Q: Why are Return Dates Not Offered for Limited Flexibility Trips on My Trips?
When creating your trips on My Trips, you’re given three choices for flexibility. Each choice provides different options, which will give you the best opportunity to find the cheapest flight for your desired trip. Here is a breakdown of the three travel flexibility choices and how they help you find the lowest listed airfare for a specific trip:

Very Flexible
If you’re very flexible for travel dates, you’re not tied down to either a departure date or a return date. You will receive alerts any time a deal is detected that meets your criteria for the trip you have selected.

When you select Very Flexible, you will not be offered dates for departure or return.

***NOTE: You will receive an alert for every deal we detect that fits your trip’s departure city, destination, and pricing criteria.

Limited Flexibility
In order to best serve travelers with limited travel flexibility, we provide selections for Earliest Departure Date and Latest Departure Date. Departure dates generally have more restrictions and have a much greater affect on the cost of a trip than return dates. Restrictions on return dates can involve a Saturday night stay, and the cost of an airline ticket can fluctuate slightly based on a return date. However, your choice of departure date will have a much greater affect on price changes for your specific trip. Therefore, by design, we leave the return date open for this type of trip.

By setting parameters for the departure date, travelers with limited flexibility will have a much better opportunity to take advantage of the cheapest listed airfare for their specific trips.

***NOTE: You will receive an alert for every deal we detect that fits your trip’s departure city, destination, and pricing criteria. However, you will not necessarily receive all of the alerts (Historical Deals/Recent Email Alerts) listed on our calendar and results pages. You will not receive alerts if they do not meet all of your criteria, including the travel dates (earliest departure and latest departure) you have selected. Airfare effective date, expiration date, blackout dates, season rules, and other airline stipulations will also determine whether an alert is sent to you.

Fixed Flexibility
Fixed Flexibility is for those travelers who have specific dates on which they must take their trip. If you select Fixed, you will have the opportunity to set both your departure date and your return date. The notifications you receive on price changes for your trip will be based on those specific travel dates. You will only receive alerts for deals that fit the specific dates you have selected for travel.

***NOTE: You will receive an alert for every deal we detect that fits your trip’s departure city, destination, and pricing criteria. However, you will not necessarily receive all of the alerts (Historical Deals/Recent Email Alerts) listed on our calendar and results pages. You will not receive alerts if they do not meet all of your criteria, including the travel dates (departure date and return date) you have selected. Airfare effective date, expiration date, blackout dates, season rules, and other airline stipulations will also determine whether an alert is sent to you.