Looking for any tips, hints, strategies for finding reasonably priced int'l. one-way or open jaw Economy tickets. Reasonable as in not too much of a premium over equivalent low-fare Economy round-trip flights. Here's the scenario:

I want to combine an outbound flight on a paid ticket from the US (using SWU) with a OW award (OW150C) to travel around Asia/Oceania/Europe, take a transatlantic cruise to S. America, then fly home to the US on other half of paid ticket (using other SWU).

My problem is that the open jaw tix in various city-pairs I checked are coming out to >$3K per person for Economy. One twist is that when I forego the S. America portion and return to the US via Europe, then it drops to just over $1K per person. i.e. SFO-DEL//BUD-SFO. Presumably that's because AA prices SFO-DEL as a TATL flight, so really that itinerary is priced as an open-jaw TATL?

Anyone have any ideas, tips, strategies for finding one-way or open-jaw fares that are comparable to RT fares? (days of week, certain markets/gateways, direction of travel, etc.)

My ideal itinerary would be:

Oct. 1-ish: SFO-DEL
Oct/Nov: OW Zone 7 Biz award through Asia/Oceania/Europe, then TATL cruise from Europe to Brazil
Dec. 15-ish: GRU-SFO

ideally with the SFO-DEL//GRU-SFO being <$1,500 per person, like I'm finding with SFO-DEL//BUD-SFO. Probably hopeless but if there's an option I'm missing, FT is the best place to ask! Thx