Quick summary
An open-jaw Vietnam ticket is an ordinary multi-city fare, not a discount: you fly into one gateway and home from the other, and the dependable gain is the Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City leg you never fly. Our fare scan on 15 October 2026 found London to Ho Chi Minh City round-trips from €436.
Two digital arrival forms have been mandatory since 1 July 2026, with penalties at boarding, and Long Thanh International Airport opens in December 2026. Both change what you check before booking.
Long Thanh International Airport, the new hub east of Ho Chi Minh City, is scheduled to open in December 2026, with Phase 1 handling long-haul international flights. For a north-to-south Vietnam trip, the booking question is whether to fly into Hanoi and home from Ho Chi Minh City, or buy a return and add a domestic hop.
The dependable gain from an open-jaw ticket is time. Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City sit 1,155 to 1,730 kilometres apart, depending on which source you use. The flight takes 2 hours 10 minutes to 3 hours 40 minutes. Add check-in, baggage claim and transfers at both ends, and you have spent most of a day to finish where you started.
The fare comparison is less clear-cut.
What an open-jaw ticket means for Vietnam
An open-jaw ticket is a return in which you fly home from a different city than the one you flew into. London to Hanoi outbound and Ho Chi Minh City to London on the way back is an open jaw. It is not a separate product. It is one of the itineraries a multi-city search returns.
Vietnam has two international gateways at opposite ends of a long, thin country. A north-to-south route — Hanoi, Hue, Hoi An, Nha Trang, Ho Chi Minh City — runs in a straight line, with the long-haul flights at either end. The carriers that can ticket it already sell both Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City through their networks.
The ticket carries no built-in discount. A multi-city fare combines separate fares, so its price moves with route-specific demand, seat availability and taxes, not with the open-jaw shape itself. The common assumption that it costs the same as a return, or only slightly more, does not survive a search on your own dates.
The method is not Vietnam-specific. Any linear itinerary, into one city and out of another, can be ticketed this way, which is why the same multi-city search returns open-jaw options for India and for other long, thin countries.
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Airport and terminal changes to check
The airport name is only part of the connection.
Vietnam Airlines moved its domestic flights to Terminal 3 at Ho Chi Minh City’s Tan Son Nhat airport on 17 May 2025. Three destinations stayed at Terminal 1: Con Dao, Rach Gia and Ca Mau. Pacific Airlines and VASCO stayed there too. An onward domestic leg with any of those uses a different building from the Vietnam Airlines mainline operation.
VietJet moved its domestic check-in to Terminal 1, Hall A, on 13 January 2026. That is the same terminal as the Vietnam Airlines exceptions but a different hall. A self-transfer between a VietJet domestic arrival and a Vietnam Airlines domestic departure at Tan Son Nhat therefore means changing buildings, not walking to the next gate.
After Long Thanh opens, Tan Son Nhat is expected to keep domestic and some regional services. The airport used by the long-haul flight will decide where a connecting domestic leg must end. Vietnam Airlines’ Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City flight page lists the domestic schedule and the terminal each flight uses.
Entry rules and arrival formalities to check
Vietnam’s eVisa is valid at 83 designated entry points, including 17 airports. Long Thanh and Gia Binh are not yet operational, leaving 15 usable today. Both the entry and exit airport must be on the list. Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City are, so a north-in, south-out itinerary works on a single eVisa.
Two digital arrival-related forms became mandatory on 1 July 2026: a digital arrival card and a digital health declaration. Non-compliance carries penalties at boarding, so the airline can stop you before you reach Vietnamese immigration.
The UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office maintains travel advice for Vietnam, updated more often than any booking guide, as the reference for entry rules. For an itinerary through Vietnam to a third country, whether you clear Vietnamese immigration depends on whether your bag is checked through.
How to book a multi-city open-jaw itinerary
Booking an open-jaw Vietnam ticket takes five steps in a multi-city search. The result is one total for the long-haul segments, rather than a separate price for each half.
For a north-to-south trip, the search has two lines: London to Hanoi on the arrival date and Ho Chi Minh City to London on the departure date. The two directions are priced separately, and one is often cheaper.
Four things set the total: how the separate fares combine, demand on each city pair, whether cheap seats remain on both dates, and taxes and surcharges. Only the dates are under your control, making them your biggest lever.
