Open jaw flights are excellent for experienced travelers to maximize their trip by allowing more flexibility. There are several advantages to booking itineraries with open jaws instead of a traditional round trip option.

The reason why they’re affectionately named, “open jaw” is because if you draw the flight paths on a map it will usually resemble an alligator’s open jaw. At this point you may be wondering why someone would want to book tickets this way. Wouldn’t it just make sense to buy one way tickets if you need something this fancy? Typically the main driving force behind this type of itinerary is price, but there are other advantages that simply allow more freedom to maximize your travels at each destination. It also prevents paying unnecessary change fees should one leg of the trip get interrupted or cancelled.

“Open jaw” can describe one of three different types of itineraries:

Origin Open Jaw

This is flying from one city to another but return to a different airport. Here’s an example of an open jaw flight I just booked for my in-laws’ upcoming trip around the US: New York City (EWR) to Fort Myers, Florida (RSW) to Boston (BOS).This is described as an origin open jaw.

This itinerary saved them money versus purchasing two one way tickets. Plus, it allowed them to visit three different cities and more flexibility to fly on the same flights with my husband and me.

Destination Open Jaw

Another example is flying from one city to another and returning to the original departure city from a different destination. I booked this destination open jaw for my trip to Europe this summer. I planned to visit four different countries with my girlfriend. Based on a few music festivals, we knew we wanted to meet in Ibiza and end in Brussels. 

It’s very cheap to fly within Europe, but the biggest expense involves actually crossing the pond first. So buying two one way flights across the Atlantic simply isn’t economical. That’s when I used the multi-city search option on ITA Matrix to find the following American Airlines itinerary. It was almost too perfect. I got an open jaw flight to Europe that perfectly fit our schedule AND fly using my elite status with American? That, my friends, is a gift.

So I booked Detroit (DTW) to Ibiza (IBZ) and returning from Brussels (BRU) back to Detroit (DTW). This example isn’t as clean of an open jaw flight path due to the connections, but you get the idea.

Double Open Jaw

Finally, the double open jaw is a bit more advanced to book and usually requires some type of phone call to the airline instead of searching on something like Kayak. However, your results may vary. These involve two totally separate departure and arrival cities. Example: flying from Chicago to Dallas and then continuing from Houston to Miami.

Although I didn’t plan it this way, my Europe itinerary I just detailed actually turned into a double open jaw due to my flight from PHL to DTW getting cancelled. So I asked American Airlines to re-route me to Buffalo, New York (BUF) where my husband was traveling on business (with a car) and we drove the four hours across Canada together to return to Detroit.

Essentially the easiest way to describe an open jaw itinerary is saying that an airline will take you from city A to city B but it’s your responsibility to get yourself to city C. At the end of the day open jaws are usually recommended for more experienced travelers. The point is to save money and maximize the number of destinations you can visit without sacrificing trip time. The best strategy is to first search a combination of round trip and one way itineraries to establish your baseline. Then see if you can improve with multi-city searches or open jaws. Finally, determine if the transportation to get between the different destinations is worth the savings of the open jaw. Hopefully this will help you the next time you need to book a more complicated trip.

I created all of the example maps in this post with the Great Circle Mapper.

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Even for the novice travelers, most people are aware that the American Express Platinum charge card is notorious for excellent travel benefits. I plan on writing a series of posts specifically pertaining to this unique card. It happens to be one of the favorite cards I have in my own wallet and there are numerous strategies to maximize all the benefits it has to offer. To kick it off, I am going to address the $200 airline fee credit because this is one of the most overlooked and underutilized features.

For those of you who are American Express members or thinking of applying for a Platinum Amex here are some basic things you need to know about the $200 airline fee credit:

• You are entitled to $200 of airline fee credit per CALENDAR year. Not the anniversary when you opened the account–January 1st of each year
• You must specifically enroll in this benefit and indicate which airline you prefer (American, Delta, United, Alaska Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines, JetBlue, Frontier, Soutwest/AirTran)
• You may do so by calling the number on the back of your card or going here
• Consider applying for the Platinum Amex in late Q3 or during Q4. This way you have the ability to earn two x $200 credits in one 12-month period!
• I usually sign up for an airline that I do not have an associated co-branded credit card or elite benefits
• This is intended to cover incidental fees such as checked bags, overweight baggage fees, in-flight refreshments, pet flight fees, seat assignment fees, etc. when you use your enrolled Platinum (Business or Personal plus Centurion) Amex
• Keep in mind that one can expand this benefit even more by also having the Business version

Here are a few strategies in which you can maximize the full $200 every year and slash that $450 fee in half instantly (just with this one benefit):

Use your enrolled Amex to purchase airline gift cards.

• Purchase small amounts at a time. $50 to be conservative. However, members have had success with higher values. (Delta – increments over $50 will not work)
• Wait for the transaction to post and you will see the credit appear in anywhere from 48-72 hours (I have been told the longest was a week, but I have never experienced this)
• Do this four times and you now have $200 worth of gift cards for your airline of choice
• My experience is that American and Delta will limit you to three gift cards per transaction. So if you purchase in increments of $50, that is $150 off your next ticket
• You can also use them to purchase day passes for lounges that you do not normally have a membership nor access to
• Confirmed gift card reimbursements reported: American, Delta, Southwest, Alaska Airlines, US Airways
• United must be done through the Gift Registry
• Unfortunately, no dice for Hawaiian Airlines or JetBlue

Other reported reimbursement successes include: United award cancellation fees (required calling Amex), JetBlue Even More Leg room fee, Hawaiian Air Premier Club membership ($200/$250), and more.

