Round trip or one way?

[FrenchGirl]

My family is flying into MCO, from Maine, in September. We'll be staying for two full weeks- Saturday to Saturday. Would it be cheaper to purchase roundtrip airfare? Or one way? Not opposed to flying out of Boston as well.

 

[lanejudy]

When I book flights it appears that each leg is priced individually regardless of whether I indicate one-way or round-trip. I didn't think most airlines have "round-trip" fares anymore other than just the combined total of the chosen flights in each direction. You'll have to do the legwork and research where are the best fares for your family's needs -- Logan or a local airport. Be sure to include additional fees such as luggage and seat selection, depending on the airline. What might appear to be a low fare can have a lot of hidden costs that add-up.

Enjoy your vacation!

 

[gottalovepluto]

Agree that there is no way to know without pricing it all out. And the hidden fees are getting nastier by the month, so know what you're booking. Watch out for basic economy type fares if picking seats is important to you, or sitting with your family members is important, because you won't be able to with those fares. Those are currently the newest phase of cheapest fares on major carriers but they are only offered on select routes.

I only fly once or twice a year but when I do my personal favorite airfare searching tools are Kayak (which can look for hacker fares, one way on one airline, return on another) and google flights (flexibility in the calendar is great if you have flexible dates, don't remember if they do "hacker" style searching). I've seen good things on the app Hooper for monitoring for price drops when you know your dates, I've only used it once and it was accurate for me.

 

[klacey1]

@lanejudy is correct, legs are priced individually. I usually end up booking two separate one ways--sometimes I want to pay for one leg with points and one leg with cash. It gets slightly annoying having different confirmations numbers, but it's not a big deal.
When looking at Logan, remember to keep in mind that while larger airports may have fares that look cheaper, when you add up certain extra costs (like parking and gas or a car service to Logan), you may not actually be saving quite as much as you thought. Make sure you take the whole picture into account!

ETA: Also, make sure you only book through the airlines directly and not a third party website like Expedia or Orbitz! Like @gottalovepluto said, Kayak is a great planning resource. You can select the number of seats you need, airports you're willing to fly from/to, your exact dates or a range of dates if you're flexible, the times you want to fly, etc. Then Kayak searches all of the airlines' websites (except Southwest) and presents you with a list of options within your specifications. Then you navigate from Kayak to the airline's website to book.

 

[KarenAylwood]

One thing to keep in mind is that you may need to commit yourself to one or both legs. For instance, if there was a hurricane or some other issue that cancelled your flight, the airline will usually book you on another free of charge. If you only booked two one ways, you'd only get one flight changed. If you were fine returning on the same day you had already planned on, then you're fine. But if you wanted to extend the trip for some reason, you may not be able to change without a significant fee. This happened to my mom flying to MCO- all flights were cancelled in that October hurricane. They rebooked her first flight but she had a one way on the second and wanted to extend the trip since she lost days. She had to pay a ton of money to change it.

If it's a two week vacation and you're committed to those flights, it probably wouldn't matter to you.

 

[clutter]

I know on American, it doesn't matter anymore. It used to be less expensive to book round trip, but not anymore. Southwest, I always book as one way fares. Because they are so flexible, it makes it easier to make any change if you are only dealing with one way.

 

[kniquy]

I can comment on when we were traveling to Las Vegas -- i wanted direct flights and the best way for us to do it with the times we wanted to travel was to book one way on different airlines. I think it worked out to be a little less expensive or just about the same cost wise.

Just price out the different scenarios and see what will work for your family flight times and cost.

 

[leebee]

With the legacy airlines, I'd book round-trip. I used to book Southwest as 2 one-ways, so that if flights in one direction or the other changed I could rebook, but now they let you rebook by the direction with round trip itineraries, too.

If you are flying from Boston, consider driving to Portsmouth and taking C&J to Logan. Not sure what the bus fare will be, but parking is free, the buses run hourly and reliably, it's way easier than driving in Boston, and it makes for a shorter drive home. Another airport option is Manchester, NH. It's about 45 minutes west of Portsmouth, an easy drive, and I've scored some pretty decent prices there. If you have early morning or late night flights, they have some affordable park-n-fly hotels, and I've had luck doing Priceline for an airport hotel the night before/after and then just parked at MHT.

 

[FrenchGirl]

Thank you all so much! I will try pricing some things out. Also, thanks for the reminder about the free parking in Portsmouth!

 

[gottalovepluto]

Just saw this q on Flyertalk! (For those who don't know, if you don't know your stuff/haven't thoroughly researched it stay quiet on FT. Flames be thrown over there.) Some interesting info: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/amer...3-what-s-point-buying-rt-domestic-ticket.html

A highlight for me was that one ways are more likely to be cheaper in markets where Southwest & Alaska operate (and maybe Virgin) as they price in one way & other carriers look to compete. SW & VX aren't options for me & our AS service is limited. Could explain why roundtrips are cheaper for some but not others.