prelude

I've noticed that when I've been searching for flights on ITA, all NZ fares seem to be one-way. Is this necessarily the case, I distinctly recall seeing round-trip fares on EF when I used to have a subscription, but I might be just misunderstanding something. I've flown NZ quite a bit, but have mostly just gone through travel agents. Now that I'm trying to piece together an open-jaw, it seems that NZ only sells tickets as one-way fares and have combination rules that mean that they pretty much function as return tickets if needed. My read into it is that NZ doesn't really offer much of a discount, if at all, if you are booking a round-trip compared with combining two one-ways. Am I completely missing something or misunderstanding something here?
Cheers!

minz56

Depends on the destination. All domestic NZ, Trans Tasman and Pacific Island fares are now quoted as one way fares (and have been for some time now), and I think some other destinations too.

What flights are you looking at?

Thai-Kiwi

Correct. for domestic fares a return offers no cost saving or other benefit besides having 1 tix with both flights.

Pricing to Australia is mixed, and all depends on whether there is a sale for either direction (and occasionally a Grab-a-Seat return). So a return From NZ could be cheaper than two one ways, unless the flight ex-Australia is on sale (and vv). Taxes ex-Australia are a significant contributor to the price.

prelude

I was actually checking Asian and North American routes, and they all seem to be sold as one ways, that can be combined into returns. I'm trying to create a East Coast NA route with interesting stopovers (ie. HNL) while avoiding AC as much as I can. The good thing about these one ways is that I can combine virtually any flights I want, BUT I have almost no room to find savings, which I have done before with European return tickets on Asian carriers. I might have to buy an EF subscription again to see what sort of stopovers I can build into the itinerary, since domestic US/Canada does not look cheap. Now that I look at it, NZ domestic flights are really quite cheap which I have always taken granted for.

Does anyone have recommendations for adding NA sectors? Like Chicago-New York, I haven't got any hard plans just trying to figure out what I can do without having to buy a bunch of domestic one ways.

Mwenenzi

Air NZ does not fly ORD-NYC. So that would be on UA. And many complicate things/increase the cost.
Fares in/from this part of the world are simple. Few restrictions/conditions. Therefore almost no room to find savings over the headline fare for a route

NZ_Flyer

I recently purchased AKL-LHR and that was priced one way rather than as a return - so just bought the one way and will buy the other later

znsm

I've found cheaper return fares AKL-NAN booking as two one-way journeys rather than a return on the .co.nz site... The Fiji site had cheaper fares one-way back to AKL. Pays to check

Thai-Kiwi

Same for Trans-Tasman.