Open Jaws
 

The inability to fly into one place and depart from another without a serious financial penalty really bugs me. Can anyone supply the airlines rationale for these ticketing structures [or strictures]. I understand the bottom line imperative, but I can't figure out how permitting open jaws is so devastating to earnings.

What country are you referring to in Europe?

If you're working with one particular airline or code share partnership, that might be a contributing factor to the price difference. It depends on the cities you're talking about.

Many times I've seen that the cost of open jaw tickets is more than a rt to one of the two cities, and less than the other. It may not always be the case, such as when a particular airline doesn't have a cheap option in one of the two markets, but usually if you look at an outlet like Expedia, etc, the split price difference holds true more often than not.

I'm not saying these "serious financial penalties" don't exist, but on the couple times I've flown open jaws in Europe, I certainly haven't incurred them. Last year, we flew Seattle->Venice and then Nice->Seattle (Northwest between Seattle & Amsterdam, and Northwest's partner KLM between Amsterdam and Venice/Nice) and the fare was just about the same as a roundtrip fare between Seattle and either city.

I checked into an open jaw itinerary recently on KLM/NW codeshare and the fare was slightly less than a roundtrip into/out of the same European city.

We flew on an open jaw last year on AA from DFW to FRA then LGW back to DFW for no more than half the cost of each roundtrip fare. No problem.

I used to work for American Airlines and worked in reservations. An open jaw ticket can be cheap as others have pointed out. All you are doing is taking the average of two fares combined. It would take a discertation to explain fares. What most people do not realize is that open jaws can work in their favor and save them time on their trip. With that said travel needs to be done on the same airline for that rule to apply. I hope that clears up any questions you may have. International fares are negotiated and are out of the airlines hands for the most part..foreign treaties involved etc...Domestic fares (at least in the US) are a different story. I cannot speak for European carriers.

Ditto me - last fall, I did an open jaw Portland to Europe (Northwest - into Paris, out of Amsterdam) and the total fare was less than I would have paid round trip PDX-AMS.

Yes, open jaws domestic US are usually not cheap, but open jaws to Europe are a completely different story.

Andrew

On The British Airways web site open jaw and layovers can be programed in the booking They encourage a lay over in England more money for the Country if you stay over. The money stays in England .

Italiano:
Of all the possible explanations for a company's behaviour, patriotism is the least likely explanation for anything BA does. Getting on for half its shares are owned by Americans (and less than half its shares are owned by Brits): its boss is Australian and its support staff are all over the globe.
If BA are offering "free" layovers (about as real as a free lunch), they've worked out BA - not the rest of Britain - will make more money that way.

Many thanks for the encouraging inputs. I guess my concerns were based on domestic experiences rather than international. Will take another look!

lweber,
I was getting very expensive prices when I used the airlines internet pricing-trying to do the same.
I found a site that would give me a good price - with the flight numbers etc. Then I *called* the airlines and got the same price from them. But it took a while. Keep asking for the connections that you need. It's worth the time and effort.
This is what I posted about the situation. I hope it helps you. If you have a questions, email me at [email protected].

(My earlier post)
Ok, first of all, FLYCHEAP.COM was the ticket! or at least it provided me with the means to get the ticket. It does have the "open jaw" option
I did try out Travelocity, Yahoo, Orbitz, etc. etc. plus the airlines and kept coming up with some terrible price at the very LEAST $1175 PP.
FLYCHEAP.COM has the advantage of putting in the cities as though it
were a RT, Anyway, it has given me my DFW to Venice (by way of Paris)
and Barcelona (by way of London) for about $825 pp with excellent
connections.
Even when you call the airlines ( I used AA) directly, they will route
you through various weird ways, at the same high prices. So by using
FLYCHEAP, I found the flight number that I wanted, so that I would ask for
the times and connections I wanted.
So I did want to suggest BUYCHEAP. COM so that some other weary budget traveler such as I may reap the benefits!

We too have enjoyed good fares for our last two trips on BA. We flew SFO/LHR/FCO and MXP/LHR/SFO last year, and SFO/LHR/PRA and BUD/LHR/SFO in May of this year. I'm sure you will be able to find acceptable open jaw flights for your trip.

A related problem, and this applies particularly to travel to Spain, or other destinations to which Iberia flies, is the inability of the airline's website to produce open jaw tix for online customers. For example, if you want to make an online reservation and purchase tix on Iberia's website, there is no capacity to do multi-city or open-jaw routing [unlike other carriers' sites, such as AA's]. It's set up only for one-way or strict round-trip [in/out of same city]. Thus, if there is a savings from purchasing online, you won't be able to get it if your travel involves 3 cities. Fortunately, the domestic Spain fares are so low, I recently circumvented the problem by booking two separate tickets online so that I wind up flying in and out of Barcelona, and am taking an interim round trip between Barcelona and San Sebastian. Buying those 2 tickets online was loads less expensive than buying a single ticket that accomplished the same thing through the Iberia telephone reservationist.

I am flying into Amsterdam and out of Rome from Seattle in Sept.

Cost $712.00 on Northwest Airlines.
I always fly open jaw. Saves time and money.

I have had several open jaw tickets to/from Europe from the US and have never once incurred any financial penalty at all for doing so. I don't know why you say that or where you got that info from.

Of course such a ticket will not be the same as the cost of the cheapest RT ticket you can buy -- one city will not doubt be cheaper than the other, they are never identical because they are in different places. I've never paid more than the sum of the two halves of the RT fares, which is the average between the two places.