one way or round trip air?
 

I'm planning to fly one-way from London to L.A. in December. Why are round trip airfare prices cheaper than one way? What would happen if I purchased a round trip ticket but didn't use the return flight? Would there be any penalty or fine?

You'll be fine doing that. They are not going to come hunt you down, plus they won't know where to find you!!!

Thanks. By buying a round trip ticket I'll save several hundred dollars. Why doesn't everyone do that?

because only the smart ones have figured it out.

:D

Short answer - it's because what you're buying is discount airfare. Airlines don't discount one-way fares, which are catered to business people flying on someone else's money.

Because it is not always cheaper to fly RT versus one-way. I have found it used to happen far more often than it does now, but when it does, why not. Just remember, you must not use the RETURN portion. You can't just skip a segment and pick up itinerary after that - once you miss a flight, the rest of the itinerary is automatically cancelled. But what you are suggesting will work.

One-way fares are 1/2 of the full fares not 1/2 of the discounted fares. The airlines would never sell full fares if they offered one way fares based on discounted fare.

A discounted fare comes with many restrictions. One of the bigger one is Saturday night stay required. A full fare does not require that so many businesses will opt for a full fare so their employees can fly out on Monday and come back on Friday and be home for the weekend.

If the one-way fare was 1/2 of the discounted fare, the businesses would just buy a one-way on Monday and another one-way on Friday and still get the disounted fare, effectively killing any sales of the full fare.

However, I've noted recently with AA that domestic flights often DO offer half price one way fares -- and they are half price of discounted fares. I did a lot of checking of flying into Buffalo or Boston, but flying home from LaGuardia, and was finding I could do one way fares two ways for the same price as round trip on those open jaw flights -- what's more they were less than discounted fares for round trip to and from the same city. I don't know when they started this policy.

On routes they compete with jetBlue, they often match their policies. Another one they match is the $25 change fee. Florida-northeast is a good example.

It's true for many of the routes, not all. Mostly on routes that they heavily compete.

Internationally, the old rules still apply, in most cases.