I was looking for flights to New York and JetBlue had the best times and prices from Orlando. I didn’t have to worry about finding award space as the TrueBlue program sets the value of awards to the ticket price. I plugged our preferred flights into the JetBlue website, and when I clicked to book, I received this pop-up.
JetBlue reminded me of something I already knew but had forgotten: booking one-way flights is usually better than booking round-trip tickets. If you use an award search service like Point.me, you can only search for one-way award flights. Here’s why they do it.
Psst! Even if you intend to travel roundtrip, it’s best to search for outbound and inbound flights separately.
Most airlines allow one-way reward tickets, which means you’ll get better results if you search for the two legs individually.
There are several advantages of booking one-way award tickets instead of a round trip.
Availability
Finding available and affordable flights can be challenging when searching for award tickets. Airlines have limited availability for the cheapest award flights, especially through partner programs. It’s often easier to available flights for single segments than to book the entire trip.
You may need to travel through multiple cities to find the desired award flights, including a positioning flight. This is especially true for international itineraries more than for domestic trips.
Flexibility
Booking one-way flights provides added flexibility for travel. If you’re unaware, missing a single flight can cause an airline to cancel your itinerary. So, if you can’t reach your destination and book a different airline for the following day, the original airline will cancel your return flight.
When booking one-way award tickets, you can take solace in that if you need to alter your outbound or inbound flights, it won’t affect the rest of your itinerary. The majority of airlines allow you to cancel award tickets up until the time of departure. Depending on the frequent flyer program, you may need to pay re-deposit fees. Be sure to verify the cancellation policy with your booking airline.
Cost
You can mix and match the best prices when booking one-way award tickets. For example, say that we wanted to fly from Orlando to Charlotte, and our best option was American Airlines. There might be availability to book a flight with Avios through British Airways for there but not the flight home. If I search for a round trip, the search engine will show no available flights. But by searching one-way flights, I’ll see the award availability on the outbound leg.
I could then search to see if a slightly more expensive award ticket for the flight home is available using American AAdvantage miles. Or if I don’t have enough points, I could pay for a revenue ticket.
Downsides
It’s important to be aware of the potential drawbacks when booking one-way award tickets. If you need to change or cancel your flights, you may end up paying double the fees, which can be quite costly. For instance, I recently had to pay $75 to cancel a flight using Flying Blue points.
Additionally, some programs offer lower pricing for round-trip flights than for one-way tickets. It’s also worth noting that with round-trip itineraries, you may have the option to book a stopover. Lastly, there are cases in which a loyalty program may waive a fee for booking a ticket originating in one region but require it for starting in another.
Final Thought
So, while there are several reasons why it’s a good idea to book award flights as two one-way tickets, it pays to spend a few minutes to confirm that it’s a better deal than booking a round trip. Unless you work on booking award tickets for a living, there’s no way to remember for which routes it’s less expensive to book one-way or round-trip award flights.
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