Open-ended or fully refundable tickets
 

Do all airlines sell open ended plane tickets? And is it a better deal to get a fully refundable or open ended tickets? I never see an online open ended plane ticket offering for sale and I assume they will only give pricing on these if you call in?

I wanted a more flexible return date or cancellation of the return flight. So I am wondering what the best options are for such.

Thank you for your time.

These were more common back in the days of paper tickets and before anti money-laundering authorities started looking at high-value refundable open tickets.

You can either buy an unrestricted full-fare ticket and book your return for the last day of the ticket's validity (one year) and then change it if you wish or go through purchasing an open ticket, which will take more time and effort.

Do remember that depending on how your ticket is fared, if you go over the one year, your outbound segment becomes a one-way ticket and that may fare out at a lot more than 1/2 the round-trip.

Best to carefully research what you are buying before committing.

A ticket with a $100 change fee is usually better value than a fully flex where the difference is more than $150

Not always: it depends what availability is like in that fare class.

You need to read carefully. A ticket that appears to be unchangeable at first glance might be changeable for a fee if you delve a little deeper

Being in charge of our Rotary Club's Youth Exchange programme, we deal with this often. Students must have a return ticket after the exchange year for visa purposes, but since there could be issues, the possibility of modifying the return is more than likely.

Our recommendation is to book the outbound (with a high level of certainty to dates and times) as they wish, then book the return on a fully flexible fare that it has no penalties for changes or cancellations. In that case, your return date is simply an approximation and unless there is a serious capacity issue, you can always change without penally.

You can get open-ended plane tickets online with many airlines; for some you will need to call or use a travel agent.

They are however normally very expensive.