An explanation of the strategy and how to utilize it to get three destinations for “half the price of one.”
One of the most frequent questions members ask us is, “Why does my departure/destination city not turn up more often in FCF fare alerts in the newsroom?”
The answer is simple: The aim of FCF fare alerts is to highlight the routes, departure cities, and destinations that offer the best deal or the lowest fare at that moment. We couldn’t possibly show every fare from every place. So we’re not ignoring you.
Plus, many fares are temperamental and sporadic, and simply may not be very low on the specific route you’re looking for.
Enter Open-Jaw Think
Most people fly point-to-point (A-B-A) and back. An Open-Jaw Itinerary, on the other hand, means flying to one city and returning from another (Depart City A, arrive City B, return to City A from City C). Sketch this on a napkin and you'll see that the itinerary looks like a triangle—or the mouth and jawline with the mouth open. Hence, Open Jaw.
Cruise ship itineraries are a perfect example for open-jaw fares. You fly to Barcelona, cruise to Rome, and then fly home from there.
And while you might have every reason to visit B and C before returning home for cruise vacations, we’re talking about it because it can save you a lot of money when flash low fares rear their beautiful heads—on non-cruise trips.
Let’s look at an example. Tony has always wanted to go to the Regata Storica in Venice. It’s a spectacular regatta that includes races featuring gondolas.
Obviously, Tony has to be in Venice on a particular day (September 2 next year). Now he could buy a return Business ticket to Venice from his home in New York and pay, ouch, $4,000, because Venice generally commands a high fare.
Or he could look into the jaws of possibility (cue Twilight Zone music).
Tony’s an avid FCF Daily Alert reader, and he sees that a round-trip to Zurich comes up for $1,600.
Being someone with an Upgrade Mindset, Tony hatches a plan to fly into Zurich, make his way to Venice via train, see the Gondola races in Venice and return to New York from there. A classic open-jaw journey.
Now, here is one of the few times airline fares make any sense, so we’ve put it in bold: Most of these fares are "combinable"—you simply halve each round-trip airfare (New York-Zurich and Venice-New York) and add them together to get the total. Just so long as it’s with the same airline, or with a code-share partner.
So, half of the Zurich round-trip cost ($1,600) is $800. And half of the Venice round-trip cost ($4,000) is $2,000. $800 + $2,000 = $2,800.
That’s a savings of $1,200 that gets you an added city, and pays for the spectacular train ride or a luxurious suite in Venice.
How To Book/Price an Open-Jaw Trip
First, keep in mind that you'll never see the term "Open-Jaw" in the FCF newsroom or on any booking site, including Google Flights. Instead, click on the "Multi-City" tab and enter the cities in the FCF alert. If you have a travel agent, outsource this task.
Now that you know how to open the opportunities, keep watching for FCF alerts for deals. Remember, you can filter for deals to specific regions on our upgrade alerts page (see screenshot below for an example), or you might see one on a FCF email alert.
Once you’ve found a great deal, check out the other cities on offer and the fares (screenshot below) on our amazing hidden-fare widget. Perhaps you always wanted to visit Dublin? Or Moscow?
Once you’ve decided on your destination, it’s time to book. Our fare widget takes you straight to Google Flights.
Google Flights will help you "experiment with pricing various routes" lightening fast—and provide links to book the fares—at airline web sites and other places airline tickets are sold, lightening fast.
As already mentioned, you’ll never see the term “open-jaw” on Google Flights, but you will see Multi-city as an option along with Round-trip and One-way. Choose the Multi-city tab and simply enter the cities (and travel dates) involved from the FCF alert. (See screenshot below.)
Obviously, the return flight home will be from a different city—in this example, it’s from Venice. (The total fare cost will be the sum of both halves of the return fares, plus taxes.)
Of course, you don’t have to travel by train between European destinations. Zurich and Venice are only 1 hour and 5 minutes apart by air, so a super low economy flight comes into play. Our only caution here is to treat that flight as a separate one-way ticket, because we find the saving are best when you do that. But, by all means, crunch the fares to see what works best. Those jaws like something to chew on.
The Jaws of Possibility Are Endless
Here at FCF we’re always on the lookout for flash fare opportunities. Back in September, for example, the lowest New York to London fare started at about $3,230. But New York to Frankfurt was only $1,692. So an open-jaw involving those cities (New York to Frankfurt and London to New York) comes to $2,461. The Frankfurt to London segment isn’t included in that price, but they aren’t far apart and cheap to connect.
Or what about a Chicago native who needs to get to Munich? That round-trip fare in Business Class is often around $3,908. She sees a FCF alert telling her that Chicago to Nice in Business Class is $1,779. She combines those destinations into an open-jaw ticket on Air France for a total cost of $2,843 (including taxes), a saving of around $1,065, that more than takes care of the Nice-Munich connection as well as a nicer hotel in Munich.
three Cities for half-the-price-of-one
In the above example, if she was really ambitious, she could fly Chicago-Nice ($1,779), Bucharest-Chicago ($1,798), both cities were low-fare routes in recent FCF fare alerts, and get it all for less than $1,800—half the cost of a single ticket to Munich ($3,908).
If one or both of those cities are on your bucket list, so much the better.
Looking for a smarter way to get from A to B? Think OJ. The power of the open-jaw plus a low fare can make a trip a deal.
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