One way or return?

clive2702

Can someone please throw some light on this?
I am planning a holiday to Canada, arriving in Montreal then working my way west to Vancouver before returning home.
So, a direct flight from Heathrow to Montreal with British Airways costs £1,395 (Economy Standard).
I thought this a bit expensive so looked at a return fare, same day out, same time, same class and the total fare is only £601.
Why is this? Does anyone know?

Westin

I can’t offer you an explanation but what you have found is quite common.

When searching for your flights look to do a search on a multi city or multi centre itinerary rather than two one way tickets.

rricaresad33

What I forgot to mention that some airlines does the trick, I know for sure SAS airlines does this, that if you buy one way the price is like $2k and if you buy both ways its like 300$. So it's just cheaper to buy it both ways.

richardw

Traditional airline fares are all about markets, other logic doesn’t really apply, if it did there would be no cheap £543 rtn fares to Sydney.

logderson

Yeah I've heard about it too. I'm also a nordvpn user and I used this trick for booking accommodation in airbnb and booking.com although haven't tried with flight tickets.

bagand96

Westin has the answer.

You are not looking for two single flights. You need a Multi City search. Heathrow - Montreal out and Vancouver - Heathrow back, the airline treat this as a “return” so will open up the lower fare classes.

mad_rich

It's not so much that the one-way fares are expensive; it's more that return fares are cheap.

Historically, one way fares have tended to be 'full price', while the fares we see when we book a return is much cheaper, and usually requires that you fix your dates in advance and stay over a Saturday night (both of which make them less attractive to business travellers).

You could look into an open jaw fare (into Montreal and out of Vancouver). Also check out the cost of a one-way domestic flight, although I suspect he open jaw will be cheaper.

Westin

It appears the OP is not returning to the thread.