Most people book a round-trip to a single city and waste time and money returning to it just to fly home. The open-jaw fixes that: arrive in one place, leave from another, and see more with less backtracking - often for the same price.
What is an open-jaw flight?
An open jaw is a round-trip with a gap. Instead of A → B → A, you book A → B (arrival city) and C → A (departure city), and you cover the B-to-C stretch yourself by train, bus, or a cheap budget flight. The classic example: fly into Rome, travel up through Italy, and fly home from Venice or Paris - no doubling back to Rome.
| Trip type | Route | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Round-trip | A → B → A | Single-base trips |
| Open-jaw | A → B (in) · C → A (out) | Multi-city trips, no backtracking |
| Multi-city | Several custom legs | Complex itineraries |
Why open-jaw saves money (and time)
Two reasons. First, it's frequently priced the same as a normal round-trip - airlines average the two one-way directions - so the convenience is essentially free. Second, it removes a wasteful internal trip: without an open jaw you'd pay for a round-trip and a separate flight back to your arrival city. Cut that internal flight and the open jaw clearly wins. It's a close cousin of the round-trip vs. one-way calculation - here the two directions just have different endpoints.
How to book an open-jaw flight
Use the multi-city tab on a flight search tool:
- Leg 1: your home airport → arrival city (e.g., Rome).
- Leg 2: departure city (e.g., Paris) → your home airport.
- Leave the gap (Rome → Paris) unbooked; cover it by land or a cheap hop.
Then compare the open-jaw total against a standard round-trip to your primary city. The multi-city tool is one of the underused features in our Google Flights tricks guide, and most search engines support it.
Price an open-jaw in one search
FareFinderAI's free search compares open-jaw and multi-city routings against round-trips across hundreds of airlines - so you see the cheapest way to do a multi-stop trip.
Search Multi-City Free →When to use it
- Multi-city trips - Europe rail journeys, Southeast Asia hops, road trips.
- One-way-feeling trips where your endpoints differ naturally.
- When a cheaper fare exists from a different return city - pair with a quick budget hop or train to reach it.
Skip it when a simple round-trip to one base is genuinely your plan - there's no benefit to an open jaw you won't use.
Frequently asked questions
The open jaw is the simplest, lowest-risk hack here - no separate-ticket danger, often no price premium, and a far better trip. If you're visiting more than one city, book it this way.