How open-jaw tickets save money on multi-city trips

HostWhen you're planning a big trip to a new part of the world, there's always that one day that feels like a bit of a drag. It's the day you have to pack up and spend eight hours on a train or a bus just to get back to the city where you first landed so you can catch your flight home. It feels like a waste of a whole day, and it usually costs a fair bit of money too. I was looking at maps last night and wondering if there's a way to just skip that whole loop and head home from wherever we end up.

HostIs there actually a way to do that without the price of the flight going through the roof?

GuestWell, that's the big secret of how pro travelers set up their plans. Most people think of a flight as a simple loop. You go from A to B, then you come back from B to A. But you can actually book something called an open-jaw ticket. The name comes from what it looks like on a map. If you draw a line from home to your first stop, say London, and then another line from your last stop, like Paris, back home, it looks like a wide open mouth. You never fly that middle bit between London and Paris. The airline treats it like one big trip even though you're leaving from a different spot than where you arrived.

HostWait, so if I book two different cities like that, am I just buying two separate one-way tickets? Because I have looked at those before and they usually cost way more than a normal flight.

GuestThat's the common trap. If you search for a one-way flight from New York to London and then another one-way from Paris back to New York, the price will be huge. Airlines often charge a lot more for those single legs. But if you use the little button on the search site that says multi-city, everything changes. When you put both flights into that one tool, the airline sees it as a single round-trip deal. Most of the time, the price is almost exactly the same as if you flew in and out of the same city. You're basically getting the same price for the long flights across the ocean, but you're not forced to go back to your starting point.

HostI still don't quite see how that saves me money though. I mean, I still have to pay for a train or a local flight to get from London to Paris. How does that help my bank account if I'm just moving the cost from a big plane to a train?

GuestIt's all about the hidden costs of backtracking. If you have to go back to your first city, you're paying for that train ride anyway, but you're doing it twice if you think about it. You go from London to Paris, then you have to pay to go from Paris back to London. With an open-jaw, you only pay for that middle leg once. You're also saving a full night of sleep in a hotel and three meals in a city you have already seen. When you add up a hundred dollars for a high-speed train and another two hundred for a hotel and food, you have suddenly saved three hundred dollars just by not going backward. Plus, you get a whole extra day to see something new instead of looking at the same train tracks you already passed.

HostThat sounds great for Europe, but what if I want to go somewhere really far apart? Could I fly into Tokyo and then fly home from Sydney and call it the same thing?

GuestWell, that's where the rules come in. Airlines are usually okay with this as long as the gap on the ground is shorter than the flights you took to get there. They also usually want the two cities to be in the same general part of the world. In the travel world, they think in zones. If you fly into one city in Europe, they're fine with you flying home from almost any other city in Europe. But if you try to jump from Japan to Australia on the ground, the airline will see those as two totally different trips. The computer will kick it out and show you those scary high prices again. As long as you stay within the same region, like Western Europe or Southeast Asia, the math usually works out in your favor.

HostSo how do you actually find these deals? Is there a trick to the search?

GuestIt's mostly about playing with the map. Sometimes flying into a big hub like London and out of a smaller place might be pricey. But if you flip it and fly into the small city and out of the big hub, the price might drop by hundreds. I always tell people to check a few different pairs of cities. You might find that flying into Rome and out of Venice is cheaper than the other way around. Since you're not tied to a single airport, you have twice as many chances to find a cheap flight home. You can just follow the low prices across the map and build your path between them. It turns the whole way we plan a trip on its head because you're not tethered to one spot anymore.

HostHmm, that makes a lot of sense, but it sounds like it could get messy if one of the flights gets canceled. Does the airline still take care of you if the two cities are different?

GuestThey do, and that's why this is much better than booking a bunch of separate tickets on your own. Since it's all on one booking number, the airline is on the hook for the whole thing. If your first flight gets delayed and it messes up your plans, they have to help you out just like a normal flight. It's a very safe way to travel. You get the protection of a big airline but the freedom to roam as far as your feet or a train can take you.

GuestMost big airlines let you leave a gap as long as fifteen hundred miles between your cities without hiking the fare.

HostThe long train ride back to your first hotel is finally off the books.