What is 'Open Jaw?'
 

Later this year, I need to take a trip with multiple stops. Can anyone tell me if this itinerary is possible with an airline? Will they charge much more than from flying in and out of the same town?

I want to fly from LHR to Chicago, then to Minneapolis and on to Seattle and back to LHR from there. I've never done such a meandering path and could use some expertise.

TIA

An open jaw is when you fly back to your original departure city from someplace other than the airport you flew to first. For example, if I fly outbound DTW-LAX, and come home SFO-DTW. Somehow I have to get myself from LA to San Fran, on my own dime.

I think with multiple stops as you mentioned, you would be looking for a circle trip. That is, if you want all your flights to be on a single ticket. You can always book one ticket to say Chicago, and then do separate flights from there to MSP and SEA.

(Looks like DavidDTW posted while I was polishing mine up. I think we're in agreement...)

That's a "multi-city" itinerary if it's booked on one ticket; it would be an "open jaw" if you flew LHR-ORD and SEA-LHR went between Chicago and Seattle some other way.

I'm suspecting that it will price out cheaper to book it all together since most one-way flights within the US are expensive (except the low-cost carriers; don't know whether they will help on this itin), plus you get more hassle from the TSA on a one-way ticket.

It may or may not. Most cheap LON-US tickets do not allow for a stop-over. Having a stop-over tends to bump you to a substantially more expensive ticket, even more so when you have two stopovers as in the OP's case.

ORD-MSP oneway starts at GBP88+tax on NW MSP-SEA at GBP38+tax on Sun country.

Try both: 1) as a circle ticket and 2) as an open-jaw+ buying the internal segments separately
and see what prices best.

But, to be frank, this is precisely the kind of situation where a good travel agent can help you and save you lots of time and money.

Thanks, everyone, for your quick replies. I haven't dealt with any UK travel agents but that just might be the right way to try this. My partner's firm uses someone local, so I'll give that a go before getting ambitious on my own.
All tickets to the States seem to cost more from here to 'there' then 'there' to here. It gets annoying at times!

Oh, you betcha.