vanillabean

jsguyrus

The only difference is if you would have to cancel/change the trip. Two change fees instead of one.

PVDtoDEL

And the flip side - if you miss your SFO-NYC, then your ORD-SFO will also be cancelled.

EmailKid

I tend to book two one ways - yes, there is some risk in case I have to change BOTH and have two change fees, but IMHO that is very unlikely. But I've been burned by having to EAT a HUGE increase in overall ticket price as the WHOLE r/t will reprice rather than each segment.

There are folks in both camps, so you have to choose what you feel will work best in your circumstance @:-)

I only book r/t on longaul Int'l, as o/w are often more expensive than r/t.

czpdx

I'm not sure that's true on AS. Everything is priced as the sum of the individual legs. I am pretty sure when you change a ticket, it will ask you which segment you want to change, leaving the other one alone. This detailed page is from the EasyBiz site, but I believe it works the same on regular reservations.

EmailKid

That may well be true, BUT the price may well go UP by the time you want to make a change @:-) I dabble with AS and AA, but very familiar with UA, and they use pricing at time of change request - did this a few months ago on AS, and had to pony up the fare difference.

czpdx

What I'm saying is that I don't think it will reprice the segment that you are not changing. Of course, whatever segment you are changing will bump up to whatever the current price is at that time...plus $125.

jjmadison

Most of the time this is true, but 1-2 times per quarter I find that two one-ways are $30-50 cheaper than the same legs booked in a roundtrip. I notice this most often when flying in/out of LAX. I usually find these via google flights where I can quickly switch from roundtrip to one-way to check.

Also, the AS website search sometimes does not show the one-ways at the cheaper fare, but google flights does. When I find these lower prices on google flights, I am able to book at the lower fare by clicking the Book on Alaska option. The fare class (usually R) remains the same as what was being quoted at a higher price via AS search.

My working theory is that whoever manages the AS search tool has it set to increase prices at different times than what is actually programmed in on the backend based on availability. Additionally, I recall a rumor on FT last year that AS was planning to test variable pricing on a per-user basis, so maybe that's what's happening at times. Either would explain the times when google flights reveals cheaper one-ways than what the AS search tool does.

czpdx

I guess another situation is where saver is only available on one of the two ways. In that case, it would be cheaper to book as two one-ways. I've seen weird behavior on the AS site where saver fares appear on some searches, then don't show up when I search for the same itinerary later.

akdancer

I noticed, when I was testing a Saver fare on a r/t reservation that the non-Saver fares were flagged as "Non Combinable". It makes sense - all Savers or no Savers, so attributes of the ticket would be consistent.