If I want to fly to xx. destination by direct flight, and return from a different destination, will I be penalized price-wise if I buy one-way tickets on two different airlines (that do not code share)??

Delta flies NYC-NAP direct


United will begin flying BRI-NYC direct (or so I've heard)

Will I pay a lot more buying a ticket on each airline, instead of buying a RT on the same airline?

I'm not the world's best expert on airfares by any means but have been traveling domestically and internationally for over 45 years. In my experience the only way to determine if two one-way tickets on different airlines will cost more or less than a r/t fare on on one airline is to check prices for your specific itinerary and planned dates of travel and compare the results.

"It depends"

I agree with RA that the best way to know is to price it out, in this case maybe trying a 3rd party app, booking.com, travelocity, google flights, etc to see what price you can find that may be a single ticket.

My own experience has been that in the last few years 2x one-ways are usually no different price than a round trip or multi city itinerary, but I have also found some sweet deals using a single airline. In that case, the exact routing didn't matter since I needed to connect anyway. I've done 2X one ways a number of times domestically (US), and once internationally where different airlines coming and going were better routing options than booking on a single airline.

In the future I plan to pay more attention to routing - as you are doing in this case - even if the fare is slightly higher.

ps. One of those domestic trips where one way vs round trip didn't matter was UA one direction, Delta the other....

ekscrunchy--It's not your imagination--there used to be a penalty.

Now, more often than not (although I ALWAYS check), it's just not the case unless there's a unicorn sale. Also more or less dead: "Book your flights on Tuesdays" and "Round trip must include a Saturday night stay" rules.

Case in point: We frequently fly from our major airport to visit grandchildren in a big city for long weekends. We often fly one airline up and a different airline back depending on the pricing. Strangely, although we tend to fly out on the same day, same time and return on the same day, same time, I never really know which airlines will come out best pricewise before I book. I must always check, and then check again.

BIG FYI: Google bought the basic ITA Matrix search engine, a site I practically lived on when we used to do three big international trips a year. I would play for hours on that thing when I was trying to decide the best connecting flights to Turkey, or New Zealand, etc. Here's Nerd Wallet's great article on how to use the updated one (I loved the ancient version) now: Learn How to Use ITA Matrix

I now mainly use Matrix to find the plane configurations I like. Hey, I'm old and I like to be comfy!

Thanks so much to all of you here..Allessandra, I'm also old and want to be comfy as much as possible!!

I will check the various configurations, and also take a look at Matrix. I'm generally pretty lazy about using all these various sites but I ought to put in the time, instead of just looking at the obvious routes..
and it doesn't hurt, if one has to connect, to connect in a new city and spend a day or two there... Last year we took Lufthansa to Sicily so were able to spend a few days in Munich in between Catania and New York... So that was a real plus for us, keeping in mind that we usually have the time now to extend a trip.. Long gone are the days when we could only take a week at a time and try to squeeze in half a country in those few days!!

For me, if I find a decent flight and can sit in the "upper class" the flight is part of the fun.

Totally unrelated comment: When I was small, my favorite thing to do with my dad was to drive to Idelwild (yes, I'm that old!!). We'd park near the terminal (free back then) and just go inside and stare at the destination boards stuffed with all those exotic names.....Tehran, Athens, Beirut, etc etc.

And on those long Pan Am flights that we actually took, we had to get off the plane in some of those airports ( I think they were "refueling" stops) .....and wander around while my Dad would stock up on duty free caviar (Tehran) and alcohol (all airports)..... But that was well before the aches and pains and crankiness of age set in!! Imagine flying today from JFK to Bombay with eight stops!!

I’ve booked two one-way tickets on different airlines several times, including for international routes, and it really depends on the dates and airlines involved. Sometimes the total is close to a round-trip fare, but other times one-way tickets can cost more, especially if one of the airlines doesn’t have competitive return routes.

What helps is checking prices on Google Flights or Skyscanner using the “multi-city” option — it’ll show whether booking one-way or round-trip is cheaper overall. Also, make sure both tickets have good baggage and cancellation policies, since those can vary between airlines.

Thanks!! I'll be thinking about booking (for May) in a month or two and might return with more questions. I usually just book RT direct with an airline so am not familiar with all of those sites which seem to be very popular for good reason (Skyscanner etc)

For a trip in mid-May, when would you all think about booking air tix? (I like to leave it as late as possible in case something comes up and I have to cancel)

Ekscrunchy--I don't think waiting around to book is an advantage if you have to cancel. We've never had a problem using up ecredits from our cancelled non-refundable flights, mainly because we only use two airlines and their partners anyway. I think you travel enough that you'd be in the same position.

