Saving Money On Airfare With Open Ended Tickets

Of all the people that travel quite often by airplane, only a few have the frequent flyer knowledge to take advantage of the savings that can be had by using open ended tickets and circle trips. People usually fly or purchase their tickets using round trip scenarios, but these two websites deviate from the process and typically wind up saving the customer dollars in the long term.

Travelers should realize that saving money on airfare with open ended tickets is easy to do, if they are looking to go to multiple destinations.  With Internet connectivity and no special search skills, anyone can take advantage of the same discount fares that many frequent flyers already take advantage by following these easy instructions.  If your your the type that enjoys searching for deals for cheap holidays, then open ended tickets are probably for you.

• Gain an understanding of what open ended ticket means and what it does. A simple internet search will show that an open ended ticket is an airline ticket whereby the passenger travels from one place to another but travels back to the starting point by a different route. The return trip can be over land or sea. For simplicity of explanation, we’ll call the starting point the home town, the arrival point the destination town, and the return stop over departure town.
• Pick the destination and departure towns. Normally they will be neighboring airports or at least in the same region and country. If it is farther away it will not be considered an open ended ticket. The miles must be less than the total miles between the starting point, the destination town, departure town and starting point added together in order to count as an open ended ticket. If this is not so then you will not have an open ended ticket.
• Satisfy the requirements of open ended ticket. To get the most economical open ended ticket, certain situations must exist. First, each leg of the trip flights must be on the same carrier or at least affiliated carrier similar to Northwest and KLM. Second, the starting point and destination town must be close to each other as already pointed out step two. Lastly, the fares for the flights (home town to destination town and departure town to home town) must comply with air carrier rules, although they can be compiled in such a way that both tickets are under the fare rule with the greatest restrictions. Money is saved because each segment of the trip is lower in cost combined than normal roundtrip ticket prices. It is equal to the average price of two round-trip tickets, therefore costing you less dollars.
• Become familiar with circle trips. Scheduling with circle trips means traveling between three cities: location A to B, location B to C, and location C to A. Money is saved with circle trips as each segment of the trip is counted as a one-way flight, which is a lower price than roundtrip flights. However, there are rules apply, just like with open ended tickets, to take advantage of circle trip cost savings. First, all tickets must be on the same air carrier or one of its affiliates. Second, the second segment of the trip has to be the shortest segment of the entire trip.
• Go to Internet websites like Travelocity or Orbitz because they offer these types of tickets. You must select a multiple-city or multiple-destination option. On Expedia, you are allowed to select one-way first and then choose multiple-city later to schedule circle trips or open ended flights.

Don’t forget to use a rewards credit card, when making any travel purchases, it’s important to get those points anytime you can.  We hope this short guide on how to buy open ended tickets has been useful to you.  As always thanks for reading our budgeting and financial planning tips.  Leave comments or questions below as always, we’d love to hear from you.