Nov 18, 2014 However, Delta is continuing chiseling away their SkyMiles program when it comes to SkyMiles awards with stopovers or open jaws. Delta is changing their open jaw and stopover policy on award tickets. As a result of Delta moving from a three to five level award pricing structure and introducing one-way award pricing, stopovers and open jaw award. Generally, on an open-jaw itinerary, the distance between the 'open jaw' or surface leg cities must be shorter than each of the flown legs. GOT-CPT is further than ATL-GOT. You might be better off purchasing roundtrip ATL-CPT with a stopover in Europe (say LHR, AMS or CDG), then purchase a side trip to GOT as a separate ticket. An open-jaw flight is a flight itinerary is like your typical round-trip flights but with two separate parts: a flight from City A to City B, and then a flight from City C to back to City A. For example, a departing flight from Minneapolis-St. Paul (MSP) to Paris-Charles de Gaulle (CDG), and a return flight from Amsterdam (AMS) back to Minneapolis. What is open jaw ticketing: Open jaw ticket is a roundtrip airline ticket, where the itinerary has passengers arriving in one city, but departing from a different one. Why purchase open jaw flights: Because you have multiple cities and countries to see during one trip, and you don't want to waste time traveling all the way back to your.
Open jaw flights are booked as a roundtrip itinerary, but they don't follow the typical pattern of a there-and-back roundtrip. Because international one-way flights are often nearly as expensive as roundtrips, this allows you a bit more flexibility in your travel without added expense. In fact, open jaws can even save you money in some instances.
Here's what you need to know about finding cheap open jaw flights.
Booking an open jaw flight to save time
The most common type of open jaw flight arrives in one city and departs from another. These are exceptionally useful for itineraries that cover a lot of ground. Rather than wasting precious vacation time backtracking to your arrival airport, an open jaw ticket allows you to spend that time doing something more fun.
For instance, let's say you're visiting both London and Paris. A simple roundtrip ticket to and from London, or a roundtrip to and from London with a long layover in Paris, would require that you travel from Paris back to London at the end of your holiday so you can fly home again. And just like that, your week long trip is a half-day shorter because you've got to schlep back to London for your flight home.
Instead, book an open jaw ticket that flies into London from your home airport but leaves from Paris to get you home again. Now your final vacation day is yours to spend in a Parisian market or museum rather than on a train back to London. You can book your London to Paris flight (or train ticket) separately (we call this the Greek islands trick and you can read about this travel hack here).
Even trips within the same country can benefit from open jaw flights. Travelers to Italy often visit Venice, Florence, and Rome in one trip, and while Italy isn't an enormous country, the train trip from Venice to Rome will eat up at least half a day. Flying into Venice and out of Rome means no backtracking; you have more time for gelato and you save the cost of the train ticket back to Venice.
Booking an open jaw flight to save money
Another type of open jaw ticket is the kind you might not specifically be looking for, but would be willing to take to save a big chunk of change.
For example, flying from Chicago into London's Heathrow and then home from London's Gatwick back to Chicago might be cheaper than flying roundtrip to and from Heathrow, and since both get you to the same final destination, why not save a bit by booking the open jaw?
Or, if flying from your home in Portland to Tokyo and then from Tokyo to Seattle saves you a significant amount of money, you might be willing to take the three-hour bus or train ride back from Seattle to Portland at the end of your trip. While this itinerary is less apt to be useful for most travelers, it's good to keep in mind that you've got flexibility—especially if your departure and arrival airports are close enough that you could travel from one to the other relatively easily.
How to book an open jaw flight to save time
Open jaw tickets are not booked as two one-way tickets, despite the non-traditional flight plan. They're booked as roundtrip tickets using the 'multi-city flights' option on most airfare websites. Purchasing two one-way tickets is another way to go, of course, but one-way international tickets are significantly more expensive on most airlines.
Let's walk through booking open jaw tickets on Google Flights and Momondo, using a scenario in which you know which airports you want to fly in and out of.
With Google Flights, the calendar of lowest fares only works for one way and roundtrip flights. The ticket prices for open jaw flights don't show up there, so if your travel dates are flexible, your first step is to search this calendar for the dates with the best roundtrip prices in and out of the same airport. That will give you an idea of what a simple roundtrip ticket would cost and when the best prices are offered.
Once you do that and have an idea of your dates (or if your dates aren't flexible), you're ready to check out open jaw flights.
See where it says 'Round trip' right above the departure city name? (Of course you do, because we've drawn a circle around it.) That's a drop-down menu. Click on it, and you'll see three choices: Round trip, One way, and Multi-city)
Selecting 'Multi-city' will add another line on the flight plan.