May I suggest starting to get the gist of your destinations pricing right now, learn how to do one of the many fare tracker options on Google Flights, Skyscanner, Kayak etc, making sure to add some flexibility onto your departure and return dates, and be prepared to jump when you get a good deal.
If you demand non-stops only, make sure to list that too! I know that connections and my husband are not good, no matter how much less it costs.

These fare trackers work! Case in point: I once had a fare drop 1.5K in the middle of the night for my earliest possible departure date, and the fare tracker alerted me. Within minutes, our seats were booked, saving us a total of 3K. My husband thought we'd see those prices again before we left. Nope.

Wishing you so much fun "playing" with all these wonderful tools,
AZ

United has nonstop EWR-NAP
United in May, BRI-EWR nonstop on Mon, Tue, Thu, Sat
Nonstops are probably going to cost significantly more than connecting flights.

"Nonstops are probably going to cost significantly more than connecting flights"
That used to be the case; it's surprising how often it is not and it costs NOTHING to check.
And what's more, with each connection, delays or cancellations of the previous flight impact the next flight. I like improving my odds of getting to my destination somewhat on time and somewhat in a happy mood.
But price does count, and I still allow for that.

I remember I had an outright steal for international business class, but it required a connection in PHL. Well, we used to fly internationally through PHL all the time and I had a handle of what can go wrong there, as in "what can go wrong, often does". With our flight history in mind, I got us a mid-morning flight into PHL for an evening flight out, and we went back to carry-on luggage only, just in case. Starting a few months out, AA kept "rescheduling" our first leg to squeeze us closer (quite logically) to the PHL departure time; I would just call AA on repeat and say, "No, we need the early flight."

And sure enough we did need that flight. Our early flight was delayed by two hours. One of the flights they wanted to send us out on was cancelled; the other one they pressed me to accept was delayed forever and would not have made our PHL departure time. Our so-called "long" layover ended up being less than two hours, which gave us a pretty good lounge chill plus good pre-flight walk-around-the-block time.

With flights like that you do pay more for two one way tickets in my experience. Simple fact is the number of people that want to do a one way flight on routes like those are few. The airline needs to fly the plane R/T so they need to sell R/T tickets. If you buy a one way the chance is the seat will be empty on the return.


I just checked May prices Bari to EWR. A one way flight is more than twice a R/T flight on the same route. That's not a typo. It would be cheaper to buy two R/T tickets and forget to take the second leg.

"I just checked May prices Bari to EWR. A one way flight is more than twice a R/T flight on the same route. That's not a typo. It would be cheaper to buy two R/T tickets and forget to take the second leg."

First of all, be careful with the "forget to take the second leg" stuff. FlyerTalk is full of anecdotes where missing any portion of your flight will result in the cancellation of the rest of your reservation. We are talking people who couldn't take the second leg because the flight's delay would cost them their cruise ship and they rented a car to make it on time. They would come back and find out their return flights had been totally cancelled.

Second, with a RT being cheaper... That sure wasn't the case when I was trip planning internationally last year, even though I did end up flying with the same airline to and fro. I've snagged my cheapest one-way flights to/from the same city/destination for June already on TWO different airlines. The days I chose to fly, after checking date grids, made a huge cost difference in each leg, but those dates were not cheaper on BOTH airlines. I got the cheapest departure day on one airline and the cheapest return day through another.

Remember: There are a zillion routes out there were RT doesn't make sense. So many of us on this board constantly recommend OPEN JAW trip planning--in essence, two one-way flights--to make the most of any journey.

It costs nothing to check, check, check, especially with so many web "toys" and with time to play with.

Open jaw or multi city is just a different form of R/T. Two one way tickets on different airlines are totally different.

The second leg getting canceled doesn't matter if you don't intend to take it.

R/T Bari to EWR was showing a starting price under €550 IIRC. One way was almost €1100.

There you have it..so in this case, the two one-ways cost a lot more...
Thanks to all of you for your help. I just have to put aside a few hours and do the homework before buying.

I've lived in NYC my entire adult life and flown out of EWR only once. Getting to that airport used to be an awful slog, so I never considered flights to and from, but the new United flights will make me take a look. Surely there is a decent way to get to that airport nowadays. (Uber or taxi)

I now book all my flights out of Brooklyn from Newark JFK and LGA have too much traffic to get to. I have almost missed so many flights just not worth it for me but it really depends where in the city you are located
I don't like taking luggage on public transportation