Help! I have an airline ticket question.

[floridascgirl]

I'm new to purchasing airline tickets and I've been getting lots of good advice on the Budget Board. However, I still have 1 big question that I need answered.

For example, when on KAYAK

When the list of available flights came up (round-trip), I liked the departure flight on one roundtrip listing and the return flight on another.

When I hovered my cursor over the flight details on 1-leg of the roundtrip, it said "Select this departure" or "Select this return".
Does this mean that I can create my own ideal flight by piecing together say the departure flight from one roundtrip and the return flight from another?
Even when I use the sliding scale filter on the left, the flight options leave me with one-leg of the roundtrip being terrible (long total travel time, super short connection, etc...).

Bottom line...can I combine roundtrip offers?

I did my best to explain my question. I hope it makes sense.

 

[Horace Horsecollar]

You can book one-way tickets on two different airlines if that works better for you than booking a roundtrip on a single airline.

As far as pricing is concerned, using two one-ways works better with some airlines and routes than others.

On some routes, the best roundtrip fares require travel on a single airline and a Saturday night stay. One-way fares are often more the roundtrip fares.

On other routes, the roundtrip fare is simply the sum of the two one-ways. In such cases, using two airlines in fine. Fortunately, Florida leisure routes often fall in this category.

The biggest negative of using two airlines is that if your plans change and your airlines both charge change fees, you now face two change fees per passenger. That can mean 2 times $150 per passenger, which can wipe out the entire value of both tickets if each flight only cost $150 or less.

By the way, as someone who is new to buying airline tickets, be sure to account for all costs when comparing airlines, including change fees, luggage fees, seat fees, and other nuisance fees that some airlines charge. When it comes to discount fares, Southwest Airlines has the most passenger-friendly rules.

 

[floridascgirl]

FYI...
The piecing of the flights that I was wondering if I could do was staying within the same airline carrier.

I priced out using 2 one-way tickets but that was wayyyyyy more expensive.

Thanks for the advice on the hidden fees, etc... Sadly, Southwest isn't an option because I'm looking for flights from South Carolina to Wyoming.

 

[Horace Horsecollar]

If you're staying with a single airline...

Once you've identified which airlines have flights that go where you want to go, try using the airlines' own websites instead of Kayak. The airline websites usually give you a choice of searching "by price" or "by schedule." You may have to play around a bit, such as specifying preferred departure times, to get the websites to give you roundtrips that you like.

You should be able to pick a roundtrip with a good fare and flight times that meet your needs. But if a roundtrip involves a segment that only has higher priced seats, it will make the roundtrip fare go up.