What Is an Open-Jaw Ticket?

If you are traveling and just going with the flow while you are on a trip, you might not end your trip where it all started. This means there might be a chance you are flying out of a certain airport and concluding your journey at another airport. Many travelers do this type of thing: start their trip from a particular city and end it at another.

If you are following such a travel pattern, then you are traveling on an open-jaw ticket.

It is a ticket that allows the traveler to choose the final destination, which is different from the original departure city. This effectively means that if you sat down and drew your travel route on a map, it would look like an open jaw and not a closed loop.

Many travelers go for an open-jaw ticket, as it gives them the freedom to visit the destinations of their choice. In addition to this, the degree of flexibility is quite high in an open-jaw ticket and you can also save a reasonable amount of money. This is an ideal ticket for travelers who are looking to visit a lot of destinations on their journey.

Here is an easy explanation of what an open-jaw ticket is all about

Scenario: Say you start your journey from San Francisco and then head to Zurich. From Zurich, you fly out to London. Instead of taking a flight from London, you hit the road and head to Madrid. From Madrid, you fly to Delhi and then again make a road trip from Delhi to Mumbai. From Mumbai, you fly to Bangkok, and then from Bangkok you fly out to New York and conclude your journey.

In such a case, you have gone for overland transport and also chosen your final destination to be different from the original departure city. You can combine a number of open-jaw flights into your round-the-world itinerary.

The Advantages of an Open-Jaw Itinerary

The main advantage of this type of ticket is the flexibility that it offers, as you have the freedom to choose the destinations of your choice and throw in overland travel in your travel plans. Also, you can choose the last destination of the trip other than from where you had started the trip. The other advantage is the cost. It may seem that this type of ticket might be costly, but that is not the case.

One of the greatest benefits of using open-jaw flights is being able to plan the vacation you want rather than the one the airline determines for you. When you choose your final destination, you get access to a range of options for your travel that you couldn’t otherwise do. You might get an open-jaw ticket for:

• A cruise where you leave from one port and return to another. For instance, you might depart from Charleston, S.C., cruise around the Caribbean and then dock in Jacksonville. You can fly out of that airport and directly back home.
• Taking a one-way tour. Say you take an autumn leaf tour of New England. The tour might depart from Bangor, Maine, and wind its way to New Haven, Connecticut. The tour directors won’t take you back to Bangor at the end, but you can fly out of Connecticut with an open-jaw ticket.

In fact, such a ticket is more economical when you consider the pattern or the route of your journey. Saving money, visiting only the places you want to go and having the ability to plan a vacation with more flexibility are all outstanding reasons to consider an open-jaw itinerary.

Booking Your Open-Jaw Flights

One hesitation some travelers have with using open-jaw tickets is unfamiliarity. They are wary of trying a new way of doing things. They may not understand how booking these flights work, so instead they stick with rigid itineraries. Guess what? Booking these tickets is not hard. Using a service such as Tickets Round the World allows you to consider multiple destinations for your open-jaw flights, including some you may never have considered.

Open-jaw flights will be designated when you look through travel listings. Note that for a ticket to be considered open-jaw, you can’t return to the same city even if it is a different airport.