We are travelling to Europe this summer to pick up my teenage daughter who is there, travel together, and then all fly back to the US together. My daughter needs only a one way ticket to get home (the second half of her original ticket to Europe is unusable). One way tickets are priced at double the cost of round trip! It would cost us an extra $1000 to buy her a one way ticket. The obvious solution is to pretend she is returning to Europe and buy her a round trip ticket with some fictitious return date. Could the airlines or immigration/customs give us any problem if they find out my daughter in fact is not going to use the return portion of her ticket? She will stand out as the only family member with a return ticket back to Europe. I don't want to run into any hassles and yet it seems silly to shell out an extra $1000.

I just would not go through immigration back into the US together as a family. Have her go into a separate line, but if anyone asks, just say she is going back to school in Europe on that date.

Don't know your destinations or dates but I'm seeing plenty of one-way fares in the $350 - $450 range in July on Continental, American, Aer Lingus and Delta, from most of the Irish or UK airports to Boston, NYC or Washington (from which jetBlue or others could carry one on further.) I wouldn't buy a RT for $800 if you could get something for half that.

Your daughter is American, right? Then she CANNOT have any problem coming back to the US with a one-, two-, three-, or four-way ticket.

Airlines don't care, unless you do it often.

But you may be able to find some cheaper one-way fares like Gardyloo's suggesting.

Are you sure the return portion of her original ticket is unusable? If she has over-stayed, sometimes all she'll need to do is pay the difference between the price of the original ticket & the fare of the longer-stay ticket. What is the airline & the routing?

If she is a student and has an ISIC card she should be able to book a reasonable one way flight through STA Travel or Student Universe.

Nobody will give your daughter any problems; they don't KNOW what her future plans are and could care less especially if she is a US citizen returning home. The airline certainly isn't going to complain about someone not using the other half of the ticket, either.

Hi M,

I agree with the above; no one is going to give you any problems about not going back to Europe.

Concentrate on getting a better fare.

Try www.kayak.com and www.mobissimo.com