Originally Posted by channa
Assuming you're coming back from the same city, a SFO-XXX-SMF ticket would be an open jaw, so it'd be perfectly fine. Whether the SFO fare is in line with the SMF fare is a different story, but if they're the same, faring such a routing would actually save you money in terms of taxes.
The original itinerary was already an open-jaw (SMF-IAD; JFK-SMF) so a departure out of SFO and return to SMF wouldn't allow certain fares. I priced out a throwaway leg to SFO on a later date (we'll be checking luggage, so we'd need to pick it up in SMF) but it got pretty expensive.
See previous post - things worked out just fine with my original ITA itinerary, thanks to my TA.