One way ticket or return (and miss the flight) ?

[BruceP]

We will be heading off to do Central and South America next September, and will be going via New York (from Manchester) so we can get in the southern states we missed last time round.

But one way flights are nearly twice the price of return flights on all the major airlines.

Does anyone have any experience of what issues may arise with airlines or the US immigration if you fail to make the return trip ?

We are not constrained by the 90 day Visa as we have B2 visas.

The only cheap flights I can see at the moment are with

Aer Lingus
Swiss
Icelandair

With the state of the economy I am a touch wary of paying smaller airlines so far in advance (and after our experience of FlyGlobespan in 2007).

[MountainMan]

Hey Bruce,

You have a couple of options, one is to fly and ditch the return ticket, airline won't care and for immigration you'll have an exit swipe of your passport when you actually leave.

The other is to fly discount airlines one way. Your timing is good, high season ends after September long weekend and kids are back at school so the prices will be lower, New York and surrounding airports (New Jersey, etc.) have a ton of traffic in general so you should have a lot of options to look through to find the cheapest one. Not sure about flights out of Manchester to the US, but I do know that a Canadian discount airline has plenty of flights from Manchester to Canada (Air Transat) so options should exist to US as well. As for booking far in advance, risk is noted but some to them are more established than others so just pick wisely or wiat until you get closer to the date. Oh, as most standard travel sites don't show discount airlines so you have to dig around a bit to find out the name and go to their actual website.

[BruceP]

Originally Posted by MountainMan

Hey Bruce,

You have a couple of options, one is to fly and ditch the return ticket, airline won't care and for immigration you'll have an exit swipe of your passport when you actually leave.

The other is to fly discount airlines one way. Your timing is good, high season ends after September long weekend and kids are back at school so the prices will be lower, New York and surrounding airports (New Jersey, etc.) have a ton of traffic in general so you should have a lot of options to look through to find the cheapest one. Not sure about flights out of Manchester to the US, but I do know that a Canadian discount airline has plenty of flights from Manchester to Canada (Air Transat) so options should exist to US as well. As for booking far in advance, risk is noted but some to them are more established than others so just pick wisely or wiat until you get closer to the date. Oh, as most standard travel sites don't show discount airlines so you have to dig around a bit to find out the name and go to their actual website.

It just feels sooo wrong though :-)

STA travel and Opodo have Swiss/Icelanair and Aer Lingus, I'm not aware of any other cheap carriers.

[uk_vette]

I have found Continental out of Manchester to be the cheapest for the many times I have traveled.

'vette

[BruceP]

Originally Posted by uk_vette

I have found Continental out of Manchester to be the cheapest for the many times I have traveled.

'vette

Decent prices, but still have the one way fare hike :-)

I need to spend some time checking T&Cs.

[Sheonagh]

We flew to Panama last week with Iberia from London. It was cheaper to buy a one way ticket than a return plus an onward (refundable) one way ticket to Costa Rica. Iberia in London would have denied us boarding otherwise. I have just emailed Trailfinders in UK to cancel the onward ticket and refund us which will take a couple of months. There are cancellation fees but this was our cheapest option. Do the calculation from your own destination. We found Trailfinders very helpful. We booked about 2 weeks before travelling....
Incidentally Panamanian immigration never asked us anything! I appreciate this is not NYC though! However you could always start your journey somewhere else and finish up in the southern states of USA!

[BruceP]

Originally Posted by Sheonagh

We flew to Panama last week with Iberia from London. It was cheaper to buy a one way ticket than a return plus an onward (refundable) one way ticket to Costa Rica. Iberia in London would have denied us boarding otherwise. I have just emailed Trailfinders in UK to cancel the onward ticket and refund us which will take a couple of months. There are cancellation fees but this was our cheapest option. Do the calculation from your own destination. We found Trailfinders very helpful. We booked about 2 weeks before travelling....
Incidentally Panamanian immigration never asked us anything! I appreciate this is not NYC though! However you could always start your journey somewhere else and finish up in the southern states of USA!

We thought about going a different route, but both fancy doing the trip from NY, so pretty set on that as a start point.

I think what we will do now is leave booking the flight for another couple of months, get the return if still a lot cheaper and just cancel it sometime after arrival.

I fancied the one way ticket just to put the visa to the test :-)

[channing]

Originally Posted by Sheonagh

We flew to Panama last week with Iberia from London. It was cheaper to buy a one way ticket than a return plus an onward (refundable) one way ticket to Costa Rica. Iberia in London would have denied us boarding otherwise.

Great idea on getting the cheaper fare.

I have also had similar problems with getting on airlines here in the states heading toward Central America. Ive had to prove that I was leaving the country that I was going to, so I had to show proof of purchasing a 20 dollar bus ticket leaving the country, which I just threw away of course.

[Sheonagh]

We are now in Los Angeles and plan to leave for Japan shortly with the bikes. I've been told by All Nippon Airways that they will NOT let us on the plane with a one-way ticket, even though we will have the bike docs, carnets, bike shipping docs etc etc. They will also not let us on if we also have a cheap onward flight to eg Korea (like we did from London-Panama - buying a cheap ticket Panama to Costa Rica).

As it was we nearly had heart failure at Heathrow when the Iberia clerk went off to double check that an onward single ticket was acceptable under their regulations. It was fortunately - but I had treble-checked it before buying it.

For us to fly to Tokyo, it seems that only a return ticket will do and we will have to ditch the return... Suggest you check very carefully with your chosen airline as to what their policy is.

[BruceP]

Originally Posted by Sheonagh

We are now in Los Angeles and plan to leave for Japan shortly with the bikes. I've been told by All Nippon Airways that they will NOT let us on the plane with a one-way ticket, even though we will have the bike docs, carnets, bike shipping docs etc etc. They will also not let us on if we also have a cheap onward flight to eg Korea (like we did from London-Panama - buying a cheap ticket Panama to Costa Rica).

As it was we nearly had heart failure at Heathrow when the Iberia clerk went off to double check that an onward single ticket was acceptable under their regulations. It was fortunately - but I had treble-checked it before buying it.

For us to fly to Tokyo, it seems that only a return ticket will do and we will have to ditch the return... Suggest you check very carefully with your chosen airline as to what their policy is.

We've changed our plans and are now starting in Canada, one-way ticket to Toronto (250ukp each).

Since then I have seen open-jaw tickets with Air Canada and BA that can do Manchester->Toronto and then Buenos Aires->UK for around 650ukp (each). But using those would mess our my plans of not having a specific return date. And the fact we have a temptation to return to Europe via Madrid and ride home from there.

However the cost of one-way flights from South America is crazy, and am getting tempted to sort out an advanced changeable ticket. Hell, maybe even one that covers Panama to Colombia :-)

[boarder]

I have bought fully refundable one-way return tickets from reputable airlines directly in such cases. These sort of tickets are usually quite expensive and refunds take a while (up to 2 month). So, you have to have the cash as you won't be able to swing it in just one credit card billing period.