They say we should catch flights and not feelings—but whoever said that probably doesn’t realize how expensive airline tickets actually are. In a clip that has amassed 1.1 million views, TikToker Mandi (@mandi_martinez11) filmed herself booking two sets of flights on the American Airlines website: One as a round-trip, and the other as two separate tickets.
She accompanied the video with a caption that read: “POV: You learned that booking flights separately is cheaper than booking them together.” And as the subtitle implies, that’s exactly what her TikTok shows.
According to the clip, a departure and return ticket separately cost $158 on American Airlines. Meanwhile, the same tickets purchased as a round-trip appear to cost $207.05.
But this might not be a hard and fast rule.
@mandi_martinez11 Accidentally posted this the first time with all my flight info 🫠 #foryou #foryoupage #flighttickets #flights #vacation ♬ Coconut Mall (From “Mario Kart Wii”) – Arcade Player
Does the American Airlines hack work?
To uncover the truth, two Daily Dot journalists—based in Belize and the U.K.— tried to verify this for themselves on the American Airlines website. While the journalist based in Belize found similar results to Mandi, with separate tickets for the same trip being cheaper than a round trip, the U.K.-based journalist found the opposite.
This suggests that the life hack Mandi uncovered is dependent on location. Meanwhile, commenters on the TikTok as a whole were less convinced.
“We tried this and after the first person booked, the other tickets went up,” one wrote.
“No because I did this one time and the flight sold out,” another added.
In turn, other commenters pointed out some of the other problems booking tickets this way could cause. One said it was a good idea “until your flights get canceled and then both of you have to deal with changing reservations,” adding that they learned this lesson “the hard way.”
Meanwhile, another commenter who claimed to be a former gate agent for American Airlines advised that this was “not a good idea.”
“Just book together,” they wrote. “Two different reservations can be more of a hassle than you think.”
Martinez didn’t immediately respond to the Daily Dot’s request for comment via TikTok comment.
This isn’t the first time American Airlines’ sporadic ticket pricing has gone viral. In August, another American Airlines user discovered that his bandmate’s ticket for the same flight was 200% more expensive than his.
“How is their plane ticket 200 percent more?” he asked. “It’s the same flight. Like, that feels illegal. What is the difference? I don’t understand,”
American Airlines didn’t immediately respond to the Daily Dot’s request for comment via email.
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