We often find ourselves dealing with this dilemma, as we enjoy transatlantic repositioning cruises. But AA tries to charge much more for one way transatlantic tickets than round trip. Our options include:

As to hidden city or throwaway ticketing, possibly the best article out there is ExpertFlyer’s 3 WORDS ON HIDDEN CITY TICKETING: DON’T DO IT (February 27, 2019) link.

1. Using an OTA (AMEX, Expedia, etc.) to find a one way transatlantic trip that has a decent price. Sometimes we have to dig down, but we’ve found trips like a LIS-MAD (in Business Club, much nicer than the usual Euro Business) and MAD-JFK Business Plus, operated by Iberia (iirc they were marketed by IB and BA), and JFK-SFO as IB operated by AA in the A321T. Decent price, got EQs.

2. If you’re flying a return within 365 days, buy an extended stay ticket. It may be cheaper to buy one originating in Europe and use example one to get there. If there’s a major (two hours or more) schedule change or cancellation for the return, you’re entitled to cancel (though you may not get any money back).

3. It’s also possible to do example two and throw away the return ticket, known as throwaway ticketing or skiplagging. This is against the American Airlines Conditions of Carriage. At this time, some feel AA isn’t likely to go after you if you don’t make a habit of throw away ticketing, but note JonNYC’s caveats to the contrary that AA can and will choose to go after passengers engaging in skiplagging, as they have to those engaged in hidden city ticketing. Other airlines going after skiplagging passengers include: Lufthansa has just begun doing so, BA has stated they intend doing so. United has taken action against those skiplagging for several years.

Some feel they can further mitigate their risk by using two or more different airlines for throwaway ticketing, e.g. AA to and another partner return, on the theory that the airlines don’t communicate with each other seamlessly.

In the end, you’re still paying for a round trip and taking on some degree of risk - presumably minimal if this is a one off trip, but possibly not - see the post copied below and the original below in which JonNYC says AA revenue recovery policy includes going after skiplaggers.

4. Use AA miles for this trip. Last year AA wanted some huge amount for SMF-DFW-KEF, so we used miles for that flight (instead of taking FI redeye Saga Class, which is like AA domestic First - we wanted lie flat overnight for various reasons).

5. Forgo AA miles etc. entirely and use another airline entirely to save a lot of money. E.g. Icelandair will sell you a one way transatlantic ticket, give you a free up to one week stopover in Iceland and save you money. No AA miles, but you can credit FI flights to Alaska. (We’ve used Air Europa and Lufthansa, and of course there are no AA EQ possible on these.)

Others may choose to just use a LCC like Norwegian, LEVEL, etc. to economize.

6. If the season is right (~April east, October - November west) and you have the time, transatlantic repositioning cruises can be very economical.

And... It cruise air might not include the fare class, airline or even alliance you’d prefer for earning miles.