Still, USAirways offers great perks, and I urge everyone to take advantage of their stopovers and
open jaw rules.
The United MileagePlus program also has generous stopover and
open jaw rules allowing us to stretch our itinerary across multiple cities in Europe!
To capitalize on what United offers for award tickets, you will need to know a few strategies for booking flights, including their stopover and
open jaw rules.
In order to fully take advantage of United's MileagePlus program, it is important to understand
their open jaw rules.
Because we're taking advantage of United's
open jaw rules and want to use our one possible stopover in Tokyo, it makes far more sense to find our own way to Ho Chi Minh than to use the stopover in Bangkok with a terminal destination of Ho Chi Minh.
Not exact matches
Do: Asia Miles has generous stopover
rules that allows you up to FIVE stopovers and 2
open jaws on a round - trip ticket.
United Airlines announced new changes to its MileagePlus award
rules this morning, with lower change / cancellation fees for many members as well as a twist to how it lets people book
open jaws and stopovers.
United has perhaps the most generous
rules of any domestic carrier when it comes to
open -
jaws and stopovers.
Lufthansa has very generous stopover and
open -
jaw rules on award tickets.
Routing
rules are generous, including up to 3 stopovers and one
open jaw, and one - way awards are allowed (though not always the most economical).
According to US Airways» routing
rules, you're allowed either one stopover or one
open jaw.
United has the most flexible routing
rules, allowing for a stopover and two
open -
jaws on round - trip award tickets.
Using the
rules above, a sample itinerary could be: [JFK — TXL (transfer)-- VIE (stopover)-- DUS (stopover)-- MIA (
open jaw)-RSB- all on Airberlin.
Per the
rules, only 2 stopovers, 2 transfers, and 1
open jaw is allowed.
None of these new
rules affect your ability to book an
open jaw, which is when you arrive in one city but depart another.
This was when United's
rules were a little different (the free flight leg did not need to start and end in the same region), so at that time I was able to book: NYC to Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca (
open -
jaw), Oaxaca City to NYC (free flight leg), and then two months later NYC to the Dominican Republic (
open -
jaw).
The
rules for the
open jaw are a little confusing because they define some continents as «countries» and alternate the terms «zones» and «areas» without clear definitions of exactly what they are referring to.
Keep in mind, each airline has their own
rules regarding stopovers and
open jaws.
United had relatively friendly award routing
rules that allowed one stopover and two
open jaws on roundtrip award tickets.Those
rules are gone now though and have been replaced by the «Excursionist Perk,» which is essentially a free segment on an international itinerary.
The six legs
rule apparently only applies to itineraries with multiple Skyteam partners, with a single partner (in this case Korean Airlines) I am only allowed 4 legs, and no stopovers (
open jaw is ok).
They never charge fuel surcharges, they allow free date changes, they have very flexible routing
rules, they allow one - way awards for half the mileage, they have a short - haul award for 20,000 miles, they allow for a stopover and an
open -
jaw so that you can really maximize an award trip into multiple free trips, they have an around - the - world award to visit tons of cities on one award ticket, and they have dozens of partners to fly on, most of which can be booked on their website.
Lufthansa miles have great
rules for award tickets, allowing two stopovers and two
open jaws for roundtrip international flights.
Rules: For international, roundtrip award tickets, United allows two
open -
jaws and one stopover (as long as the total number of connections for each direction does not exceed 3.)
But that's the beauty of using United Airlines miles and taking advantage of their stopover and
open -
jaw flexible
rules.
United Airlines also has extremely generous stopover and
open -
jaw rules for many possibilities to maximize miles.
The main
rule in an
open -
jaw is that the distance of the
open -
jaw between two cities has to be shorter than the shortest flown leg of the journey.
One critical
rule for the companion fare is that it can only be used on a simple round - trip itinerary, while we have an
open jaw.
The main
rule is to stay within the green line, since the
open -
jaw can not exceed our LAX - GRU flown leg.
However, Delta allows
open -
jaws, meaning that your return ticket can return from a different city in a different region, provided certain
rules are met.
For instance, United has awesome
rules for its roundtrip award tickets, allowing one stop over, and two
open -
jaws per round - trip award ticket.