One-way to/from Europe

[LeslieG]

Is there a trick to getting affordable airfare one-way to and from Europe? We'd like to fly to Copenhagen, and then at the end of next year's N. Europe or Norway cruise, take the train to Germany (Hamburg maybe?) and fly home from there, but one-way pricing is very high. I know some of the other cruises next year are leaving and returning to different ports. What's the best way to deal with purchasing airfare?

 

[SuzanneSLO]

Try booking a multi city trip: from you home to CPH with a return from Germany to your home. It should be close to the cost of a round trip. -- Suzanne

 

[mmouse37]

Is there a trick to getting affordable airfare one-way to and from Europe? We'd like to fly to Copenhagen, and then at the end of next year's N. Europe or Norway cruise, take the train to Germany (Hamburg maybe?) and fly home from there, but one-way pricing is very high. I know some of the other cruises next year are leaving and returning to different ports. What's the best way to deal with purchasing airfare?

We booked our one-way return from Copenhagen for the EBTA on Norwegian Air which was very reasonable for a one-way. Nice airline and wonderful flight.

MJ

 

[thinkoflaura]

Try booking a multi city trip: from you home to CPH with a return from Germany to your home. It should be close to the cost of a round trip. -- Suzanne

that's exactly what we did... Delta/KLM from LAX-CPH, took Scandinavian Airlines one way from CPH to AMS and then Delta/KLM from AMS-LAX. I think the tickets were a little over $1500 each, very comparable to LAX-CPH roundtrip.

 

[bumbershoot]

Last year we used United's multi-city option and got a great (one-month-from-travel!) fare from Seattle (to Vancouver to Heathrow) to Dublin, then Shannon Airport to Seattle. Same country, but comparing the one-way flights showed a HUGE difference. And there was a great discount for DS with multi-city, that didn't appear with the one-way flights.

 

[SuperDry]

As others have already pointed out, book both directions on the same itinerary. You can do this on an airline's website, or you can use a site like Expedia. Non-airline sites like Expedia have the benefit of being able to mix carriers almost without restriction. For example, depending on where you live, you might be able to get a non-stop outbound flight to Copenhagen on SAS, and a non-stop return flight from Paris on Air France. As long as both directions are booked on the same itinerary, you don't get the one-way fare penalty. Generally speaking, you pay have the round-trip price for each direction. So, with the above example, you'd pay the average of the round-trip price from your city to Copenhagen and the round-trip price from your city to Paris. These are called "half round-trip fares." Having the return city be different from the original destination city is called "open jaw" travel. I would stick to airline sites and ones that issue regular airline tickets, such as Expedia, and avoid those that offer consolidator tickets (BookACheapTicketNow.com or whatever), as those can be more trouble if you need to change something or otherwise get customer service.

If you really need a one-way ticket, such as if you're traveling on a transatlantic sailing, then the best bet is to book the airfare through DCL. They have special deals for this situation, that due to the unique circumstances of the voyage, the airline doesn't enforce the normal one-way higher fare rules.