We are planning to spend a year in Tel Aviv. Does anyone have any experience buying airline tickets with an open return good for one year? We would like to make a stop over in Europe-- still open ended as to where..any tips on how to find cheaper fares would be appreciated.

Am pretty sure that an open return ticket leaves the return DATE open, not the departure city of the return leg (i.e. not "open ended as to where&quot.

You will probably find that open-dated return tickets are priced pretty closely to "full fare" tickets - i.e. 2 x the one-way fare, so no bargains to be had.

When are you going and from where?

Oh, I think I misunderstood. Doesn't matter which Euro city you return from you just want your open ticket to be as cheap as possible?

Open return tickets are of the expensive, fully refundable and changeable type. If you want the lowest price and flexibility, just take a best guess as to a return date and routing and plan on spending only the $100 to $300 change fee. Just be sure the ticket is changeable after travel has commenced.

Thanks for all of your input!

I have no specific knowledge of the policies of carriers serving TLV. However, I just wanted to say that open dated return tickets don't always have to be full fare Y or close to it. For example, some Asian carriers allow you to purchase a fare class slightly higher than the lowest economy fare and have an open dated return. It's at least worth investigating.