Two one-ways cheaper than one round-trip. Why ??

[Formosano2000]

Conventional wisdom is that one round-trip ticket are (often substantially) cheaper than two one-way tickets.

Apparently, I just found the opposite to be true on a few flights I was researching (last week of Oct/2004). The fare difference ranges from US$10-35.

Go to: aa.com and jetblue.com and do some random fare searches for the exact same itinerary and see what you find when comparing one-ways to round-trips. My SDQ-JFK-SDQ on AA went from US$290 down to about US$275 when I bought two one-ways on AA.com

Why ??? I'm not complaining, just really intrigued !

[aviastar]

becasue in this case you will have 2 one way fare segments, the one from NYC to SDQ in this case will not be subject of 16% ITBIS tax, while the entire ticket will be charged 16% of rt fare! Also in this case there is another difference, RT fare SDQ-NYC-SDQ will be a bit higher, because AA has a promo web fare from NYC to SDQ.

[Formosano2000]

Thanks for the explanations. Very informative !

Just goes to show that it pays to always check first and not take things for granted.

[KateP]

Another thing that sometimes influences fares is how easy it is to fill up the planes. For example, for an airline with a destination that generally does not completely fill up it's plane on all flights, it's safer for them to charge more for one-way tickets since they don't have the certainty that that seat will be filled for the return trip.

Did that make sense? That's basically the explanation an agent friend of mine gave me when I asked her. For popular destinations that always leave with the plane full and people on stand-by, they know that every seat will be filled, regardless if they sell the ticket one way or round-trip...