There are those who have experienced actual flights getting reimbursed. However, these were under $100 (i.e. inter-island Hawaiian flights, etc.). Rare these days.

Lastly, for those that were given a credit with American/US Airways for the loss of access to the Admirals Clubs/US Airways Clubs back in March, you can use the $100 – $500 (highest reported) in the same manner. ***Note*** This is IN ADDITION to your original $200 airline fee credit. American Express always does a nice job when it comes to retention offers or even creating new member benefits whenever something like that happens. For instance, they not only offered additional airline reimbursement fees that I just mentioned but also MR bonuses (as reported by TPG), and Amex is even in the process of building dozens of new American Express Centurion lounges throughout the country. These lounges put every single domestic lounge to shame, to say the least, with benefits including free massages and manicures, premium meals created by famous culinary experts, and signature cocktails. These are the types of lounges that won’t make you bat an eye at losing access to the regular domestic carriers’ lounges. Current locations are DFW and LAS with SFO, MIA, and LGA to be finished in the coming months.

Please also remember that in addition to initially specifying your airline of choice, if you would like to change the airline for the following year you must call and do so. Otherwise your airline preference will remain the same. This may be done ONCE per year.

Lastly, each airline listed has its own specific thread on FlyerTalk that discusses this very topic. That means you have the ability to research other fliers’ experiences prior to you deploying your own strategy.

Please feel free to leave questions in comments section. I have maxed this offer two years in a row plus the American/US Airways credit earlier this year.

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     Welcome to my first ever post! I decided to create this blog with the intention of spreading my knowledge and experiences so that people could leverage them in order to make their travel dreams a reality. 

     I travel constantly and by constantly, I mean as much as I possibly can. Now as many of you probably know there are quite a bit of constraints that could potentially hinder this. These include: time, money, energy, scheduling, etc. My goal is to help minimize the affect these types of constraints have on your ability to travel. Throughout my posts, I want to show you how to leverage different types of resources in order to help you escape the mundane of everyday life. 

     Why? Because I discovered something very early in life. 

     That discovery came after I followed the formula that the world prescribes: go to a top tier university, graduate from said university, get a good job, and make lots of money. It didn’t take me long to realize that even though I did everything “right,” I found myself simply missing out on life. Something had to give. Fighting with my boss to take my second day of vacation, for the entire year, in the month of November was not what I had in mind. Sounds like a gigantic set of first world problems, huh? Well, it was. I was making more money than I knew what to do with and all I wanted to do was explore the world, see my friends, visit my family, and have new experiences. The mechanical rabbit had been caught. I realized it was just a game. So I quit the race. 

     To me, I valued my time and quality of life over a pay check. Flexibility, creativity, positive energy, and passion were the missing elements. Don’t get me wrong. You need money. Money is a tool. However, money will only take you so far. So I found a method to gain all of these missing elements at the expense of my paycheck—about half of my paycheck.

      So that is how I managed to maximize more of my time. How on earth then do I manage to travel with (gasp) less money? Well, that is precisely why I am writing. There are many ways that you, too, can travel like that guy who turns left on the airplane, is greeted with a bubbling glass of champagne, while late falling asleep on a lie-flat bed and guess what—you don’t have to be a rockstar, hedge fund manager, or even Mark Cuban.

     I’m here to tell you that no one from ABC is calling my people to have me be a Shark on Shark Tank. There, glad that’s off my chest. Yet through lots of research, trial and error, and overall passion for my hobby I have managed to not only travel more but in style. Here’s an example of my type of travel experience:

      I arrive at the airport and walk directly to the First Class counter and am greeted by a friendly and knowledgeable agent who checks me into my flight with priority thanks to my elite status. He then collects my baggage and checks them for free. From there I’ll casually walk to security and go to the TSA PreCheck lane that doesn’t force me to remove my jacket and shoes nor my laptop or liquids from my bag in order to walk through a body scanner. No, ladies and gentlemen, this is airport security circa 1994 where its quick and painless. Through security in less than 30 seconds—no joke. My next stop is to the one of the lounges. There, another kind lady will inform me of my flight’s current status and remind me that she will monitor it for any changes while I enjoy my stay. It’s there that I will also take a moment to schedule a free massage or manicure if I have the time to spare. After that is taken care of I head to the bar for a complimentary cocktail and check what meals are available that day. After enjoying some peace from the hustle and bustle of the terminal, it is now time for me to walk to my gate since the flight is boarding soon. Once at the gate, an agent will call my name and notify me that I have an upgrade to the premium cabin. There really is no time to sit because the agent will then begin the boarding process and call the elite members to board first. This gives me time to claim an overhead bin and get settled before the flight attended delivers a glass of wine and asks for my meal preference. Let us fast forward and say that I land in an international destination that recognizes my Global Entry membership—which I got the fee reimbursed by American Express. No long customs lines for me! I head to the express lane intended for diplomats. Quick passport stamp and I’m on my way to collect my checked baggage. At this time it is a little early for hotel check-in, but my Hilton HHonors Gold status grants me access to my suite early. Vacation time, baby! Now instead of still waiting in the customs line, I am ready to begin my exploration of this new destination. 

      How can a 20-something take advantage of these opportunities without an eight figure net worth or trust fund? Stay tuned. I’m here to teach you. 

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