MileageAddict

Forgive me if this has been asked in another thread. I really did try searching for an answer.

I am planning far in advance as biz class award flights from USA to Europe get snapped up quickly.

Ideally, I want to book round trip so I can take advantage of an open jaw and stopover but my return will not open up for 10 days after the outbound.

I understand that open jaw and stopovers are not allowed on a one-way ticket, right?

Is there a way to hold the outbound flights while I wait for the return flights to open up 10 days later without incurring a change/mileage redeposit fee or should I just lock into the one way flights to Europe and then lock into the return flights 10 days later?

peejayemm

I have two one ways for my Thanksgiving trip to Buenos Aires that I booked 330 days out (and were gone a couple of days later). Open jaw won't be an issue with two one ways but I think the stopover will.

MileageAddict

True, open jaw isn't an issue with two one-ways. I should have just posted my query as stopover.

tys90

I was searching for this information not too long ago as I was going to try to do the same thing. This is what I understand (but have not tried):

You can book the one-way departure, then add the stopover and return to the ticket at a later date to make it a round-trip. This will incur change fees if they are applicable to you.

Kacee

You are assuming UA regularly releases award space at 330 days and that is not a valid assumption.

sbm12

Correct.
Maybe, maybe not. And some partners might or might not. Being prepared is better than being unprepared when the time comes should the seats be available. :-:

PVDtoDEL

As long as the stopover is on the way back, it shouldn't be an issue

aacharya

Though folks are correct about conversion, isn't there a bit of an agent issue if the outbound no longer has the space? In other words, isn't the agent recreating the reservation versus converting the one-way to an RT?

sbm12

No. At least there shouldn't be. Any award can be altered without affecting already confirmed segments, assuming the agent is competent. I've done this successfully many, many times.

astroflyer

if the OP is not elite then there will be fees involved.
sbm12: that's great you've managed to get agents to combine two one-ways. I've definitely read of difficulties with that when partner segments were involved.

mrydoc

I had a similar issue. Beware, you may not find any return flight.

I have found Biz/F availability for europe-usa very tight for summer 2014. My focus has been LA/SFO to Europe hubs for 2 people, but even when I expanded my search, nothing came up. Outbound, no problem but I found no awards for the return June to late August (and even then only on AC or US). I have been watching it extremely closely, have expert flyer alerts and talked many times to "1k line," but nothing showed up. I have the stranded outbound flight booked as one way (SFO-FRA in GF). For now, my options are wait and hope, or just buy a Z RT ticket.

sbm12

My guess is that you'll see things start to open up in 2-3 months.

ath42

I was not aware of the possibility of converting a one-way to a round trip when I did something like this.

What I did is book a round trip with the outbound leg 330 days out and the return the same day. Not at all the itinerary that I wanted, flying for 24 hours to sit in the airport for a few hours and then go back :-). Then I waited for the date I really wanted to return to become bookable and modified the return leg of my existing round trip. You do have to pay the change fee if you are gold or lower.

As someone said earlier in the thread, there is nothing that says the airlines will release space 330 days out. But my attitude was that if I could find something acceptable then I would book it so I knew that my trip was possible. You can always tweak it later on if something better becomes available. I got $10k+ of business class tickets for $400 in taxes, what's a few change fees.

mintcilantro

since we are talking about 330 days out, is the schedule open midnight at CST/EST/PST time zone?

I used to think tickets were issued that were good for a year from date of issue. So the return journey/stopover needs to be within ~35 days of the outbound when trying to book far in advance. Is that correct?