Originally Posted by
kymbakitty
I've done a few FT award travels, but we always started/stopped at the same airport. When we went to Ireland/London, we flew back to Dublin the final night and stayed at Clondorf Castle (which was awesome). And when we went to Rome/Sorrento, we rented a car from the Hilton as we were leaving and drove to Sorrento...and then drove the rental car back to the Rome Airport and spent the night. When we went to Budapest, we flew into AMS, took Skyeurope to AMS (no longer offers that route) and when we left Budapest, we stayed the remainder of our vacation in AMS and flew out afterward (again, same airport).
I don't think I realized that airlines gave you the option (unless you paid WAY more) of stopping and starting somewhere other than your final destination for the same cost that it would if you didn't...that surprises me.
Open jaw and/or stopover itinerary is one the reasons why FT award tickets are valuable. In your cases, you could have flown into Dublin (stopover), onto London (destination), and returned from London all on one award ticket, if your FT program has the right combination of partners (Ireland is tougher). You need to have one partner airline to fly from SFO to Dublin, and then Dublin to London, and then London to SFO. Same thing with AMS and Budapest pair.
I'm more familiar with Star Alliance. I just booked a vacation for next July RIC-PEK (stopover), PEK-BKK (destination), BKK-RIC all on one award itinerary on 4 different *A partner airlines in Business Class. You have to spend some time learning all about SkyTeam (for DL) and what you can do with the SkyTeam awards.
Open jaw paid tickets are not necessarily more expensive, you just need to do some planning.