The fields on the second line may be auto-filled when they first appear, but you can change them easily.
You can use the second line to fly from a different airport, or to fly from your arrival city to a third place altogether. You'll notice you can even add more flights to the itinerary, too, by clicking 'Add flight.'
If you aren't planning to take the train between the two cities, you could add a flight from London to Paris to this itinerary. It might be cheaper to book this short flight separately, but by playing with the itinerary you'll be able to compare prices and know for sure.
And keep in mind that if you're in the early stages of planning your trip and the direction you travel in doesn't matter (e.g. whether it's London then Paris, or Paris then London) it's a good idea to search both ways in case one itinerary offers a better deal.
With Momondo, the 'multi-city' option is even easier to see right from the start.
Right next to the 'One-way' and 'Round-trip' options above the fields for airport codes is a 'Multi-city' option. Click on that and, again, you'll get another line in which to add more airports.
And, like Google Flights, Momondo lets you add even more stops with the 'Add' link below the itinerary.
How to book an open jaw flight to save money
If an open jaw isn't required, but you're willing to do it to save money, there's a slightly different approach. Here, when inputting your departure or destination cities, use the city code to search all area airports instead of specific ones (e.g. use CHI to search all Chicago area airports, not just ORD).
On Momondo you can simply check the box that says 'Nearby Airports.' Or, if there are specific airports you're willing to consider, head to Google Flights, which allows you to input up to seven city or airport codes. So if, for example, you live in Northern California but you're willing to drive for a great deal, you could input San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, and Sacramento and search for flights from all four airports. Party time game.
What Are Open Jaw Flights
While you might expect open jaw tickets to cost more than simple roundtrip tickets, they're usually comparable in price, which means when we send out a deal like 'Europe in the $200s/$300s from all over the US' there's a good chance you could find your perfect open jaw itinerary for a similar price.
Not only that, open jaw flights save you the expense of ground transport—like those train tickets from Rome back to Venice—to get back to the original airport.
The bottom line is that with limited vacation days, travel funds, or both, an airline ticket that helps you reclaim your time and cash is always worth checking out.
Open Jaw Flights Delta Airlines
Read more of our tips on finding cheap flights, or join Scott's Cheap Flights and save up to 90% on flights.
An open-jaw flight arrives in one city and departs from another. Important: you're responsible for getting between the cities on your own!
For example:
- Flight 1 of 2: New York → London
- Train/car/bus/separate flight, etc.: London → Paris
- Flight 2 of 2: Paris → New York
Open-jaw flights are fantastic for seeing two destinations in one trip without backtracking to your initial destination to catch a flight home.
When a deal we send works as an open-jaw, we'll call that out. Here's how to book.
Step 1: Click the booking button in the deal email
Every deal email includes a direct link that's pre-set with all the filters needed to get the fares we've found to appear in the search results.
Explore available dates until you find an itinerary you like. Note: you may need to customize your search details, such as dates, trip duration, number of travelers, etc.
Step 2: Switch your flight type to 'multi-city'
Look for a dropdown menu where you can select the type of trip and select multi-city flights.
Then take the dates you like from Step 1 and plug them in, along with the cities you want to fly to and from. If the order of the cities doesn't matter, try running the search both ways to see if it changes the price.
Step 3: Book via the airline or an online travel agency
Scott's Cheap Flights doesn't sell flights; all flights must be booked directly through the airline or an online travel agency.
Online travel agencies often have the lowest available prices for our deals. When this occurs, we'll call it out in the Booking Instructions section of the email. When the price is similar, we recommend booking directly with the airline.
Not only does this give you more flexibility (you can generally cancel or change your flight within 24 hours), it's also typically easier to resolve any issues when you deal directly with the airline vs a third party.
For detailed instructions on how to use the most common online travel agencies or flight search engines, check out these guides, or read our guide to online travel agencies.
Step 4: Book transport between the two cities
An open-jaw flight flies into one city and out of another, which means it's up to you to get between those cities, whether that's by plane, train, bus, car, or ferry.
Rome2rio is an excellent resource for figuring out the best way between two points. It shows you all your transport options along with the duration, cost, and booking details.
Can't find the fare quoted in the deal alert email?
If you've followed the instructions above (use that booking button!) and still can't find the deal, double check the dates and route (departure and destination airports) in the deal email to make sure the dates you're searching for are listed. For an open-jaw flight, you can also play around the order of cities. If you still can't find the deal, it's most likely no longer available.
![Delta Delta](https://i1.wp.com/helenonherholidays.com.fqdns.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/jaw-1.png?resize=1260%2C475)
If you have a question about a deal, please contact us and we'll be happy to take a look at what's going on.