Travelers interested in seeing multiple cities during one trip need to know about open jaw flights. While most amateur travelers book roundtrip tickets with multiple day layovers by default, there are other ways to book flights that could lead to significant time and monetary savings. In this article, you’ll learn everything you need to know about strategically booking open jaw flights.
What is an open jaw flight?
An open jaw flight has you arrive in one city and fly home from another. It’s basically a roundtrip ticket with multiple day layovers but with a different return airport. Let’s take an open jaw Amsterdam-Brussels trip for example. if you wanted to book an open jaw flight and see Amsterdam and Brussels, you could fly from Washington DC to Amsterdam, spend time in Amsterdam, train to Brussels, then fly home from Brussels, all on the same reservation!
Booking an open-ended ticket like this open jaw Amsterdam-Brussels example allows you more flexibility with your trips. Primarily, it eliminates the need to backtrack to the city you flew into if you planned on exploring multiple cities/countries.
Open jaw flights are very common with Americans traveling to Europe because of the number of incredible countries so close together and accessible by train.
These flights are commonly referred to as open jaw flights because of the shape the itinerary takes:
In this example from All Nippon Airways, you would fly from Tokyo to Los Angeles, take public transportation to San Francisco, then fly home to Tokyo. When you plot this itinerary on a map, it looks like an open jaw.
Read also: How Far in Advance Should You Book a Flight?
Open jaw vs. multi-city
The main difference between open jaw and multi-city tickets is the use of other forms of transportation with open jaw tickets.
Open jaw itineraries are not possible without other means of transportation (train, bus, car, etc.) In contrast, a multi-city itinerary would have flights connecting you between every city you visit.
One is not necessarily better than the other, it all depends on your travel interests and preferences.
In our open jaw Amsterdam-Brussels example, the itinerary would become a multi-city ticket if you booked a flight from Amsterdam to Brussels. Since we’re electing to take a train, it’s an open jaw ticket.
When it makes sense (or doesn’t) to book open jaw
Open jaw flights are ideal for someone looking to visit multiple cities or countries without any unnecessary travel. They provide the convenience of roundtrip tickets with multiple day layovers while eliminating redundant backtracking to your initial city of arrival.
Going back to our open jaw Amsterdam and Brussels trip example, it would be wasteful to fly back to Amsterdam from Brussels to get back home to Washington. It’s much more efficient to fly home from the final city you’re visiting, in this case, Brussels.
The open jaw can also be on the other end of your trip. You could fly out of Washington to Paris, then fly back to New York City to see family or friends. You could then take a train back home to Washington.
An open jaw flight will likely not make sense if there’s a large distance between the two countries/cities you’re visiting. For example, if you wanted to visit Amsterdam and Rome, you would likely do better with a multi-city ticket as the train from Amsterdam to Rome is 20-plus hours.
How to book an open jaw ticket
Let’s get practical. Booking an open jaw ticket is simple, especially if you’re booking on codesharing airlines. These tickets often price similarly to roundtrip tickets with multiple day layovers and can be found on platforms like Google Flights.
Let’s again look at our Washington → Amsterdam → Brussels → Washington itinerary.
Search first on Google Flights using the multi-city search tool.
While we’re using the multi-city tool, this is an open jaw flight because we are not booking a flight between Amsterdam and Brussels.
This is an easy itinerary as United Airlines flies direct from Washington to both cities.
Google Flights will redirect you to United’s website, where you can follow the standard process for booking your ticket.
This method works seamlessly if all your flights are operated by the same airline or partner airlines within the same alliance. However, if your itinerary involves multiple independent airlines or airlines from different alliances, you’ll need to either book separate one-way tickets or use an online travel agency to manage the booking process.
Read also: How Far in Advance Should You Book a Flight?
Can you save money booking open jaw flights?
Yes, you can! Open jaw flights booked together show similar pricing to roundtrip tickets with multiple day layovers. Let’s look at some examples.
As we saw above, the total roundtrip price for our open jaw ticket was $1,144.
If we had booked those flights as two one-way tickets, the cost would have been $2,080!
Interestingly, normal roundtrip flights on the same dates between Washington and Amsterdam cost $1,196, which is only a few dollars more than an open jaw ticket.
In this open jaw Amsterdam-Brussels example, we see how booking open jaw flights can save us time and money.
Final thoughts
Travelers, you are not stuck booking roundtrip tickets with multiple day layovers or paying exorbitant one-way prices! There is another way—open jaw flights.
Next time your travels have you visiting multiple cities, see how open jaw flights could save you time and money. Open-jaw tickets are priced similarly to roundtrip flights with multiple day layovers, so be sure not to miss the latest deals from Dollar Flight Club as they could help you find the best open jaw ticket deals.
