Open-Jaw Flights India: How AI Picks the Route OTAs Hide
By Diya Verma (Diya Verma flies from Tier-2 Indian cities and chases every possible fare hack — reposition flights, hidden-city ticketing, mileage runs and OTA bundle tricks. She has booked 200+ international trips out of Lucknow, Indore and Jaipur.) · Published · 9 min read
Flying Delhi–Bangkok and returning Chiang Mai–Delhi? That's an open jaw — and it often costs less than a round-trip to Bangkok alone, while getting you a free overland leg. Most Indian OTAs bury this option. Here's how to find it.
TL;DR — What Is an Open-Jaw Flight and Why Should You Care?
An open-jaw flight is a return itinerary where you fly into City A but return from City B — or fly out from City A but return to City B. The 'jaw' is the gap you cover by surface (train, bus, or short domestic flight). For Indian travellers doing multi-city trips in Southeast Asia or Europe, open-jaw ticketing can be noticeably cheaper than buying a round-trip to one city plus a separate one-way. AI-powered tools like FlightGPT and Google Flights are much better at finding these combinations than standard OTA search boxes, which default to same-origin, same-destination round trips.
The Three Types of Open Jaw (and Which Works Best for Indian Travellers)
There are three variants:
- Single open jaw: Fly Delhi–Bangkok, return Phuket–Delhi. You travel overland Bangkok–Phuket yourself (easy and cheap). This is the most common version and the one most worth exploring.
- Double open jaw: Fly Delhi–London, return Paris–Mumbai. You cover the London–Paris gap and the Mumbai-to-Delhi gap yourself. More complex, works well for European multi-city trips if you're already planning the Eurostar or a budget flight within Europe.
- Source open jaw: Fly from Mumbai but return to Delhi. Useful if you're living or working in a different city to where you fly back into. Less common, but worth knowing exists.
For Southeast Asia trips — which is honestly where most of the value lies for Indian travellers — the single open jaw is the one to explore first. Bangkok in, Phuket out or Bangkok in, Ho Chi Minh City out are classic examples.
Why OTAs Make It Hard to Find Open-Jaw Options
I've spent an embarrassing amount of time on Indian OTA search interfaces, and here's the reality: MakeMyTrip has a 'multi-city' option, but the UI pushes you toward it as a way to add a third city stop, not as a way to set different departure and arrival cities for an outbound-return pair. Goibibo is similar. Cleartrip's multi-city search is functional but not particularly intelligent at suggesting open-jaw options — you need to already know what you're looking for.
The deeper issue is that open-jaw itineraries often require the airline or GDS to combine two half-round-trips from different fare buckets, which the pricing logic isn't always optimised for. Sometimes the open-jaw fare is actually more expensive. Sometimes — particularly on longer-haul routes — it's cheaper because each half uses a promotional fare that doesn't exist in the through-ticket market.
The AI advantage is that you can describe what you want in plain language: 'I want to fly into Bangkok from Delhi and come back from Phuket — what's the cheapest way to do that?' and get routing suggestions that a dropdown-form search can't produce.
AI Prompt Templates to Find Open-Jaw Flights on FlightGPT
Here are prompts that actually work. Type these (or variations) into FlightGPT's search:
- 'Cheapest open-jaw — fly Delhi to Bangkok, return Phuket to Delhi, mid-October, any airlines'
- 'I want to explore Thailand — fly into BKK and out of HKT, 10 nights, cheapest combination in the ₹30,000–₹50,000 range'
- 'European open jaw from Mumbai — fly to Paris, return from Amsterdam, late September. What airlines should I check?'
- 'IndiGo or Air India open jaw for Southeast Asia from Lucknow — flexible on 5 cities in and out'
On Google Flights, use the 'Multi-city' tab and set Leg 1 as your outbound and Leg 2 as your return — but swap the departure city of Leg 2 to be the city you want to fly home from. Google Flights is genuinely good at this and will price both legs as a combined round-trip fare where airline alliances permit it.
Real Scenarios Where Open Jaw Beats a Round Trip
I'll be honest: open jaw doesn't always win. Here are the scenarios where it typically does, and where it doesn't.
Where it tends to work:
- Thailand multi-city: Flying into Bangkok and out of Phuket (or vice versa) works well because the Bangkok–Phuket surface gap is well-served by budget domestic flights and buses. The open-jaw fare is often close to the Bangkok round-trip fare, meaning you effectively get the Bangkok–Phuket travel included for free or nearly so.
- Vietnam north-to-south: Hanoi in, Ho Chi Minh City out (or reverse) is a classic open-jaw trip. The country is long enough that doing a round trip to one city and then the other wastes time. Open jaw prices can be very competitive on routes with heavy IndiGo / Air India Express competition.
