London to O'hare on American - Insane pricing

[schmoopie17]

So...we're looking at booking a TA from New York to Southampton in 2025. Flying from O'Hare to NY and embarking the ship there. Looking at American for the flight back (using current dates, since schedules aren't out yet of 2025) shows one-way from London to O'Hare at around $1700 ONE WAY. Yet, round-trip between London and O'Hare is around $750. How can this be? Two flights are cheaper than one? Better off booking a round trip London to O'Hare and not showing up for the return trip.

[CruiserBruce]

This is commonly true of one way international flights.

 

You have two choices. As commonly recommended here, check your cruise line air provider program. One Way international flights are one of their specialties, and the prices are usually very good.

 

Or, buy the roundtrip,  and abandon the return trip you don't need. Don't do this regularly. 

[FlyerTalker]

If you are willing to make a connection, you can find reasonable one-way TATL fares on a number of carriers.

 

TAP, Turkish, LOT and JetBlue are a couple that come to mind right away.

 

TAP would be my choice, as you can take advantage of their free stopover program and take some time in Lisbon on the way back without increasing the air pricing.

 

Or, take Turkish and use their program to spend some time in Istanbul.

 

These stopover programs are an excellent way to stretch your vacation and visit an additional city along the way.

 

 

 

 

Edited January 2 by FlyerTalker

[taxatty]

You can also avoid this problem by booking a one-way trip using credit card-related points or miles. The sign-on bonus alone for a number of the possible airline-specific or transferable points cards is sometimes enough for 2 one-way TA tickets, or at least one, with lots of time for sufficient spending to get ticket #2. Do be careful about using British Airways (or to a lesser-extent, Iberia) for this due to the possible high related fees.

Edited January 3 by taxatty

[Host Mike]

I recently used Iceland Air.  They have one way fares and in some cases you can get their style of business class for less than an economy on the legacy carriers.

They also offer the option to stopover at no additional charge

[grandma*knows*best]

It is the norm for RT international flights to be less expensive than booking 2 one way tickets.

[CruiserBruce]

1 hour ago, grandma*knows*best said:

It is the norm for RT international flights to be less expensive than booking 2 one way tickets.

Yes, generally. 

[Globaliser]

 

6 minutes ago, CruiserBruce said:

1 hour ago, grandma*knows*best said:

It is the norm for RT international flights to be less expensive than booking 2 one way tickets.

Yes, generally. 

 

Long-haul, at any rate.

 

Short-haul international can be very different now.

[FlyerTalker]

10 minutes ago, Globaliser said:

Long-haul, at any rate.

 

Short-haul international can be very different now.

 

Perhaps "intercontinental" would have been more accurate.  Or TATL or TPAC.

 

 

[FlaMariner]

On 1/2/2024 at 5:12 PM, CruiserBruce said:

check your cruise line air provider program. One Way international flights are one of their specialties, and the prices are usually very good.

 

That's been my experience as well....great prices on one way international.....much better than what I've ever been able to get searching individual airlines myself.

 

Good luck.

[clo]

On 1/2/2024 at 5:22 PM, taxatty said:

You can also avoid this problem by booking a one-way trip using credit card-related points or miles. The sign-on bonus alone for a number of the possible airline-specific or transferable points cards is sometimes enough for 2 one-way TA tickets, or at least one, with lots of time for sufficient spending to get ticket #2. Do be careful about using British Airways (or to a lesser-extent, Iberia) for this due to the possible high related fees.

IIRC every intl flight we've taken in years has been on points. We pay every single thing we can on our Chase Sapphire Reserve. Our upcoming (July) flight (into Amsterdam and return from Stockholm) will be Polaris J business class. And it's so much easier with points. If you need to cancel you get your points back.

[SelectSys]

19 hours ago, clo said:

We pay every single thing we can on our Chase Sapphire Reserve

Does the use of Chase Sapphire points to buy a ticket actually help in terms of the one way cost problem associated with one way, long haul international travel?  Are you transferring the points into an airline program first or are you buying the tickets via Chase's travel department?

Edited January 26 by SelectSys

[clo]

1 hour ago, SelectSys said:

Does the use of Chase Sapphire points to buy a ticket actually help in terms of the one way cost problem associated with one way, long haul international travel?  Are you transferring the points into an airline program first or are you buying the tickets via Chase's travel department?

Hmm, just found out from my spouse that we're not using the CSR for everything, mostly recurring charges, like insurance, utilities, etc. For our upcoming trip to Europe we used our United Chase Quest points, which is our carrier of choice. Sorry for the confusion.

 

Regarding one way when I book on UA/Star Alliance it's almost always like this trip, into Amsterdam and return from Stockholm. And on their site you click on multi-city. I just was really making the point that if our plans change UA/Star Alliance refunds our points, no problem. Again, sorry for not being clear in the beginning.

 

[Kellyann]

We have a similar issue with cost of our TA arriving in Southampton on 5/19/24 and  needing to fly home to PHL.  First of all there were no non-stop flights on 5/19 so we had to get a hotel near Heathrow in order to get non-stop on 5/20. We had an American price of $980 for one-way each and then we went thru Princess cruise on their EZAir web site and our price is now $562 non-stop to PHL, which I know is not a bargain but it beats flying to Chicago or Boston and spending up to 20 hours doing flights.  Good luck.

[Zach1213]

8 hours ago, Kellyann said:

We have a similar issue with cost of our TA arriving in Southampton on 5/19/24 and  needing to fly home to PHL.  First of all there were no non-stop flights on 5/19 so we had to get a hotel near Heathrow in order to get non-stop on 5/20. We had an American price of $980 for one-way each and then we went thru Princess cruise on their EZAir web site and our price is now $562 non-stop to PHL, which I know is not a bargain but it beats flying to Chicago or Boston and spending up to 20 hours doing flights.  Good luck.

 

$562 isn't a bargain for London to Philly? Sounds like a ridiculous bargain for the beginning of peak season. Also, even via ORD or BOS, 20 hours sounds incorrectly high...8 hours LHR-BOS and one hour BOS-PHL leaves an 11 hour layover in BOS to reach the 20 hours. Looks like, even that day, you can do LHR-ORD-PHL for just over 13 hours including a two hour connection at ORD. 

 

Finally, there are three nonstop LHR-PHL on May 19th - AA729 (0945-1245), AA737 (1300-1555), and BA67 (1340-1635). 

 

 

Edited January 30 by Zach1213