I'm looking to purchase tickets to Vietnam from LAX in late Feb 07. Ideally I'd like to get an open jaw ticket entering in either Hanoi or Saigon and leaving from the other. I'm looking on American and United and those tickets seem to be several hundred (if not a thousand) more dollars that a standard round trip flight (standard round trip around $1,100). Any suggestions? Also, will either of those airlines do a stopover?

Call the airline directly and ask. Sometimes an open jaw ticket is so expensive, that it makes more sense to book as a rounndtrip and buy the ticket back to your entry opint separately. Since UA only flies in and out of Saigon (HCMC)an open jaw ticket would either route you from Hanoi to Saigon before your transpacfic flight or to another gateway such as Bangkok or Hong Kong. A flight between Hanoi and Saigon purchased separately should be less than $100 on Vietnam Air.

Thanks Kathie, I'll call directly. I'm trying to see which is more expensive, since theoretically I'll have to purchase a ticket to Hanoi and then back to Saigon (if we fly in and out of Saigon) for 2 - which would be around $400.

I think, You'd book your ticket 2ways to hanoi or Sai Gon. Then You can go to other(SaiGon or Hanoi) by train or Bus for stop some places as Hue, Hoi An, Nha Trang not fly, so you can save some monies. From Hanoi to Sai Gon or return has night flight, the price cheaper much.

We'll be doing this in a month from Minneapolis which theoretically, I think, would be lots more than from LAX. Plus when we leave it wil be peak Christmas/New Year travel season. I just bought our tickets about 2 weeks ago on Orbitz. We fly into Saigon and out of Hanoi but could have also done it the other way around for about the same price. We paid $1300.

what is your routing julies?

I booked RT open-jaw tickets for Jan returning in Feb for me (out of Seattle) and my friend (out of San Francisco). We fly via Taipei to Hanoi then home out of Siem Reap. I checked fares at Asia.com, Travelation.com and Cheapoair.com and got fares (incl fees and taxes) of roughly $1100. These fares were considerably less than the ones I found on the airline sites.
Most of the lowest fares were using China Airlines.

mrwunrfl--

It'll be a long trip, but then again there don't seem to really be any good routes from Minneapolis. We fly MSP to Chicago. There we go to Seoul before we make it to Vietnam. We've got a Delta/Korean Air codeshare.