What Is an Open-Jaw Flight?
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An open-jaw flight is a round trip with a gap: you fly into one city and return home from a different city, or leave from a different city than you flew into. You cover the gap yourself by train, car, or another flight, which avoids backtracking on multi-stop trips.
An open-jaw flight is a clever booking option for trips where you do not want to return to your starting point, but the name puzzles many travelers. Here is what an open-jaw flight is, the types, why you would book one, and how to do it.
What is an open-jaw flight?
An open-jaw flight is a type of round-trip ticket that includes a gap, where you do not fly out of the same city you flew into, or do not fly back to the same city you left from. The classic example is flying from your home city into one destination, traveling overland to a different city, and then flying home from that second city, so the two ends of your air travel are open rather than matching. The name comes from the shape of the route on a map, which resembles an open jaw, with the surface segment you cover yourself forming the gap. It is essentially a round trip with one or both ends shifted, letting you enter and exit a region at different points.
What are the types of open-jaw flights?
There are a few variations. A destination open-jaw is the most common: you fly from home into one city and fly home from a different city, covering the distance between the two destinations yourself, ideal for touring a region from one end to the other. An origin open-jaw is the reverse, where you fly out from one home-area city but return to a different one, useful if your circumstances change or you are combining trips. A double open-jaw has gaps at both ends, with mismatched cities on both the outbound and return, the most flexible form. In every case, the open portion is a segment you arrange separately, by train, car, bus, or another flight, rather than part of the ticket.
Why book an open-jaw flight?
The main advantage is avoiding backtracking. If your trip takes you across a region, an open-jaw lets you fly into your starting point and out of your ending point, so you do not waste time and money returning to your original arrival city just to fly home. This is perfect for itineraries like landing in one country and departing from a neighboring one after traveling through, or seeing several cities in a line. Open-jaw tickets are also often priced similarly to a normal round trip, and frequently cheaper than booking two separate one-way flights, so they can save money as well as time. For any trip where your entry and exit points differ, an open-jaw is usually the efficient choice.
How do you book an open-jaw flight?
You book an open-jaw using the multi-city option on an airline website or flight search engine, since it is a form of multi-city itinerary. Instead of entering matching cities for your outbound and return, you specify the different arrival and departure cities that create the open jaw, along with your dates, and leave out the surface segment you will cover on your own. For example, you might book home city to City A on the way out, and City B to home city on the way back, then arrange your own transport between City A and City B. The booking tool prices it as one itinerary. Because open-jaw is a subset of multi-city routing, the multi-city search is where you build it.
An open-jaw flight is a round trip with a gap, flying into one city and out of another (or leaving from a different city than you return to), with the gap covered by your own overland travel. It avoids backtracking, is often priced like a normal round trip, and is booked through the multi-city search option.
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