Márk's Travel Blog

Flight hack #3: Buy one return, pay less than two one-way

As the title says it, it is often cheaper to buy a return ticket, than buying those two tickets separately at the same time and from the same site.

Airlines often see customers who are buying one-way tickets as unusual and urgent demand. People often buy these tickets for emergency travel, or last-minute trips, while return tickets are usually sold earlier for people who have planned-out itineraries and probably have more time to find better deals if these prices would be too high.

With that being said, it is not always cheaper, pricing mistakes and different airline algorithm logics exist, but it is generally quite rare for two one-way tickets to costs less than the return ticket on the same route. Also, a possible downside to this is in the case you need to modify dates for one of your legs, it is easier to have two one-way bookings.