Route Strategies - When is a roundtrip not a roundtrip? When it's a circle or open-jawed itinerary

Most travelers know that roundtrip flights almost always offer savings over the sum cost of two one-ways on the same route. And most roundtrips go from Point A to Point B and back again. What if you need to do some traveling at your destination, and it's more convenient to fly home from a different airport? Enter the open-jaw itinerary. Or how about if you need to hit two or more cities in a short span of time, and want to do it in a single trip? Try a circle itinerary.

Defining the Terms: Stopovers vs. Connections
First, a quick jargon review. In all cases with open jaw and circle itineraries, we are talking about stopovers, and not connections. The term connection is used when you arrive at an airport, and depart from the same airport on the next available flight, or within four hours of arriving. A stopover is when you don't leave on the next flight, or spend more than four hours in that city. A connection usually doesn't cost you anything extra, a stopover does.

Note that if there is no connecting flight available, you may stay in the city for more than four hours without the corresponding stopover cost.

The point here is that you need to do business or visit folks at each city on your itinerary, and want to stay several hours or even days to do so.

The Open Jaw
An open-jaw flight is one that, in the simplest terms, flies from Point A to Point B, then from Point C home to Point A. Points B and C are often neighboring airports, or at least in the same general area. A sample open-jaw itinerary might be Atlanta - Seattle on the way out; Portland, OR - Atlanta on the way back.

Another open-jaw scenario: you fly into and out of the same destination city, but your starting and finishing points are different, thus: Fly Point A to Point B; then fly Point B to Point C.

Despite the fact that an open-jaw itinerary isn't quite a classic roundtrip, most airlines treat it as such, and set the fare like this: you pay one-half the roundtrip fare of each leg of the trip - one-half the roundtrip fare of the first leg, and one-half the roundtrip fare of the second leg. The resulting total fare will typically offer considerable savings over the cost of two, separate one-way flights.

So if the Atlanta-Seattle roundtrip would cost $600, and the Portland - Atlanta roundtrip would cost $500, you end up paying $300 for the first leg, and $250 for the second leg, for a total of $550 roundtrip.

The Circle
A circle itinerary typically begins and ends in the same city, but includes at least three separate flights that take you to two or more different cities, without the over land portions of the open jaw.

Example: fly from New York to Detroit, then Detroit to Houston, then Houston to New York. (Feel free to add a Point D, E, F and beyond, but make sure you start and end at your original city, New York in this example.)

Circle itineraries usually permit a maximum of two stopovers, and are typically priced as a series of one-way flights. (Circle fares may not save you as much as an open jaw.) Still, circle fares qualify you for discounted fares, and you will often find that the fares on the separate legs of your flight add up to less than the pure roundtrip fare. This is especially true on popular long-haul routes.

For example, the circle fare for a direct New York-Seattle flight might cost more than the sum total of New York - Detroit - Seattle - St. Louis - New York, with stopovers in each city.

Exceptions and Rules / Open Jaw
The primary restriction on an open-jaw itinerary is that the segment of your trip that you don't fly (the Seattle-Portland leg in our example) must be shorter than the shortest leg of the trip that you do fly.

So, for example, if you flew from Atlanta to Seattle, then drove cross-country to New York, then flew back to Atlanta, you couldn't qualify for the open-jaw discount, as the distance from Seattle - New York is much greater than the distance from New York- Atlanta.

Circle Fares
Restrictions and rules on circle itineraries vary by airline, but usually take one of the two following forms, both a variation on the old "Saturday night stay" rules:

1) You may not begin travel from the furthest geographical point of your trip until the first Sunday of your trip. Note that it is the furthest geographical point, not the place you stay the longest or schedule in the middle of your trip.

2) You may not begin the last leg of your trip until the first Sunday after the beginning of your trip.

The difference between the two is critical: in the first instance, the order in which you visit the cities is extremely important. In the latter instance, it is much less so.

Booking Engines
As it turns out, most online booking engines can recognize a circle or open-jaw itinerary, and price them accordingly. It might still be worth checking with your travel agent or the airlines just to be sure. Be sure to ask them if minor adjustments of your flight dates might help you qualify for either an open jaw or circle itinerary on available airlines, and save you some money.