I recently made reservations for a multi-city domestic trip. Using Expedia, I plugged in my destinations and let it spit out the best fares. I nearly had a heart attack at the final cost. So, I tried something that I hadn’t done in years. I took a look at the cost of the one-way fares for each leg and discovered that I could save hundreds of dollars by booking each leg separately. So I did.
I remember when one-way tickets could easily cost as much as the price of the entire round trip ticket. When I mentioned this to a group of women at my travel class at the Rick Steves Center last week, they all said, “Oh yes, one way tickets are much cheaper.” I must have missed the memo, but I don’t want you to!
To test my new theory, I checked on a few fares out of Seattle on multi-city trips. I chose non-holiday travel to make it a fair search and in addition to Expedia, I checked Orbitz. Keep in mind that this all took place within about a 30 minute time period. Here’s an example of what I found:
Seattle-Denver-Washington, DC – Seattle was $350 on Expedia
The one way tickets to these destinations added up to $295 on Expedia. I then went over to Orbitz to see what they could come up with and found:
Seattle-Denver-Washington, DC – Seattle was $292 on Orbitz
Here’s the kicker:
When I went back to double check the cost on Expedia, it had dropped to $298 after I checked Orbitz. Got that? The price on Expedia dropped less than 30 minutes later and only after I checked Orbitz. While I’m not saying that Expedia knows what I’m doing on other booking engines, I’m suggesting you check and recheck all of your options before finalizing your purchase.
Whether you’re searching for a roundtrip, multi-city or one-way fare, flights right now are cheap cheap cheap. Book as soon as you know your travel dates (prices will usually only go up the closer you get to departure, particularly for busy seasons like holidays).
Consider this:
- If you can be flexible, plug in days before and after your ideal travel dates to see if you can save some dough there. Alternately, some booking engines allow you to choose a “flexible dates” option.
- When flying multi-city, consider several one-way tickets.
- See my post about booking engines and check at least several options before clicking the buy button.
Plane tickets are expensive. Use the same judicious decision-making process you would for any large purchase and you should be able to find yourself a deal in these times when the airlines are clamoring for your business.
Travel Well,
Beth
Photo credit: Boarding Pass – Alex-s
Related links:
The American Travel Ethos
Flight Booking Engines – What Works?
What Makes a Travel Hotspot?
Unplugging While Traveling
Airport Safety = Security Theater?
Pretty Young Thang
How Not to be a Trashy Tourist
Nomadic Matt says
i think if prices drop you can write to them and get a refund. i remember them offering that option awhile ago….like price guarantee or something.
check it out.
Beth says
In this case, I hadn’t actually purchased the ticket. But there used to be (maybe still is) a guarantee like that, Matt. The issue now is that these sites use so many different combinations of flights that you can’t ever compare apples to apples to request that refund.
Tim Smith says
I just checked the ticket price at both Expedia.com and Orbitz.com. The trip is exactly the same but Orbitz’s price is 7 dollars higher. How come they are both list no booking fee but one website is higher than the other for exactly the same trip?