the phoenix

My Google flights was sending me prices for an upcoming trip to Israel. It showed that the round-trip fare to Israel for business has dropped to $5000 per person For the dates I have this summer.

Since I already booked on el Al, I just chose the original aa flight one way and the price is double. So both on Google. and on AA, it’s literally double to go one way and half price to go round trip.

I thought AA pricing was similar to JetBlue these days, in that pricing is per direction, no?

JJeffrey

No. Pricing has always varied by route, season, time competition, and a host of other factors. While many short haul domestic routes may price a one-way at half the roundtrip fare, most long haul international routes definitely do not.

carlosdca

For domestic flights the price to book two one ways is usually the same as the round trip ticket price

Not for international.flights

DataPlumber

Absolutely true for intercontinental tickets. Not often true for international flights to MX, CA and many Caribbean destinations

the phoenix

Thanks, I didnt realize. Makes me appreciate google.flights more TBH.

I just found it odd that it was $10k one way but $5k for the roundtrip. Wild! Still blows my mind.

FWIW, I doubt it I would have changed, the AA aflight would have been on the 772 with the reverse herring bone rockers. I'm instead looking forward to El Al first time on a 787

safari ari

Not to be pedantic, but then you mean INTRAcontinental?

taxicabnumber

During the height of COVID -- probably fall 2020 through summer 2021 -- AA actually did have one-way pricing on (at least some) intercontinental markets. I had to fly LHR <-> US a few times during that period and always bought one-ways that were ~50-60% of typical RT pricing. Not sure when round-trip pricing with Saturday night stays came back, but seemed to correlate with when travel got back to 'normal' in 2022.

carlosdca

Covid times were a different animal.
Let's talk about current pricing.

asar

For this reason, one way tickets can be a fantastic use of miles

Centurion

Why not buy a roundtrip with a return that is almost a year away and use it for another trip to TLV?

FlyingEgghead

No, I think DataPlumber's post was confusing but correct. "Absolutely true" and "Not often true" referred to the statement "Not for international.flights". That is, "2 one ways != round trip" applies to intercontinental flights (as opposed to all international flights).

gophish11

I think this is to extract as high of fares as possible out of corporate flyers who are globetrotting for business. Similarly, it's usually far more expensive to book intercontinental round-trip flights that don't span a full week.

However, as I say this, I'm preparing for a business trip to Kazakhstan and Turkey next month that's booked on two separate tickets. I could not get AA or QR to book an open jaw trip from RNO-ALA then IST-RNO but did find reasonable one-way fares in J cabin. Outbound booked through AA (operated by QR) and return booked through QR. By reasonable, I mean still over $5,500 round, but not more than booking RT to/from Istanbul or Almaty.

I find the gulf carriers to be more reasonable with their one-way pricing.

Dave Noble

Intracontinental would also include domestic flights and so would not be an appropriate term to use

ExpatExp

JFK-LHR one way earlier this week was about ½ the round-trip price 👍

donotblink

For whatever reason JFK->EGE Roundtrips are routinely cheaper than 2 one ways.