Getting conflicting USAir answers???
 

I am getting very conflicting answers to 2 (what seem like) simple questions and trust the opinions of you who are more familiar with USAir policies.

I have been told that you can book International flights using Dividend Miles 331 days out, now today when I tried to confirm this they said "No it's 221 days out". Which is it?

Also, I understand clearly that you can either have an open jaw or a stop over but not both. I have asked the question of a "Forced overnight" which is what I'd prefer since we'd be originating from LAX and would prefer to time our flight AFTER the last flight to our European destination leaves the East Coast just to break up the trip. I know there is a communication problem as they keep telling me that I can get an earlier flight. They don't seem to understand that we purposely do NOT want to fly out to Europe from the East Coast on the same day and would prefer to arrive too late and stay over until the next day's first flight out. 3 representatives from the India call center have said that we can NOT do that, it must be within 12 hours or it considered a stop over. One USA representative said that the rule is 24 hours or less for International flights so it's OK. BTW, we have done this numerous times on AA so I know some airlines allow this.
Who is correct?

I've found that if you book on line , you can go 331 days out, but if call the center it is less and if you call back it is different yet again. Anything over 12 hours is a stop over no matter where you go. Philadelphia would be your best airport to europe since they offer the most flights for US Air International.

I don't know where you're going, but keep in mind that you can use Dividend Miles on any Star Alliance airline. So, you can fly non-stop LAX-LHR on UA or Air NewZealand, or non-stop LAX-FRA on Lufthansa.

Those may be preferable to a E. Coast stopover.

Thank you. Maxim55, I know the maximum layover domestic is 12 hours but the rep in Charlotte said for International flights it is 24 hours before it's considered a stopover. You do know this for sure that it is 12 hours regardless??

rkkwan, I do think I prefer a stopover going if it's possible. We are flying from LAX to Istanbul and then (open jaw) returning from Milan. Flying all the way to Istanbul in one day sounds grueling!! We're hoping to use the USAir miles for business seats which helps, just hope they'll be available as we have set dates and can't be flexible.

I've never flown Internationally on US Air, however I did fly from PHX-London-Berlin on British Airways. I landed at 2:15pm London time and my flight to Berlin was the next morning because I had an afternoon meeting in London. I was charged a stop over and was in London about 15 hours. Same going to Santiago thru Mexico City on Aero Mexico ground time was even less then.

You can fly nonstop from LAX to Frankfurt and then connect to Istanbul. I would expect that you would be able to make a connection of under 24 hours in Frankfurt and not have it count as a stopover. But I would not expect to be able to make a domestic overnight connection.

As far as "grueling" goes, I don't think that biz class on Lufthansa really would be grueling.

You can make the trip on an easy, long, nonstop to Europe with one connection to Istanbul. If it is a long connection then you have time to take a shower and change clothes at Frankfurt airport (in the business class lounge maybe?).

OR you can fly 5 hours to the east coast, e.g. Washington Dulles. You would leave LA around 5PM and get into IAD around midnite. It would be about 1:30 AM EDT by the time you checked into your Reston/Dulles hotel.

To get from IAD to IST you would fly to ... Frankfurt. Problem is that the FRA flights don't depart from IAD until after 5PM. If you want to spend some of your Turkey vacation in Northern Virginia then you certainly can.

To get to IST you would fly about 8 hours from IAD to FRA and then another 3 hours from there to your final destination.

All that: the extra flying, the hotel shuttle (or rental car), the checkin, overnight in a hotel, the shuttle back to the airport, checkin & security again. All that sounds greuling.

Also, if you are looking at traveling on specific days, then you likely won't have the luxury of any options.

You can go to star-alliance.com to find valid routing for your trip.

You can go to fly-ana.com and register and use their website for finding Star Alliance award seat availability on your travel dates.

I should have put this all into one post, but:

I recently used fly-ana.com to find award seat availability for a Star Alliance award. Found that I could fly Singapore Airlines to Tokyo, arriving at 5:50PM and connecting the next day at 5:15PM to a Thai flight to Bangkok. Since the connection time was 35 minutes short of 24 hours it is a valid connection and not a stopover.