I was booking our flights to drop my daughter off at college later in the summer.
3 round trips and a one-way. Round trip LAX --> PHL --> LAX = ~ $390 each.
I then go to book one-way LAX --> PHL and it comes up as $789. So I went ahead and booked her a round trip as well.
Is there some trick to not getting screwed by the airlines while dropping your kid off at college?
Book her Xmas return now.
Try a different airline or schedule?
A quick look on http://www.kayak.com for a one way LAX->PHL flight on 8/22 gives the following non-stops:
$164 on Spirit
$239 on American
Connecting flights:
$164 on Frontier
$194 on United
$195 on American
Oh is that the trick? Round trip = fly out in August and return back at Thanksgiving or Xmas?
Yes, you could do that. Or, you can book a round trip and simply ignore the back half.
Of course, prices can change any time. Here is a link to the search for one-way LAX->PHL flights on 8/22:
https://www.kayak.com/flights/LAX-PHL/2016-08-22
Yes, you can also try round trips with the return flight for a holiday trip. (But check class, final exam, and dorm move-out dates/times carefully before choosing the return flight.)
The problem was I booked the 3 round trips first (as there weren’t too many seats left). I assume one-way would cost $200 or $300. Then I was worried about her not being able to get on our same flight.
Lessons learned for the future.
Does the airline have a 24-hour cancellation-without-penalty policy? If so, cancel those tickets within that time and redo your search to find the best pricing for both the round trips and the one way.
Great suggestion, but too late as 24 hour window has now passed.
In the context of her upcoming college expenses, the extra $200 of airfare will become rounding error…
Make sure your child is signed up for frequent flyer in that airline.
Btw, we have sometimes had situations where we were flying on different airlines at the same time as prices changed. For example, a month ago, I was on a trip with my mother and she returned home on United while I flew at the same time on American. Not a huge deal, really, and worth it for cost savings.
I am not finding one way ticket being more expensive than round trip ticket. I am finding round trip price is same as buying 2 one way tickets.
“Oh is that the trick? Round trip = fly out in August and return back at Thanksgiving or Xmas?”
But you have to return yet again at the end of TG or Xmas. Either way, it’s 3 legs regardless of whether you bundle the round trip as go there-come back at TG or come back at TG-go back out after TG.
If you end up not being able to use the return trip at Xmas well then you haven’t really lost anything compared with buying a random date and throwing the ticket away.
" quick look on http://www.kayak.com for a one way LAX->PHL flight on 8/22 gives the following non-stops:
$164 on Spirit
$239 on American"
Spirit is a poor choice in this circumstance. The charges for luggage will push it far past American.
Booking “extended” round trips is definitely worth a try. Southwest doesn’t usually penalize you for a one way…not sure if they fly LAX - PHI though.
Since you’ve booked her round trip already, you might want to contact the airline and see what the fee would be to change the return portion of your daughter’s trip to December.
Another option is to use points or miles to book one-way tickets. They tend not to penalize for one-way trips. D only books one way trips with points, so she can decide last minute when and where she’s going. I hate paying extra for one way trips as well. [-( :-L
One way tickets CAN be more expensive. I bought an international ticket to a pretty obscure destination for kiddo: RT was $1,300. One way was $3,900. She had to fly out on a specific date. I have no idea if she is going to use her return ticket or not… I just plugged in the date that was around the time she might be flying back.
Some airlines do not play this stupid trick: Alaska, Southwest, etc.
Hawaiian Airlines also is fair–you book each portion of your flight separately. If you are only flying one way, you aren’t socked with a huge extra fee, you just pay for the portion you are flying.
I’ve never understood this crazy method for one way flights. I can understand if a one way ticket is more than 1/2 the price of a round trip, but being more than double makes no sense at all! That’s why my favorite airline is Jet Blue, they don’t do this silliness either.
We recently had a situation where my D needed to change her return flight. It was going to cost more than the original ticket price to do that! So instead I bought her a ticket on a different airline (that had reasonable 1 way fares) and just wasted the return ticket on the original airline. I did research this a bit and found some people who claimed that some airlines may “ding” you. for this practice if you make a habit of it – losing frequent flier miles for example. I don’t know how true that is, but this was the first time we’d ever done it so I wasn’t too concerned.
Yes, I have read that you can somehow be penalized if you make a practice of wasting part of your airplane ticket but have not heard of anyone I know in real life who has had this actually happen to them.