One Way vs. Round Trip

I was checking out possible flights for my move, and discovered that round trip flights are the same price or cheaper than one way!

Would it be smart to book a round trip and use the second one to visit home at a later date to save money? Or would that look fishy?

Future husband seems to think that's the way to go (he did that when he lived in Australia for a year... just moved his return ticket to the proper date and it worked well for him), but I just wonder if it will be more expensive over time and harder to book flights together if I was "one flight off" from him, so to speak.

Has anyone else had experience with this?

My bf bought a one way ticket last year, it was a lot cheaper for him.  I think he paid $400 for it.

How? Where? I am mystified!

I've been looking at nigh $900 on the low end for either option!

How? Where? I am mystified!

I've been looking at nigh $900 on the low end for either option!

It depends what time of year you travel (peak vs. off-peak months) and usually also how far in advance you book the tickets. If you fly early in the year (around Jan to April) or late in the year (Sept-November), flights are generally pretty cheap - maybe $400-$500 round trip, but if you fly in the summer, you're looking at around $1,000 round trip!

Also, last year, a lot of flights went up drastically in price due to the increase in airline taxes - I was trying to book a flight to Hawaii from LA and in March 2008, flights were about $500 round trip and from April onwards, they were $800. Unfortunately, I just missed out on booking a cheap ticket before they increased the taxes from less than $100 per flight to almost $300 per flight .

One tip for finding cheaper flights is not to fly on the weekend. Flights are more expensive for travel on Friday-Sunday and cheaper between Monday and Thursday. I'm trying to get out to LA this August and it's almost £100 cheaper to fly out on a Tuesday and return on a Thursday than to fly out on a Sat and return on a Sat.

Also, sometimes you can get cheaper flights depending on what day of the week and what time of the day you search for tickets. A friend of mine told me last year that a certain flight website gave you better prices on a Tuesday night than any other time of the week! Unfortunately though, I can't remember what site it was .

I bought a ticket last week, roundtrip, and only paid $550.  It is for the last week in May, but I think prices were higher for June.  He got his ticket off the Aer Lingus website, as they separate their fares.  However, I'm flying out of San Francisco- so that may make a difference.

Yep, it really depends on which airport you're flying from, and everything else that's been mentioned.  Flying, for instance, Minneapolis to Birmingham in July is always going to be about the most expensive option!

Rule of thumb...it's not 'fishy' to buy a one-way ticket when you're coming here to settle, but if a round-trip ticket is cheaper, buy it.  That's not fishy either...some people just never use the second part of the ticket, some do...

Some people say that early in the day is a good time to check prices, and some say you should delete the cookies left by airline websites after doing an search for seats, because they increase the prices for subsequent searches. EasyJet is supposed to be a notorious example.

I was checking out possible flights for my move, and discovered that round trip flights are the same price or cheaper than one way!

Would it be smart to book a round trip and use the second one to visit home at a later date to save money? Or would that look fishy?

Future husband seems to think that's the way to go (he did that when he lived in Australia for a year... just moved his return ticket to the proper date and it worked well for him), but I just wonder if it will be more expensive over time and harder to book flights together if I was "one flight off" from him, so to speak.

Has anyone else had experience with this?

That is what I did.  I moved in April and booked my return for the Monday before Thanksgiving.  I HAD to go home; it would have been such a waste of money not too.   

some say you should delete the cookies left by airline websites after doing an search for seats, because they increase the prices for subsequent searches.

This is definitely the case, in my experience.  In fact, it happened to my dad just a few days ago. 

Yeah, I'm looking on weekdays, any time on them, but since I wanted to leave September 1st or before, I'm SOL.

Might have to stay another week or so anyway, because we don't know how long paperwork is going to take. :/

Personally, I just bought a round-trip ticket and will only use one half of it.  I figure, some person who has missed their earlier flight will be so happy to discover there's an extra seat on the plane!  I've done this before--to me, it usually seems too complicated to try to use the return ticket for something.

Summer flights to Europe are unbelievably cheap this year (at least compared to what it usually costs to fly during the summer).  I bought my ticket for July 1 from Houston to Heathrow for $850, thinking that it couldn't possibly get any cheaper in July.  It is now down to $800!  I've been using Yapta (www.yapta.com) to track flight prices--you can enter whatever flights you are interested in and it will keep track of whether prices go up or down.

check sites like kayak.com and cheaptickets.com, too!

i just bought a virgin atlantic ticket from boston to london for the first week in june for $539 round trip! tickets are WAY cheaper this year than normal...

Ah, see, I'm coming from the west coast. That's what's killing me here.

Decided I'm going to fly out mid-September though, and that looks much better, cost-wise. Plus it leaves plenty of time to get paperwork back and sorted.

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.

When I moved out here (Sept. 2007) I booked a round trip with the return journey set for Thanksgiving, then bought a separate one-way via Dublin to get back to the UK after Thanksgiving. It was a great comfort to me and my family to have that return flight and know that I'd be coming "home", if only for a visit, a short time after I left.