usedtobeimportant

Used to always be 2 x One Way tickets cost was much greater than the round trip cost (same airports and dates of course). It is still the case for international travel. But now for domestic travel there is no cost advantage it seems for thw routes I fly.

I am not complaining because now I get better schedules by flying in on Delta and out on United.

So is there any benefit to buying a round trip ticket on UA rather than 2 one way tickets on UA?

cfischer

Most domestic fares are one-way fares, so buying 2 one-ways vs. a round-trip makes no difference. There are a couple of mostly TCON r/t fares where a r/t purchase is necessary. So you always have to check what is cheaper.

JimInOhio

The benefit is with round trip non-refundable fares. If you have to reschedule a trip, you're out $400 if you have two one-ways instead of $200 with a R/T if both flights have to be changed.

PsiFighter37

There used to be a benefit to booking 2 one-ways when the united.com Club was around - getting the extra Travel Bank credit. Now that the program is going away, there is no point.

Phil Level

This isn't new, and I've been buying one way tix for years. I fly mostly LA to NYC, and it used to be one way tix were $159 purchased far in advance, so I would buy 2, sometimes, 3 return tix when meetings dates in NYC got moved at last minute. When they finally pinned down the date, I would cancel the tix I didn't need, but that was still less $ than booking < 1 week.
The other reason I started buying one way was due to occasional reports (some years ago) of outbound tix not scanning properly, and UA's system automatically canceling the return segment.

xliioper

Roundtrip fares are still out there on a good deal of legacy domestic routes. Although AS would be the legacy exception as all their fares are one-way (as are non-legacy WN fares). It's possible there are none on the routes you fly. It's also possible they are available on the routes you fly, but you don't meet the advance purchase or minimum stay requirements for them and therefore the cheapest fares available for purchase to you are one-way fares. They are mostly still out there on routes to smaller markets where there is limited or no LCC/ULCC competition. The fare differentials are no where near as extreme as they are on international routes (on domestic, you generally won't see a roundtrip fare purchase that costs less than a single one-way fare), so they might not be that noticeable. I'm based in DTW and there are only a small handful of domestic routes here where DL does not have any published roundtrip fares. For example, they don't have any on DTW-MDW or DTW-BWI where they compete heavily with WN, but there are a few on DTW-BNA (also WN competition). DTW-MSY and DTW-MCI have many as they only compete against NK nonstop on these routes which they do not take as seriously as WN.

Often1

This.

It's $200 to change a typical domestic penalty ticket, no matter how many coupons.

In addition, in case of weather waivers, trips in vain and the like, you may well find that the waiver / refund applies only to one direction and you are stuck with a one-way of no value.

st530

This seems to largely miss the point of one-ways. I buy a one-way when I don’t know for sure which day I’ll be returning. I buy when I know. So a double change is not only highly unlikely but is the very reason to buy two one-ways. YMMV.

HNLbasedFlyer

I also typically buy one-ways and haven't (yet) gotten burned by a change in flight dates from work.

I often fly HNL-SFO-LAS(then back to HNL either via LAX or preferably SFO). It is often substantially cheaper to buy HNL-SFO SFO-LAS LAS-SFO-HNL as one ways than a multi-segment rt ticket and gives me better options for buying F on some of the legs.

Often1

But, that is not the point raised by OP. He presumes that he is flying to a given location and back and wants to know why it might be useful to book a round-trip ticket as opposed to two one-ways. It goes without saying that if the price of the round-trip is 2x the one-way and one only needs to fly one-way that one only purchases one-way.

dilanesp

A recent Mile Play promotion gave me a bonus for a premium cabin ticket over $500. Because I bought roundtrip, my ticket qualified and I got the bonus. Had I bought two o/w's they both would have been under the threshold.

onthesam

Conversely, if the roundtrip was $1,200 total (2x $600 one-ways), booking two one-way tickets in lieu of the roundtrip would have counted as 2 flights against your MilePlay requirement instead of just 1.

zombietooth

This!
I often buy 2 return tickets, in case my client changes their mind after they've set the dates. It still saves a ton of money over refundable fares.

Lomapaseo

I bought non-ref F one-ways for a trip this week. I'm now currently hospitalize. I suspect I'm screwed.

emcampbe

check for medical waivers. I’ve never needed it, so not sure exactly how it works, but I believe after you rebook, and have already paid the fees, you can write in and request they refund the change fee. Obviously, you’d need to show some sort of proof. Positive someone can provide better info than me. Also a good reason to have travel insurance, which should cover this - one reason it’s a good idea to use a card like the Chase CSR which should cover it under trip cancelation.

but on the main topic, the half round trip one way fares are also often (but not always) available on the routes I fly to Canada (YYZ or YVR for me, typically), and buying them as 2 one-ways actually costs less than a round trip. This is because (at least, partially because) the Canadian HST (tax) applies based on the full round trip cost If booked together, but is only charged on the Canada-departing direction if booked as one-ways - not on the inbound to Canada. Typically I’m traveling with 2 others which typically saves >$150 total for everyone. Obviously, there’s still the potential for higher change fees if we need to change both directions, but at least so far, it’s worked out well.