Originally Posted by
tashi
I have been banging my head against this for a few days and finally I purchased two one ways tickets as follows:
8/25 SAN-ORD $92 + $17 = $109
9/02 ORD-SAN $129 + $10 = $139
Total = $248
Same flights booked as round trip are $314 + $20 = $334
This is really odd. I read the OP and wondered what would happen if I tried that route as a return trip with the "search by price and schedule" option.
It seems the $92 fare is sold out (which I confirmed by trying a one-way), but it did offer me $129 each way. So then I tried "search by price" and got the same fares ($258 + $20 tax).
In other words, whatever was wrong, it's working now. We'd probably need to know the fare buckets to speculate further, but perhaps it was a combination of fare rules and availability in a given bucket (now replenished)?