First time poster here

I'm looking into booking international flights and I'm wondering why it's so common to see single ticket prices as being more expensive than return/round-trip ticket prices? I'm using the same outgoing/departure date in both queries.

In some cases, the single ticket price is double that of a return. What's the reasoning behind this? And more importantly, can the airline hit me with a no-show penalty fee if I didn't use the second part of my return ticket?

The answer to "why" is simply supply & demand and profit-maximization which is, after all, the carrier's goal. Quite simply, people are willing to pay.

As to what happens, depends on the carrier, the route, how often you do it and the mood of some carrier employee when they come across it.

We only really plan on doing it once. As for the Airline, it will be either American Airlines or Lufthansa. How strict are these airlines?

Wouldn't you be doing it twice if you book round trip tickets for both your outgoing and departure flights? Your use of "we" also indicates there will be more than one person on the itinerary.

YMMV as to what will happen. Consider booking a flexible fare so you can adjust the return date? When will you know a return date? (Before or after outgoing flight)

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry: BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.1030 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

A little off-topic, but using a frequent-flyer award ticket is often an economical alternative to purchasing a one-way ticket for cash. Some frequent-flyer programs offer one-way awards; some don't.

The terms and conditions of international tickets are usually so that you need to stay out of the country for x # of days.

Usually, not showing up for a leg on your ticket will result in the cancellation of the rest of your ticket- so I wouldn't recommend building in the whole travel package into one carrier.

Also, if you are trying to nest a ticket inside another ticket, I'd recommend booking it on another carrier. For example.

Ticket one:

A-B march 2013, carrier one.

B-A aug 2013, carrier one.

Ticket two:

B-A march 2013, carrier two.

A-B July 2013, carrier two.

If you book both on the same carrier, you may face a cancellation if their revenue management department gets a hold of it for violating terms and conditions. Unlikely to occur but its a possibility.

I guess I was a bit vague in my original post.

Me and a friend are flying from England to Brazil. She's from Brazil and is returning to her home country, i'm from England and I will be flying with her but only for a 4 week vacation. So I will use both parts of the return ticket, whilst she would only use the first part.

We are looking at American Airlines or Lufthansa. Both offer round-trip tickets at a cheaper price than single. But I don't want my friend to end up with a penalty fine for not completing her journey as she will be staying in Brazil.

Thanks for your fast replies by the way guys

In that case, her return segment would simply cancel. Your ticket would be unaffected.

Why is it that the market seems to work fine in a lot of domestic travel (especially the uS, but also in other countries) where you can a round trip price is nothing more than the sum of two one way tickets, but when you travel internationally, the pricing structure still seems way too heavily in favor of getting round trip tickets on one airline. I would love to have more flexible travel where I travel to three or four countries in a row. Some of it can be achieved by layovers. But it is still not flexible at all. It would be nice if international travel was closer to domestic travel in terms of flexibility. Remember, at one time, the same round trip pricing stucture existed domestically only for it to go away as there was no reason to follow such a a stpid system.

As far as the rationale that it encourages a customer to spend more money on the airline by being forced to buy a round trip, why can't they consider that one way flexibility would get the airline some extra business from travelers not tied into round trip pricing with other airlines.

See if there is award availability on AA, if so, AA is offering a good deal to purchase miles right now. If you can find inventory, see if you can hold it and then purchase miles.