I'm looking at a one way ticket in March from Columbus, OH to Rochester NY. (Northewest Air)

It is $143 more than the round trip. What to do???

Thanks for ideas.

Buy the round trip and just don't use the other half.

I don't know if Southwest flies that route, but that's another option. You can buy one way and it's not more expensive.

Southwest doesn't go that route but AirTran has cheap 1-way fares from Dayton OH to Rochester via Baltimore (stopover).

Columbus to Rochester isn't that far, have you though about driving?

I agree with buying a cheaper R/T ticket and simply discarding the unused portion. Technically, the airlines would like you to think it is "illegal" but there is absolutely nothing they can do about it. If they really wanted people not to do this they would lower the one-way fares!!!

I can see one-way flights on United CMH-ROC for $188, also $160 or so to Buffalo.

Increasingly the legacy airlines are offering one-way fares that are not prohibitively priced. Northwest will probably be the last airline to do so since their management (snide comment follows) probably doesn't like to pay attention to what other airlines are doing to get out of bankruptcy rather than get in.

Southwest flies out of Buffalo, and they charge per segement, so there's no extra charge for one way travel. Just one of the many wonderful policies Southwest has.