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One-way DC-Athens fare $1700 and round-trip $800?

One-way DC-Athens fare $1700 and round-trip $800?

Old Aug 6, 2010, 8:22 am
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One-way DC-Athens fare $1700 and round-trip $800?

I saw this on Orbitz on USAir but other airlines followed suit. How can this be? We want to fly from DC-Athens but return Istanbul-DC. I need 2 one-ways, but the cost seems prohibitive. Any ideas on how I can accomplish this trip without cleaning out my bank account? My vacation starts Sep.12. I prefer flying out of National but Dulles is okay. Thx.
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Old Aug 6, 2010, 8:30 am
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Welcome to Flyertalk. One-way fares are always more expensive than round-trip fares; it's standard practice. Price your trip as a multi-city trip, not two one-ways, and the cost is far from prohibitive. Plugging your trip into Sidestep (IAD-ATH on 12 September, IST-IAD ten days later), I get a low fare of $754 all in... on a combination of Continental, Turkish and United. On the outbound trip you connect via Newark; on the return, via Geneva. But there are hundreds of combinations available, most under $1,000. Visit www.sidestep.com. Good luck.

Last edited by BearX220; Aug 6, 2010 at 8:37 am
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Old Aug 6, 2010, 8:32 am
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One-way fares are very high. What you need to do is book what's called an "open-jaw" roundtrip.

On whatever website you use, choose "multiple destinations" then enter DC-Athens and Istanbul-DC.

It will price like a round trip.

Good luck!
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Old Aug 6, 2010, 8:43 am
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Welcome to FlyerTalk!

Originally Posted by BearX220
One-way fares are always more expensive than round-trip fares;
Not always. It's almost always (IME) true for longer international trips, but many domestic US, intra-EU, etc. flights are priced the same one-way as round-trip. Some airlines price some routes with cheap (half of a r/t) one-way fares but not on others (e.g. Continental LGA-CLE-ORD has cheap one-way tickets, EWR-ORD does not.)

Originally Posted by Alpha Golf
One-way fares are very high. What you need to do is book what's called an "open-jaw" roundtrip.
^ What he (?) said.

Many round-trip fares allow for open-jaws (think triangle with the shortest side missing), or even double open-jaws (think of a quadrilateral with the two shortest sides missing). "Shorter" is important; usually the distance between the open cities, in the OP's case ATH and IST, must be shorter than the distance of the flights (DC-ATH and DC-IST). For example, DC-ATH and ATH-IST together would not be considered an open-jaw, it would generally be considered a one-way DC-IST with a stopover in ATH, or could be two one-way tickets.

The "open" part can be at either end: DC-ATH and ATH-NYC would also be an open-jaw. An example of a double-open-jaw would be DC-ATH and IST-NYC.

Last edited by ralfp; Aug 6, 2010 at 8:53 am Reason: add details
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Old Aug 6, 2010, 9:08 am
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I think you may be over-explaining. The poor guy just wants a cheap ticket into ATH and returning from IST and doesn't realize there are other ways to do it besides buying two one-way tickets. As AlphaGolf and I both said, just tick the multi-city button and you'll be fine. As for one-way tickets being consistently more expensive, I meant on international trips... because that's what the OP is asking about, not flights to Chicago.
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Old Aug 6, 2010, 9:19 am
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If the open jaw doesn't price out well, the other option is to book a RT from IDA to either ATH or IST and to then buy a second ticket for ATH-IST or vice-versa. On one end this becomes a connection, and because you'll be on two tickets you want to leave plenty of time for the connection since you won't be protected on a later flight if your first leg is delayed.

This would look like:

IAD-ATH on first ticket

spend time in Athens and then

ATH-IST on second ticket

spend time in Istanbul and then

IST-ATH on second ticket
four hour or so layover
ATH-IAD on first ticket

I'm doing something similar next week:

ORD-FRA on UA
FRA-IST...cruise...ATH-MUC-VIE...time in Vienna...FRA on LH
FRA-ORD on UA
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Old Aug 6, 2010, 9:49 am
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Originally Posted by milepig
If the open jaw doesn't price out well, the other option is to book a RT from IDA to either ATH or IST and to then buy a second ticket for ATH-IST or vice-versa.
Oddly, this doesn't price as well as a basic open-jaw.

12 September outbound, 22 September return:

IAD-ATH RT $792
IAD-IST RT $891
ATH-IST OW: $140

12 September IAD-ATH + 22 September IST-IAD is $754. Go figure.

It sounds like the OP may have land-transit or cruise plans ATH-IST anyway.
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Old Aug 6, 2010, 10:16 am
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Originally Posted by BearX220
It sounds like the OP may have land-transit or cruise plans ATH-IST anyway.
Right - I missed that. The other option that works is to buy a RT IST-ATH if cheaper than a one-way, and throw away the SECOND half (never the first leg).

But, in this case the open jaw seems the way to go.
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Old Aug 9, 2010, 12:26 pm
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Thanks so much for the explanation of the open jaw. I selected multi-city in Orbitz and the results were a lot better. I will be opting for the DCA-JFK and JFK-Athens and vice versa with Istanbul. And yes, we will be driving/ferrying from Athens-Delphi-Mykonos-Delos-Samos-Kusadasi-Bergama-Troy-Istanbul.
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