  Flights from Dublin don't go through Immigration. 

Good to know! Some of the flights I saw had a stopover in Ireland. I'll just avoid those.

Airline pricing baffles me, it just seems so ridiculous sometimes.

I'm going to buy a roundtrip ticket for the end of May with the second leg the week of American Thanksgiving. For about $550 on Delta or $575 on KML I can fly roundtrip from Portland to Manchester as opposed to more than double for a one way flight. I use kayak.com and find them to be really good.

I'm booking the return leg for a time when I might actually use it. Depending on what my work situation ends up being I'll either use it to see my family for Thanksgiving (DF won't have the time off work so I'll be by myself unfortunately) or just skip the flight and have saved around $600!

If you want to buy a one-way flight, consider buying a ticket to Dublin, then purchasing a separate one-way from there to your final UK destination. Because of Aer Lingus's pricing structure, one-way fares are readily available at very reasonable prices.

If you do go for a round trip ticket, you can often change the return date for little or no charge once you've taken the outbound flight.

Are you talking specifically about Aer Lingus here? Cause no airline I've ever flown makes the process of changing return date of restricted fare either easy, inexpensive or free.