Find Cheap Multi-City Flights

Multi-city flights, also known as multi-stop flights, are really just what the name suggests: a trip that flies between multiple cities rather than just two, as with a round trip. This type of booking allows travelers to book a trip between multiple destinations all within a single itinerary. That means that instead of booking separate one-way tickets, multi-city flights combine all segments into one booking, making it convenient for those traveling to multiple locations during a single trip.

In practice, that means you could fly from Point A to Point B and then from there fly to Point C before flying back to your original destination all in one booking.

If you’re flying to international destinations it will almost certainly be cheaper to buy your tickets as one complete itinerary, as airlines price to encourage at least return bookings rather than one-way. Additionally, you may be able to benefit from airline partnerships and alliances covering all routes within your trip. However, if you plan to fly domestically once you’ve reached your first destination, then it is worth checking out budget airlines that offer cheap one-way fares and are not partnered with other airlines for this part of your trip. These airlines generally don’t fly longer routes and don’t allow for multi-city bookings themselves.

Most of the large airlines allow you to make a multiple destination booking. Thanks to codeshare partnerships and airline alliances, this means you could be flying with different airlines on your trip despite booking everything together for the lowest price. The most popular airline for multiple city airfare with KAYAK users is American Airlines. On the other hand, budget airlines generally don't offer multi-city flight bookings.

Based on KAYAK data, the most popular multiple city routes in the last year were: New York - San Francisco - Los Angeles - New York and New York - Los Angeles - San Francisco - New York.

Based on KAYAK data, the most popular international multiple city routes in the last year were: New York - Tokyo - Hong Kong - New York and San Francisco - Dubai - New Delhi - San Francisco.

Think of an open-jaw flight as a round trip but involving more than two airports. An open-jaw flight is similar to a multi-city route in that you’ll visit multiple destinations but the key difference is that it is a round-trip itinerary. However, instead of flying from A to B and then back again as with a standard round-trip flight, an open-jaw flight arrives in one city but will then return to the origin from another. That means the key difference is that while multi-city routes include flights in between all airports involved, open-jaw flights do not. For example, you could fly from New York to Berlin, spend some time there and then travel to Munich via train before flying back home to New York from there. Or you could even fly from Point A to B, then from B to C, before returning home to point A via another method than air travel. This would also be classed as an open-jaw flight.