Gap year travel by plane · Gap year travel by plane
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Gap year travel by plane
Gap year travel by plane
Open ended return tickets allow you to come home at any time within given period (often a year, sometimes six months, rarely 60 days.) They're generally more expensive than regular discount round-trip tickets, but genrally much cheaper than a fully-flexible/refundable round trip (or two one ways, except on some routes where there are the inflexible discount one-ways.)
Open-jaw tickets allow you to return from a different city than the one you flew into, and may be worth saving you the cost and time of returning to the city you started in; fares will highly variable - in the best case, the cost will be in essence the average of two discount round trips, in the worst it will be comparable to two one-way tickets. It always pays to check for yourself in these cases.
If your travel plans are more ambitious than that, round the world flights might fit your needs.
Most major airlines schedule flights out to 330 days out, rather than a full year.
While it's generally possible to change discounted tickets for a fee to allow more time, most discount fares have a limit on their time of validity (often 30 or 60 days, sometimes 6 months) and exceeding it will often result in a very large increased fare on top of the change fee.
Another alternative a one way ticket is to buy two return tickets and "toss" the second half of the ticket. While this is fully legal, it violates many airlines' "Conditions of Carriage" and can mean a loss of frequent flier miles earned on the first half of the flight.
- This can also be handy if your travel plans are open, but border crossing or visa rules require proof of an onward ticket (alternatively, look at low-cost carriers within the region.)
- Also with legacy carriers, never "toss" or skip a middle segment of a single ticket without formally cancelling it, as a no-show segment will result in cancellation of later segments. Cancellations in advance may or may not be allowed, and if allowed will often require paying a change fee or fare difference. Low-cost carriers are often more flexible on this - check with the individual carrier for their rules.
In some cases for legacy airlines, it's cheaper to buy tickets departing from within the developing world from the airline or local travel agency after you get there, rather than directly from an airline or from a travel agent at home. This is almost never the case with low-cost carriers.
The Most Frequently Asked Travel Questions about Gap year travel
Where To Stay & Best Hotels in Gap year travel - updated May 2024
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WHERE TO TRAVEL NEXT IN 2020
Gap year travel Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.