Single Open Jaw
A simple example for a single open jaw would be a combination of flight from Frankfurt to Los Angeles with a return flight from San Diego to Frankfurt. It makes good sense to combine these air flights in one ticket. Otherwise you would have to travel on the road or railroad from San Diego to Los Angeles to get your return flight to Frankfurt, or you would have to buy two separate one way tickets.
Another variant of an open jaw flight would be an arrangement where you travel from Frankfurt to Los Angeles, and return from Los Angeles to Munich.

Double Open Jaw
This would be a combination of a flight from Hamburg to Los Angeles and a return flight from San Diego to Munich. You could buy two one way tickets, but you can save a bundle if you manage to combine these two flights into one ticket as an double open jaw flight.

How to Book an Open Jaw Flight?
Many flight booking engines have a link you can use to search for an open jaw flight, or a multi stop flight. If you click on such a button, you get a new input form, where you can ask for a flight from A to B plus from C to D, maybe even afterwards from E to F. You enter your travel plans, and with good luck, you get a reasonable offer. Reasonable is the half price of a return ticket from A to B, plus the half price of a return flight from C to D. If you find an airline is flying both routes, and B is in the same country as C, while A is in the same country as D, you should be able to get a ticket for this flight. But if you do not get a reasonable for this flight on a booking engine, you still have the chance to call your travel agent and ask him to look. The rules about open jaw flights are included in the rules text of the airfare.

Ask Your Travel Agent
Booking engines often sometimes unable to understand all fare rules, and if the engine does not understand the rule, it does not offer the fare. But a human travel agent should understand the rules text and thus be able to price an open jaw flight, even if each air segment of the journey is flown with another airline. This is often possible, if all airlines concerned belong to a single airline alliance.
Sometimes you get a reasonable offer in the fare listing of the booking engine, but when you press the purchase button, you get an error message with a new expensive price. In this case ask again your travel agent for a price quote. Chances are a travel agent can sell you the ticket for the lower price. If the booking engine cannot find it, the open jaw flight may still be available.

Not to Ask Means Not to Get It
An open Jaw flight may even be possible, if the airports concerned are located in different countries. One example would be a flight from Germany to Kilimanjaro, with a return flight from Mombasa to Germany. Kilimanjaro is in Tanzania, Mombasa in Kenya. But in this example you can still combine these flights in a single ticket. There are offers from KLM, Ethiopian Airways and Condor of Germany.

This begs a question:
Did I promote a product, which I did not like? Or ist that new product just a cheap “Me Too” ? And, why in the first place is a travel agent trying to promote products teaching how everybody can book flights by himself?

Let me answer the last question first:
We are an online travel agency, serving customers who need and want an extra service not avalable, or at least not available for free in the internet, and offline. If you have a travel schedule with 2 or three destination points, we build a tailormade travelplan for you, consisting of open jaw flights, stopover-flights and one way flights. We show you the available options and leave the choice to you.
If you need to have a reservation, but you cannot buy a ticket immediately, e.g. you need the reservation to apply for a visum, but you do not want to buy a ticket before you know that you will actually be able to travel, we can do that also.

But it is just clear, that everybody can book a simple flight let’s say from London to New York. So we reasoned, that it would be better to offer some support for people who book their flights by themselves, instead of just turning the away.

This way I came to look around for products available, and I came up with Tony Morris’ ebook. This book opens a huge amount of reseources to you. Starting with links to the big booking engines, but also providing links to seat plans for the planes of different airlines, and tips, how to search for discounts. The book is thery good in that. But the drawback is, that you need a lot of time to check all theses resources out, figure out how to use them and then go and shop around for the best deal.

Here comes “Maximum Value for Your Airfare into play: We developed a clear and simple framework, keeping you focused and saving your time when looking for the right offers, and evaluating them in the light of your own needs. It comes as a series of videos, showing you how to find the right airports for your travel, the right time to make a reservaton, where to find the offers etc. It is combined with a script calculating the complete cost of a flight, and with a glossary explaining that “airline speak”, e.g. the difference between a “direct flight” and a “non-stop flight”

So all three products, our

• Tailormade Travelplan
• Maximum Value for Your Airfare and
• my Airfare Secrets by Tony Morris

are part of the same effort: To serve the customers according to their needs, not according to our need.

Yours for more fun while travelling

Johannes Stockburger

We are developing a new infoproduct for those, who use the internet to book their own flights:

Maximum Value for Your Airfare

It is a step by step video guide to end the guesswork which ticket is best for you, and where to find it.
By registering now for the free version, which is almost ready, you will qualify for a free upgrade to the paid version, when time comes.

http://maxValue4Airfare.com

I just ask for you input and feedback.

Yours

Johannes Stockburger

PS: I just added to the product a nice little script calculating for you the real cost of a flight.