One-Way or Round-Trip Points Flights: Which Is Right For You?

Should you book one-way or round-trip flights when redeeming points? It’s a question that comes up a lot, and the answer might surprise you if you’re used to booking cash fares. 

With cash, round-trips are almost always cheaper. For example, if I were to book a round-trip Calgary (YYC) to London (LHR) on Air Canada business class, it would cost $7,331 CAD. If I were to book a one-way from Calgary to London, it would cost $11,695 CAD.

With points, the math often flips, with a one-way flight from Calgary to London costing 275,000 Aeroplan points in business class. I still wouldn’t pay 275,000 Aeroplan points for this flight, but that’s a lot more palatable than $11,000.

One-way bookings tend to be the smarter play when making points redemptions, giving you more control over your itinerary and letting you mix programs, carriers, and cabins. But round-trips aren’t dead either – there are real scenarios where locking in both legs makes sense. Let’s break it down.

The Biggest Benefits of a One-Way Points Redemption Flight

One-Way Bookings Offer The Most Flexibility

The main reason you would not book a round-trip on points is simple: you need flexibility. Round-trip tickets will lock you into booking your entire itinerary at once, meaning that it can be difficult to make minor changes or adjustments to your travel plans.

Worse yet, if you are unfortunate enough to miss one single leg of your journey, you could potentially void the rest of your itinerary. This is why, when putting together complex point redemption flight itineraries, it’s best to book everything as one-way.

But there’s more to the flexibility issue. For example, you can fly into one city, then get yourself to another one, and take your next flight either elsewhere or home from there. You won’t be locked into returning home from the original city you landed in.

This can be an excellent chance to travel more and see more places when visiting places like Europe, which are quite densely populated. For example, on two separate one-way bookings, you could fly into Amsterdam and fly home via Brussels.

And let’s be real. Lots of us into Miles & Points just want to taste awesome products like Singapore Airlines Business Class while we go on a jaunt across Asia. You cannot book a trip that looks like this, with every leg on a cool carrier, without using multiple one-way tickets and most likely multiple frequent flyer programs.

Stopovers on One-Way Tickets

The last reason that one-way trips are magic is that they let you unlock the power of stopovers. Many programs, such as Air Canada Aeroplan, let you break up your one-way itinerary by stopping at a layover locale between your point of origin and final destination. This costs only 5,000 points on Aeroplan, a small price to pay for the ability to stop over in an additional destination.

We’ve also written about how the Air France-KLM Flying Blue program offers a unique opportunity for stopovers. Because these must be completed on the same carrier (ie, you can only stopover in Amsterdam if every leg is flown by KLM), one-way itineraries are your best bet for finding single-carrier availability while remaining flexible.

But what about when to book round-trips with your hard-earned points?

When to Book Round-Trip Points Redemption Flights

No Interest in Other Destinations

Sometimes, you just want to turn your brain off and go on a holiday or a trip. Not everybody wants to engage in stopover shenanigans, visit multiple cities, or get to and from distant airports via positioning flights to fly specific premium cabins.

That’s totally fine. Don’t force yourself to book multiple one-way itineraries for “flexibility” if you’re saving a few points on the itinerary. Yes, this is a simple reason to book a round-trip over two one-way itineraries, but it’s the most logical.

When Booking With Certain Frequent Flyer Programs

There can be a good reason to book a round-trip flight with certain frequent flyer programs, specific to how the Canadian points landscape works.

When making redemptions within the WestJet Rewards loyalty program, members redeem WestJet Points. Those points are tied directly to the cash cost of tickets. So if the base fare of a WestJet flight one-way is $250, it will cost 25,000 points. But if that same flight is only $190 when booked as part of a round trip, I’d say you have 6,000 WestJet points worth of reasons to book the round-trip.

On the other hand, Air Canada Aeroplan is priced dynamically. Now, in my experience, this usually has minimal impact on the price of points flights, but sometimes it works out to be slightly cheaper on a round trip. I’m talking maybe a couple of thousand points; for example, one time in 2022, I saw about a 700-point difference. But hey, savings are savings.

Those of you living in Eastern Canada can enjoy the best of both worlds by semi-fixed-cost reward flights domestically or to the United States on VIPorter. Flights often are as low as 8,000 VIPorter points, which are easier than ever to stack with the BMO VIPorter World Elite Mastercard.

When Using Vouchers or Companion Fares

Okay, so the next area is where you can get some truly exquisite value: the use of vouchers and companion fares.

One of the most coveted vouchers in the Canadian loyalty award space is reserved for Aeroplan Super Elite members, and it’s a threshold reward that offers 50% off a business-class itinerary called an Aeroplan Priority Reward.

Obviously, if you’re a Super Elite, you probably have a lot of points, but this affords you an even bigger chance to save on your next booking. By using the 50% off threshold reward voucher, you could save enormously on booking yourself, and possibly your loved ones, a business-class flight that saves big.

But for those of us not organically in jobs requiring us to fly absurd distances every year, or who are not already from the champagne and caviar tax bracket, there is another solution: the WestJet Companion Voucher courtesy of the WestJet RBC World Elite Mastercard.

This is an excellent product because it can be combined with your WestJet points, allowing you to make more efficient itineraries that are functionally a combination of cash and points.

For example, my colleague Josh was able to get the following rates when visiting Disneyland in sunny Anaheim, California, with his partner:

• Round-trip base fare for premium class: $1,840 total ($920 per person)
• Round-trip base fare for premium class with companion voucher applied: $1,040 total ($520 per person)

Now that’s on cash. The Companion Voucher itself would hold a cash value of about $219 on Premium bookings within North America, so if you had about 65,000 WestJet points to cover the base fare of the non-voucher itinerary, you might have to only pay a couple of hundred dollars for your Californian getaway. 

Get miles ahead at effectively using your WestJet vouchers with our Miles Ahead episode on WestJet Companion Vouchers.

Hedging Partner Booking and Cancellation Fees

When you’re booking with a variety of airline loyalty programs, you may be subject to “partner booking fees” if you’re flying one of their partner airlines. For example, Air Canada Aeroplan charges $39 for all partner airlines, such as in this example with Austrian:

Needless to say, if you book a variety of one-way itineraries, this will add up fast. So I’d recommend against doing this. It’s easy to harp on Aeroplan, but programs such as the much-lauded Alaska Atmos Rewards also charge these.

And these aren’t the only possible expenses to be concerned about: there’s also cancellation or change fees. If you didn’t book a refundable fare, you can often still bail yourself out of your points itinerary, but it’ll cost you.

One round-trip fare keeps the potential charge low. So if you don’t need the flexibility of two one-ways, don’t worry about it.

Stopovers on Specific Programs

We talked about stopovers as a strength of one-way bookings earlier, and they are. But here’s the thing: not every program lets you stopover on a one-way. Programs like Cathay Pacific Asia Miles, ANA Mileage Club, and Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer (on Saver awards) only permit stopovers on round-trip itineraries. 

So if you’re sitting on a pile of KrisFlyer miles and want to spend a few days in Singapore en route to Bali, you’ll need to book a round-trip to make that happen. It’s a niche consideration, but worth keeping in mind before you default to two one-ways.

Conclusion

For most points redemptions, one-way is king. The flexibility to mix carriers, programs, and destinations is simply too valuable to leave on the table. You also have the luxury of visiting all the locations you want to go to with no compromises based on access to one specific airport.

However, don’t sleep on round-trips when the math makes sense. Companion vouchers can save you piles of points or cash, and there’s always cancellation, change, or partner fees to consider. As with everything in this hobby, the best strategy is the one that gets you the most value for your situation without compromising on your travel goals.