Originally Posted by
jinglish
The legacies usually have far more extreme pricing differences, though--I've seen DL ask $800-1000 for a US-Europe RT but $3000 for a one-way. FI, even though they're asking much more than they used to, are still at least charging a bit less for half the travel.
I'm not sure what FI's change fees are, but, I'd assume that booking a round trip with a far off return date, and then changing it when you actually actually want to come back, would save a significant amount of money (well over $1000 in this example) as compared to two one-ways.
This brings up a related question. Does AS reprice at historical fares once travel starts, or current fares? For example:
Suppose on Feb 1, I book AAA - BBB round trip in R class, leaving Mar 1 and returning Mar 8. Both directions are $100 with a 21-day advance purchase requirement, so I pay $200 for my round trip ticket.
I fly AAA-BBB. On Mar 5, I want to change my BBB-AAA flight to Mar 9. I find a flight on Mar 9 day with R space available, and my original fare would have applied to that flight, except that since I'm now inside the 21-day window, the fare (if booked on Mar 5) would be $200. Do I have to pay the $100 fare difference? Or do they "reprice" at the fare that was available on Feb 1 (ie, no fare difference)