- Western Europe: London in, Amsterdam or Paris out works well on full-service carriers — Air India, British Airways, KLM — because these airlines have alliance relationships that support open-jaw pricing.
Where it usually doesn't: Routes where there's only one or two carriers operating, small island destinations with limited onward connections, or any routing where the 'gap' requires an expensive domestic flight that costs more than the open-jaw saves.
Booking Mechanics — What to Watch for When You Actually Buy
Once you've identified an open-jaw combination that makes sense, a few practical things to verify:
Baggage consistency: If both legs are on the same airline (or within the same alliance), baggage usually travels through. If they're on different carriers, treat it as two separate tickets and check each allowance.
Ticket type on OTAs: When you book via an OTA, make sure the confirmation clearly shows two separate city pairs — not a routing through an intermediate city that happens to look like an open jaw. The pricing and refund rules can differ.
Refunds and changes: Open-jaw tickets on budget carriers (Air India Express, IndiGo international) often have the same change/cancel penalties as regular tickets. On full-service carriers, open-jaw fares may sometimes fall into more restrictive fare buckets. Read the fare rules before you buy.
Check our destinations pages for practical entry requirements at your arrival and departure cities, and visa requirements if your open-jaw routing involves a transit or entry point you haven't used before.
The Overland Gap: Don't Forget to Book That Too
The 'jaw' — the gap between your two flight cities — is your responsibility and it's easy to forget to price it in while you're excited about the flight deal. A few things I've learned the hard way:
- Train tickets in Southeast Asia (Vietnam's Reunification Express, Thailand's rail) sell out weeks in advance during peak season. Book before you buy the flights if the train is part of the plan.
- Bus and minivan routes between Thai cities (Bangkok–Phuket, Bangkok–Chiang Mai) are plentiful and cheap, but overnight options on certain routes book up.
- For European open jaws, Eurostar London–Paris books up 8–12 weeks out during summer. Budget airlines (Ryanair, easyJet, Wizz) between European cities are cheap but add their own bag fees and change hassles.
Price the whole journey — flights + overland gap — before committing to the open-jaw fare. The deal is only a deal if the total cost and logistics actually make sense.
Frequently asked questions
Do Indian OTAs like MakeMyTrip support open-jaw booking?
MakeMyTrip, Cleartrip, and EaseMyTrip all have a 'multi-city' search option that can be used to create open-jaw itineraries, but the interface isn't intuitive for this purpose. You're better off using Google Flights' multi-city tab or an AI-powered search like FlightGPT where you can describe the open-jaw in plain language and get route suggestions before locking in.
Is an open-jaw ticket always cheaper than two separate one-way tickets?
Not always. On full-service carrier routes (Air India, Qatar, Emirates), an open-jaw booked as a round-trip fare can be cheaper than two one-ways because the round-trip fare bucket is discounted. On budget carrier routes or LCC-heavy corridors, two one-ways might price almost the same as the open jaw, so it's worth comparing both. Always check both options before buying.
What's the best open-jaw route from a Tier-2 Indian city like Jaipur or Lucknow?
For Tier-2 cities, the most practical approach is usually to fly to Delhi or Mumbai first on a cheap domestic leg, then take the international open-jaw from there. Air India and IndiGo serve Jaipur, Lucknow, Indore, and other Tier-2 cities with connections to major international hubs. Sometimes booking the domestic connecting leg separately (not as a through-ticket) gives you more flexibility on the international open-jaw routing.
Can I earn frequent flyer miles on an open-jaw ticket?
Yes, if both legs are on the same airline or partner airlines within the same alliance (Star Alliance, oneworld, SkyTeam). Air India is part of Star Alliance, so an AI-ticketed open jaw mixing Air India with a Star Alliance partner should accrue miles to your Flying Returns account (or the partner's FFP). Budget carrier legs on IndiGo or Air India Express accrue miles on their own loyalty programmes separately.
How much time should I leave for the overland 'gap' in Southeast Asia?
It depends on distance. Bangkok to Phuket is roughly 12–14 hours by bus or train, or a 1.5-hour domestic flight. Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City is 2 hours by air or around 30 hours by train. Don't try to squeeze the gap into one night and start fresh the next morning — build at least a day of buffer between arriving at your 'jaw' origin city and your return flight, especially during peak season when transport options sell out.
Do open-jaw fares change a lot by season from India?
Yes, significantly. Summer (April–June) and the December peak drive up fares on most routes to Southeast Asia and Europe from India. The best open-jaw deals from India to Southeast Asia typically appear in the shoulder periods — late January to March and September–October. Set a price alert on Google Flights or Skyscanner and check back over several weeks rather than buying the first fare you see.