Diane

We are planning on flying from Paris to Venice instead of taking the long train ride. <BR> <BR>We are not returning to Paris. <BR> <BR>The flights are less than half price if we book a round trip then if we book a one way. <BR> <BR>Is there any reason why we cannot book the round trip and just not use the return ticket? <BR> <BR>I am sure some of you experienced travellers can help me out. <BR> <BR>Thanks. <BR> <BR>Diane

Holly

No reason at all. That's what I had to do last year for a flight Venice/Brussels. The 1-way ticket would've cost twice as much as the R/T.

Miane

Buy a round trip (best fares) and throw the return.

Paige

Just don't tell the airline that's what you're planning (duh).

Rex

You might save (a tiny little bit of?) money by considering the following: train PAR to BRU, www.virginexpress,com BRU to MIL, train MIL to VCE. Obviously, this makes more sense if you are actually interested in seeing some of Brussels or Milan. I haven't tried doing the comparison cost-wise (that would require knowing your dates); it clearly will eat up far less time to fly PAR-VCE non-stop. <BR> <BR>Best wishes, <BR> <BR>Rex

Christina

That's amazing, I've never seen that big a difference but there's nothing they can do to you if you don't use the return ticket (they can get mad if they find you jump plane in the middle of a flight at a connecting point rather than going to the end, in order to get a cheaper ticket; in that case, they can cancel your return portion if it's RT). I don't understand this at all as what do they care if you've bought the ticket for the same price and just don't sit in the seat to the end point, makes zero sense to me, but that's what I've read. Anyway, I've bought RT tickets London-Paris and the agency even knew I wasn't coming back to London, they just told me to buy it that way as it was a lot cheaper than a one-way fare, everybody does it. Anyway, what can they do--lots of people don't show up for flights for lots of reasons including just missing the flight, that's why they overbook and you could be dead for all they know. I suppose if you are a frequent flyer they could "punish" you some way by taking away miles, but I've never heard of that--if they were really mean I suppose they could charge your credit card number (if they have it) with some fare surcharge based on the one-way fare, but I have never heard of such a thing and suspect it would be illegal. I agree you shouldn't tell them you plan to do that when you buy it or they might not sell it to you. I wonder if this is due to some bizarre airline regulation because economically it makes no sense for them to price things that way; furthermore, if they stopped doing that, they could get a better idea of true volume and come closer to selling the correct number of tickets in the first place. I understand some pricing policies based on demand by market, so that prices are not related to distance necessarily, but this kind of pricing makes no sense to me. I wish there were some airline marketing person on here who could explain this strange pricing policy.

Diane

Thank you all for your answers. They agree with my thinking, but I had wanted to check and be sure I was not missing something. <BR> <BR>I was amazed at the price difference too. One way CDG to Venice is $ 867.57 for the 2 of us. Round trip is $ 427.98 for both of us. <BR> <BR>For the one way price I was going to take the train. For the RT price, I am going to fly. <BR> <BR>Thanks again