It seems that with the introduction of one-way awards with AA, things have gotten complicated when trying to schedule an international stopover. Here is my situation:

We are trying to fly from MCO-LAX-AKL-DRW and then return. (AKL would be the desired stopover.) AA is telling me that with one-way awards there are no more free stopovers and that my trip must now be booked as three one-way segments (MCO-LAX-AKL), (AKL-DRW) and finally (DRW-LAX-MCO) via either BNE or SYD. Their "plan" would cost me another 35K miles for two people in BIZ (AKL-DRW) for the extra segment.

My questions are:
1) Are there no more RT awards on AA & QF?
2) Are there no more free international stopovers?

Thanks, in advance, for whatever help you can give me. (I have also posted this same question on FlyerTalk.)

We usually stop off in Miami for a day or two on our way to the Bahamas, when we use FF awards, or San Juan when going to the Caribbean. I was wondering the same thing, about whether we would have to use an extra award - in which case, I wouldnt want to "spend" the miles.

Oh well....

orangetravelcat,
There might be a difference in the case of a <u>domestic</u> stopover. Not sure though.

It looks like what I feared is true. There is an exhaustive discussion on this very topic here: http://tinyurl.com/rdw5vs

I guess I'll call AA to clarify.

Thanks for the link/ I will open it now and see what it says.

Stopovers at the domestic gateway on foreign trips are still allowed; however they're not allowed at the foreign gateway. Used to be you could fly, e.g. ORD-BOS (stop) - LHR (stop) - FCO, say. Now the LHR stopover is disallowed.