<p>My husband asked me if I bought a one way ticket for our daughter’s trip to UA for move in. I looked at him confused, then responded “no, I think I got three round trip tickets.”</p>
<p>Wondering if I could have/should have purchased a ticket to UA in Sept with a different return date. This seems simple but we find ourselves needing to understand the tricks of the trade.</p>
<p>probably a one way would work for your daughter. : ) </p>
<p>i guess you can get a return trip in december … you might be able to figure out her final schedule now. occasionally classes don’t have a final at the scheduled time, but i have found that most classes do stick to the posted final schedule.</p>
<p>Some of it depends on the airline. On Southwest, for instance, I would have just purchased a one way flight for move-in as there’s no price advantage to a round trip. Depending on change fees and fare differences, it probably makes sense to change the return to December (or whenever your D will first be coming home). If it’s for winter break, I’ve been told that the CBH project is due at midnight on the last day of finals and that many kids work on it until pretty close to the deadline, so you might want to plan on her flying home the Saturday after finals end.</p>
<p>If you are flying SWA, it is easy to cancel the return trip. If it is non-refundable, the cost will go into your travel funds account on SWA. You then have a year (from the date of the purchase of the ticket, I believe) to use the funds. We have some funds that are due to expire for my husband on 7/25 (they no longer let you use the funds for anyone but the original ticketed passenger). I am aware that we can call customer service and request an extension. They will take $75 out of the funds and extend the expiration date. I’m not sure how long the extension is, but if the funds are still unused when we return from a trip this month I will definitely be calling them.</p>
<p>The main advantage to booking roundtrip tickets is that there is less of a cancellation fee (if applicable). Most tickets these days will not have a round trip requirement, so the price of two one way tickets is relatively the same as a roundtrip ticket.</p>
<p>Note that you cannot have people traveling on different itineraries on the same reservation aka same PNR/Confirmation code. When travelling with family, I book myself on a separate reservation and call the airline to “link” the reservations which helps, but does not guarantee that in case of irregular operations, my family and I will travel on the same flights.</p>
<p>While it is certainly possible to book tickets that span a long period of time, such as an August departure and December return, I try to book my visits home on the same reservation.</p>
<p>With Southwest, there is almost no advantage to buying a roundtrip ticket except for having one less confirmation code to remember. If a price goes down on one way of your trip and rises on the other, you would not be able to get as much of a refund compared to buying each way separately.</p>
<p>I booked on United. I got a nonstop/round trip flight for $300 and was so excited I didn’t even think that she was not returning with us, or maybe it was denial. </p>
<p>Thanks for the info everyone. I will call United to see my options.</p>