Travel Glossary · Air Travel
Open-Jaw Ticket
Definition
Open-Jaw Ticket: An open-jaw ticket is a round-trip itinerary where you fly into one city and return home from a different one, avoiding backtracking.
Open-jaw itineraries save you from doubling back. Instead of returning to your arrival city, you fly into one gateway, travel overland or on separate regional flights, and fly home from your last stop. A destination open jaw (into Paris, home from Rome) is the most common; an origin open jaw starts and ends in different home cities.
Because the trip is priced as one ticket, open-jaw fares are often close to round-trip prices and can be far cheaper than two one-way international tickets, though it depends on the airline and route. Keeping both long-haul flights on one ticket also means one set of fare rules and one record to manage if plans change.
Open jaws are especially useful for multi-country trips, such as a Cape Town and safari itinerary that arrives in Cape Town and departs from Johannesburg, or a European rail journey.
Example: Los Angeles to Paris, then Rome to Los Angeles, with the train between Paris and Rome booked separately.
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