While searching for flights to New York, I noticed something that reminded me why I hardly ever book round-trip award tickets these days.
JetBlue reminded me of something I already knew: 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.
While you may plan to fly round-trip, we recommend searching for outbound and inbound flights separately. Many airlines allow one-way award tickets, which can lead to better results and more options. This approach allows you to maximize your choices and find the best availability for each leg of your journey.
There are several advantages of booking one-way award tickets instead of a round-trip ticket.
Availability
Finding available and affordable flights can be challenging when searching for award tickets. Airlines often limit the number of seats available at the lowest award levels — especially through partner programs. Searching one-way lets you grab what’s open, even if the return isn’t yet available.
You may need to travel through multiple cities to find the flights you want — sometimes even adding a short positioning flight to reach a different airport with better award space. This is especially true for international itineraries compared to domestic trips.
Flexibility
Booking one-way flights provides added flexibility for travel. Many travelers don’t realize that if you miss one leg of a round-trip ticket, the airline usually cancels the rest of 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 knowing 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 redeposit 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, if we wanted to fly from Orlando to Charlotte, our best option was American Airlines. There might be availability to book the outbound leg with Avios through British Airways — but not the return. 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. This mix-and-match approach often gives you the lowest overall price, even if one leg is paid in cash.
Downsides
Of course, booking one-ways isn’t always perfect — there are a few tradeoffs to know about. 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.
With more airlines moving toward fully dynamic pricing, the cost difference between one-way and round-trip awards can change daily — another reason to compare both before booking.
Final Thought
In the end, booking two one-way award tickets gives you more control — over price, flexibility, and even which points you use. Just take a few extra minutes to compare before you click ‘buy. 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.
Want to comment on this post? Great! Read this first to help ensure it gets approved.
Want to sponsor a post, write something for Your Mileage May Vary, or put ads on our site? Click here for more info.
Like this post? Please share it! We have plenty more just like it and would love it if you decided to hang around and sign up to get emailed notifications of when we post.
Whether you’ve read our articles before or this is the first time you’re stopping by, we’re really glad you’re here and hope you come back to visit again!
This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary
