The poster lives in SFO and wants to visit XYZ for a week once a year. Rather than buy SFO->XYZ->SFO tickets (which are packages that consist of “a flight from SFO to XYZ on the 1st of April” and “a flight from XYZ to SFO on the 8th of April”), the poster instead buys XYZ->SFO->XYZ tickets (which are packages that consist of “a flight from XYZ to SFO on the 8th of April” and “a flight from SFO to XYZ on the 1st of April next year”).

Because the poster is repeating this purchase every year, it results in the same long-term flight pattern. However, because they have shifted the airline’s window into those travel patterns by a half step, all of the flights look cheaper to the airline’s pricing algorithm.

Couldn’t the price difference be due to booking so far in advance?

I'm sure they compared the prices for SFO -> XYZ -> SFO with XYZ -> SFO -> XYZ for the same dates.

Possibly but my flights to SF from Europe are routinely half the price for a round trip the other direction on the same dates/airline.

Maybe. My experience with booking international flights at various schedules from “tomorrow” to “1 year in advance” is that airlines don’t give a discount for booking far in advance, past about one week out it’s all the same. I haven’t investigated thoroughly, though.

I find 2 and 4 weeks to be the magic cutoff points for discounts but maybe I'm just seeing a pattern where none exists.

Also plausible. Given that even when you book a year in advance you are booking a specific flight time, I don’t see many big efficiency wins for airlines here.

Trade and tariff negotiations between countries comes into play, too. It was a while ago now, but I remember looking at a round trip flight to Sydney from the US. The same two planes, in different order (round to the US from Sydney) was half the price. I hadn't planned a year in advance, so I couldn't pull the trick mentioned above.

The downside of doing this is that, If you have to cancel your delayed flight and it’s been a year since purchase, you will likely forfeit the ticket. If you rebook it immediately, that might not happen.

I had this happen on AA. for legal reasons, I had to book a flight in advance (9 months). had to cancel, but did not immediately rebook. went to rebook 14 months after purchase date and credit has evaporated. (

My understanding is that the poster does take all legs of the round trip, but the last leg is a year in the future

This is a common hack with business travel where prices of flights including a Saturday stay are much cheaper (aimed at holidaymakers) than weekday flights (business travel). If you know you will need to travel to XYZ every second week M-F for two months then you buy one two month return SFO-XYZ-SFO and then buy the rest of the flights as 11 day flights back from XYZ Friday to the Monday of the following week (XYZ-SFO-XYZ)

All the tickets include "weekend stays" but you never spend a weekend in XYZ.

The OP may have used a one way ticket or something for the original trip since airlines don't book more than a year out.

Used to do this. Weekly round trip tickets from CA to the US and a longer round trip ticket the other direction surrounding them (or 2 one ways? Don't remember) The airline (Air Canada) got really mad at me and claimed there was a T&C violation. Wasn't my idea but the travel office at my company. Ended up missing a flight while they argued about it.

Absolutely! I once had my company offer me to stay the weekend (hotel paid by them) extra, as it would be cheaper.

When I was traveling about once a month for a company, I would just book an extra stop wherever I wanted to visit for the weekend before going home (usually a friend somewhere). I got a free visit to a friend, and the company got a cheaper flight expense because of the Saturday stay. Everybody was happy. I'm even happier now not traveling so much though.

Maybe buy a one way ticket once and then round trip in the other direction in the future

Except one way tickets are often exorbitant.

I assumed that this year they buy the XYZ-SFO portion of their trip and the SFO-XYZ portion of next years.

Also curious, since I imagine airlines try to cancel subsequent flights if you didn’t get on the initial flight to ensure someone gets in that seat (at a higher price)

He isn't skipping any flights. He presumably bought a one-way ticket to XYZ years ago, and since then each year he books an XYS->SFO->XYZ roundtrip for a year long "visit" to SFO before returning "home" to XYZ for a little bit before booking another round trip for another year long "visit" back in SFO, and so on.

Yes, except...

> returning "home" to XYZ for a little bit before booking another

More likely, "booking another" actually happens before landing in XYZ, closer to 6 months out (seeking the best price), but otherwise you've got it.