Friends again???? Gee, you sure did misunderstand my post. I was dead serious when I said I bow to your knowledge of these things!! I meant nothing to be the least bit argumentative.

Gardyloo, that's not how they explained it to me. It was a stopover each way OR a gateway stopover each way. That Istanbul trip was in 2000, so rules may have changed. But notice this past summer what I really did was BOTH a gateway stopover and a European stopover enroute going and a direct flight home. My original destination was Rome, with a gateway stopover in NYC and a European stopover in London getting there. At one point I was looking at the NYC stopover to London then a return from Venice with Paris as a stopover on the way back to Miami, but ended up changing our minds on that. So as of this past year one could still do a gateway OR stopover each way of an open jaw, or BOTH going one way of the roundtrip. You do realize this was a business class ticket? I haven't done the coach award but as I recall that is the award that only allows one gateway or one stopover going OR coming, not both. Are you sure you're not thinking of that?

i don't know what the rules are, exactly, but on AA we're flying LAX-ORD on 12/18 then "laying over" the week of x-mas to be with family in Chicago, then taking a flight ORD-LHR on 12/26. we then fly CDG-JFK-LAX home on 1/11. it's a FF ticket.

worked out perfect! now we don't have to buy separate airfare to go home for the holidays!

The rules are the same on business and coach awards.

It's entirely possible the rules have changed since 2000. It's also entirely possible you got a freebie.

Gardyloo, you are right. I spoke to AA this morning and the rep says that yes you used to be able to do what I did, but that was before the introduction of the oneworld awards. It is true that now you can only do one US gateway and one European gateway stopover on a round trip open jaw flight. They can be one on each direction, or both on one direction.

Those last couple of itineraries I mentioned did just that -- both in one direction.

Meanwhile my apologies to Patty, whose post I completely missed and to arewethereyet. I thought arewethereyet was referring to me as Patty-- as there is another poster who thinks it's cute to do that. And I actually thought arewethereyet's post about needing to call was directed to me. Never mind.

Are there any Delta FF experts who know whether any of this is possible with Delta? I suspect not, because I can't find any mention of it on the Skymiles website, but I wanted to ask. Thanks!

Sorry! I went back for one more look and found the information I had missed. Delta allows one stopover per FF ticket.

Barbara,
You can have either one stopover or an open jaw on a Delta Skymiles award. Additional stopovers are possible but will cost extra miles. You used to be able to have 24+ hour connections not count as a stopovers as long as you took the <i>next flight available in your class of service</i>. However, more recently I've heard instances of this triggering additional miles. Late last year, Delta changed from having their agents &quot;price&quot; award itineraries to the computer pricing award itineraries. You used to be able to get away with a lot more back when it was agent's discretion than you can now.