One-way vs round-trip: which total is actually cheaper

US low-cost carriers often price one-ways as the building block. Network airlines sometimes still price a round-trip as a package that is cheaper than two one-ways — or more expensive. The only way to know is to search both shapes for the same dates and add the USD totals, including bags each way.

Two airlines, two tickets

A cheap outbound on one carrier and a cheap return on another is two contracts. Miss the outbound and the return may still fly — or a round-trip on one ticket would have cancelled the rest as a no-show. That tradeoff is yours. See self-transfers.

Open-jaw

Fly into one city and home from another. Useful for one-way car trips and rail. Search it as a multi-city if the form allows, or as two one-ways.

On Azurovia

Run round-trip. Run two one-ways. Compare. Rank is not a recommendation to split tickets. We show what sellers returned. You pick the contract you can live with, then you ticket with the seller.