Cheap open ended ticket to South America from California (SFO)?
Question by Jason: Cheap open ended ticket to South America from California (SFO)?
I’m planning on embarking on an extended travel/work adventure to South America with my significant other. We were planning on leaving California on New years eve (cheap one way tix) for Buenos Aires. However, I’ve heard waiting to buy a return ticket when you’re ready to come home can be quite pricey. Any advice on how to go about buying plane tickets if we:
a. dont know when we are coming home?
b. dont know where we are going to be flying home from?
Thanks.
Best answer:
Answer by nako
Since you don’t know where you’re planning on returning from, the only option that you really have is to buy your one-way ticket to Buenos Aires now, and then buy your one-way ticket back to San Francisco at the point where and when you know you want to return. As you already noted, this option is quite expensive — a last-minute one-way ticket could be several times more expensive than if you had planned in advance. Thus, you’re probably better off figuring out at least where you plan on flying back from.
If you can at least figure out where you’re flying back from, you can at least plan to purchase a round-trip ticket at that point. If you figure out that departure city, you have two options:
1) Buy an open ticket, where the date is left open for your return. This is probably one of the most expensive options you have, as it’s essentially an unrestricted full-fare ticket — this type of ticket may be as expensive as simply buying two one-way tickets.
2) Buy a non-refundable ticket that allows date changes. If you buy a round-trip ticket with a certain return date, but you end up having to change that date, a ticket with the flexibility of changing the return date will allow you to do so upon payment of the change fee and any fare difference. Usually, though, if you are changing the return date after you’ve flowin the outbound leg, there is no fare difference if there is availability at your specific fare for the dates you want to travel.
The change fee is likely to be as much as several hundred dollars, but that several hundred dollars is far, far likely to be cheaper than buying unrestricted tickets or two one-way tickets. If you do this, though, you’re going to have to choose your return city in advance, and you’ll probably want to make your return date a little later than you actually plan on coming back. (If you make the return date sooner than you want to come back and forget to change the date, then your reservation automatically cancels as soon as you fail to show up for the return flight. Making the return date later is a form of insurance against forgetting to make the change.)
What do you think? Answer below!