Booking one-way cheaply

[bussyboy]

Due to a lack of reward options, I found myself needing to book a one-way flight from India back to Australia.

Two one way tickets will often cost much more than a return ticket does - but I was surprised to be able to book a CX flight via HKG in Premium Economy for around $1,100 today.

I've gone back and looked at return fares and calculated that this was a 23% premium over the half-return fare. Did a quick search on QF in economy and the one-way was 28% extra than the same flight as part of a return journey from India to Australia.

Searching QF Business SYD-SIN in business, the premium is nearly 50% with the price of the one segment jumping from $2,450 on a return journey to $3,650 if booked one-way.

Conversely QF flights to New Zealand have no premium if booking one-way.

I presume that all the carriers take different approaches to this and different countries - does anyone know of useful "sweet spots" when booking one-way to and from Australia?

 

[Beer_budget]

Singapore is often the same price one way vs return, so when we have enough points for two sectors, it's cheaper to book one cash and one points return fare, vs two pairs of one way fares.

 

[moa999]

Definitely different approaches.

Into/ out of SEAsia it's pretty much the LCCs (Jetstar, Scoot and AirAsia) that do well priced one ways.

Often a good use of FF points.

 

[SYD]

Singapore is often the same price one way vs return, so when we have enough points for two sectors, it's cheaper to book one cash and one points return fare, vs two pairs of one way fares.

“Singapore” meaning SQ?

I believe Scoot is similarly ok for one way fares? As is JQ?

I presume that all the carriers take different approaches to this and different countries - does anyone know of useful "sweet spots" when booking one-way to and from Australia?

I’m not a TA nor an expert, but from experience there’s not a lot of rhyme nor reason for why there is a fare difference between one way and return.

Not the “reason” but the outcome is one way fares often price at full flex bucket, so will obviously appear more expensive than half a regular discount fare. But are probably about 50% of the fully flexible return fare.

You still see this in Europe with some of the legacy carriers and trying to book a simple A to B, but being priced as Fully Flex one way. Yet, once again the LCC seemed to have no issue.

BA is somewhere in between. An A to B (A to B to C) will price about 20% more than half a return.

I believe the Trans Tasman pricing is a result of the open skies agreement and comparable to what happened domestically with deregulation. There’s probably a more technical answer to that but it’s been that way for quite some time.

 

[serfty]

There’s probably a more technical answer to that but it’s been that way for quite some time

In remember when trans tasman went that way approx. decades ago.

Basically it is markets and competition these days.

The concept of one ways being more expensive overall than return goes way back and generally was to reduce flights on a route being less utilised in one direction.