Question About Fare Construction
 

Okay, I'm not exactly a babe-in-the-woods here, but this has me baffled:

I'm trying to book a trip BOS-SFO-NYC for 7/5 ret 9/13.

UA, AA offer nonstops in the $400 range. CO offers a 1-stop plus nonstop through EWR for about the same.

NW, OTOH, wants roughly $900.

The kicker is, that the *same flights*, if used as part of a straight NYC-SFO-NYC or BOS-SFO-BOS roundrip, also make the fare about $400something.

Point is, the multi-city option doubles the fare and then some.

Why?

Because you're not constructing something properly. What you're trying to do is a basic open-jaw. An open-jaw price would be calculated as half of the each of the separate round-trips, plus applicable taxes.

Probably more of a mileage run forum discussion, though.

Schmutzig's right about the open-jaw calculations, I think... but that doesn't explain the whole of your problem.

There are a couple other factors:

1. You're looking for fares less than four weeks out, which often means not being able to get the cheapest ones, at least outbound.

2. On the day you want to fly, the cheapest five fare classes have apparently sold out from Boston on NW(!).

So instead of the cheapest K fare, or even the not-quite-as-cheap T, L, V and Q fares, you are seeing the H fares.

And with taxes and fees, you're looking at about... $1009.50, right?

So the question then becomes how important it is for you to fly out of Boston. I just looked and the prices are something like this, including taxes and fees.

BOS-SFO-NYC = $1009.50
MHT-SFO-NYC = $673.10
BDL-SFO-NYC = $664.59
NYC-SFO-NYC = $399.00

Personally, I'd blow $50 on a one-way rental car and drive to New York... but that's just me. ;)