One Way Ticket or Change Return Ticket
 

We are planning to fly Istanbul to Sydney with Emirates.

We plan to fly out October 2016 and return September/October 2017.

Currently we can get a very affordable one way ticket (about 65% the cost of return ticket); or purchase a return ticket (coming back in April 2017).

If we purchase a flexible return ticket it appears we can modify the ticket but at a cost; and likely risk of having to pay the difference in air fare (if any)?

What's the cheapest option?
Is there any way to purchase a 12 month return tickets these days?

(We do not need to show evidence of return ticket.)

A travel agent or EK itself can process an open ticket (they will still book a date but will be free to change it/set it once).

You can probably purchase a higher fare that has no change fee associated with it. Whether that will be better value than paying the change fee is something only you can best decide

Looking at the fares on offer, the change fee on the cheapest tickets is USD50 . The difference in price between EK's lowest fare and lowest fare with no change fee seems to be close to USD800, so will probably be best off paying the change fee

As long as flexible on dates and can get the same inventory for the return flight, it is pretty likely that you will be able to make a change that has no additional payment other than the change fee


Umm,,, by definition, that wouldn't be an open ticket :)

They only need Flex Plus on the return so can still book Flex/Saver on the outbound, which will likely be cheaper. Also OP doesn't mention class of travel which might affect it.

But I agree generally for me, departing South Africa on Flex change fee is ZAR500 (30USD) but Flex Plus is ZAR3000 (200 USD) more, so it makes sense to rather suck up the change fee.

Yes but not only will OP pay the change fee, they'll pay any fare difference too so it may make sense to go for the ticket choice that limits additional costs later on. There was also mention of paying additional taxes last time I changed a ticket with Emirates but that didn't happen in the end.

Believe it or not, fares sometimes go down too (I know... shocker). I've looked at the change costs online for changing my flights before and seen the website indicate a refund due to me if I change (even after the 30USD change fee I had on my Flex ticket). Or recently a date change which pushed me from Y Flex to Y Flex Plus cost me just 7USD, with 3k extra miles. that's good value!

The only reason there woulld likely be a fare difference is if the availability in the booking class is sold out . As long as there is flexibility in the return, there is no reason why the OP will need to pay any fare difference

Changing flights prior to departure or changing return so that minimum stay is not met will cause issues - other than that , as long as the passenger picks flights with availability, the only cost will be the USD50

There is little reason to pay the much higher than lowest fare to avoid a $50 change fee which is what EK is listing from IST

Yes, that's pretty much what I said

Oh thank you, I didn't realise that fares can go down just as much as up. But yes, sometimes fares do go down so fare difference isn't required.

:D It wasn't a jibe at you but more of a reference to the fact that somehow 99% of the time when changing a ticket the fare seems to have gone up