One-way fares can add up to round-trip discounts

— -- A funny thing happened to me while booking a recent trip to Chicago. When I realized flying a different airline for my outbound and return flights offered the greatest flexibility, I also discovered the cost of purchasing two one way tickets on different airlines was the same price as a round trip ticket on a single carrier.

After a little research I soon determined the fares for my Chicago trip were not an anomaly and that, in most U.S. markets, two one way tickets most often cost the same or in many cases less than a round trip ticket for the same trip.

If you hang around long enough, most things eventually come full circle, and now you can add airfares to that list. Before deregulation, airline pricing was simple. Every airline offered the same prices as mandated by government rules and all tickets were priced as one way segments. It didn't much matter if you split your business on two or more airlines on any trip.

But following deregulation in 1978, airfares became complicated. Free of government control, airlines began offering special discounts, generally for tickets purchased several weeks in advance with a Saturday night stopover. Unfortunately, most business travelers couldn't qualify for discounted "super saver" fares if they don't meet the purchase requirements or if their company already had negotiated discount rates with that airline.

Although airlines generally match competing fare sales, the number of airfares in any given market rapidly increased and fare rules gained in complexity. Additionally, those deeply discounted fares were generally accepted only on the issuing airline's flights. Competing airlines would not honor those tickets because the originating airline would not compensate them.

Business travelers, accustomed to changing flights at the last minute when meetings end early, run late or cancel, often found themselves stuck if they were holding a discounted airline ticket.

In this deregulated world, the very first "ancillary fees" were born as airlines imposed stiff penalties for changing flights and they added non-refundable fares just in case you had to cancel your trip. Those who flew regularly during this period became conditioned to accept that discounted fares were available only when the entire trip was booked on a single airline.