The fare conditions matter as much as the total. A multi-city itinerary can combine more than one fare, so one change rule does not necessarily cover the whole trip.
When to travel: what the fare scan shows
Our fare scan on 15 October 2026 returned 13 London to Ho Chi Minh City round-trips between €436 and €1,090. The cheapest departure, on 16 January 2027, had two stops.
Departure date does most of the work. The two December departures were among the most expensive, while the cheapest fares clustered in January, March and November. For flexible travellers, the scan shows the departure date moving the price by hundreds of euros.
The scan prices a return to a single gateway, not an open jaw. It supplies the benchmark, not the answer.
Where the rules change by departure point
The open-jaw method is identical wherever you start; the number of connections before Vietnam changes.
North America. Every route from the US or Canada to Vietnam requires at least one stop, so an open-jaw itinerary adds no connection you were not already making. The long-haul ticket sits at either end of the trip.
Europe (including the UK). As of 2026 no carrier flies nonstop between Europe and Vietnam, so both a return and an open jaw route through a hub. The difference is the domestic leg, not the long-haul connection.
Before the December 2026 airport switch
Ho Chi Minh City’s terminal map has already changed twice since May 2025. Before committing to a Vietnam itinerary, select Multi-city rather than round-trip, enter the segments in flight order, set the dates, run the search, then read the final price and fare conditions before paying. Reverse the direction and search again; compare the open-jaw and return totals on the same dates, including their connection counts.
- Fix the gateways: decide on Hanoi in and Ho Chi Minh City out or the reverse before searching. Before buying, check all three airport letters, not just the city; baggage rules on each segment; dates; entry requirements for any transit city; and the change fee for each segment.
- Match your terminals: check the domestic schedule and terminal, and, for travel after the opening, confirm which airport the long-haul flight uses before booking its connecting domestic leg.
- File both forms: complete the digital arrival card and digital health declaration before flying, not on arrival. Check the current requirements for your own passport before booking.
- Watch: Long Thanh’s December 2026 opening and which long-haul flights move there.
For flexible dates, shifting a week can matter more than the routing. Book the long-haul ticket first and the domestic leg second, once the gateways are fixed.
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Questions? Answers.
Is an open-jaw ticket always the same price as a simple return to Vietnam?
No. A multi-city fare is assembled from separate fares, so the total depends on the dates, the city pair and how many seats are still open at the cheap levels. Sometimes the open-jaw total lands close to a return; sometimes it carries a premium. Run both searches on the same dates, then add the cost of the domestic leg you would otherwise need.
Can I book an open-jaw ticket using frequent flyer miles?
Check your program’s rules before you transfer anything. Some programs price an open-jaw as a single roundtrip award; others treat the two halves as separate one-way awards, which changes the mileage cost. Award seats also have to be available on both long-haul segments on the dates you want.
What if I want to visit Da Nang or Nha Trang in the middle of my trip?
You will still need a domestic flight to reach them from Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City. Open-jaw routing saves you the return domestic leg if your itinerary ends at the opposite gateway from where it started: fly into Hanoi, take a domestic flight to Da Nang, travel south overland to Ho Chi Minh City, and fly home from there. You have eliminated the Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi return leg, not all domestic flying.
Do I need to book my Vietnam domestic flights at the same time as my long-haul ticket?
No. The long-haul open-jaw ticket is independent of any domestic segments you add. Book the international flights first, then add domestic legs as the itinerary firms up. The one rule to keep is that your last domestic flight has to end at the gateway your long-haul flight leaves from.
What happens if I miss my domestic connection and need to get to the other gateway for my departure flight?
If the tickets are separate, you carry the risk of the connection yourself. Leave a full day between your last domestic flight and your long-haul departure. The alternative is to put the domestic leg on the same ticket where the carrier sells it that way.
Can I use open-jaw routing to visit both Vietnam and another Southeast Asian country?
Yes. A multi-city search can add a third destination: London to Bangkok, then a separate Bangkok to Hanoi leg, then Hanoi to London. The long-haul fare prices on the total routing, and the intra-Asia segment is usually booked separately. Compare the total against flying into and out of the same city before you decide.
