Most airline loyalty programs allow you to redeem points and miles for a one-way flight for half the price of a round-trip itinerary.
If you want to fly a round-trip journey, booking it as a single redemption is tempting for simplicity. There’s a single reservation number to worry about and a single email showing your whole journey, and you’re unlikely to save any points and miles by booking the flights separately.
However, booking your redemption as two one-way journeys has several benefits, especially if your plans change or you struggle to find your desired seats.
Firstly, you can change or cancel one leg without affecting the other. For programs that allow online cancellations but not online changes, this could save you plenty of time waiting on hold to speak to an agent on the phone if you don’t want to cancel the entire round-trip itinerary.
If you are tracking the price of your redemptions and see that another seat on one of your flights (or a similar flight that would work with your travel plans) is much cheaper, you could cancel your one-way journey and book the cheaper option without touching the other leg.
One-way flights also offer more origin and destination options than a round-trip itinerary. For example, say you want to fly from Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) to Sydney Airport (SYD) in Australia, but you can only find award availability in one direction on this route. If you book the return journey separately, you might find a great price on a seat from Sydney to San Francisco International Airport (SFO), and then you can make the short hop from San Francisco to Los Angeles separately.
You could also mix and match airlines and loyalty programs with two one-way journeys, giving you maximum choice and the best pricing. For example, you could book a journey to Australia with American Airlines AAdvantage miles in one direction and United Airlines MileagePlus miles in the other direction.
Here are some other resources to help you book your next one-way redemption:
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