<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by RunawayNFly:
If you book on Continental or Northwest using Delta FF miles, you can also do this. This is called a "triangle" type fare. Delta also allows you to basically book two one way tickets using a frequent flyer award for the same 25 K.
Good luck and happy travels!</font>
This hasn't been my experience with DL/NW. I regularly use DL and NW awards for open jaws (e.g. SNA-DCA-<open>-JAX-SNA), but have never been able to get them to pick up the missing leg. The same goes for UA and US.
I agree that AA is the leader of the pack in this regard (one reason AA miles are more valuable than the rest of the pack). Just two weeks ago, I redeemded the following itinerary for a friend who's currently in transit:
LAX-MIA-DCA-JFK-LAX
(with stops in MIA, DCA, and JFK)
I had to blow 45K miles because Y was sold out on several of his dates, but he did get to ride in J on a 777 and will also get a taste of a premium transcon on the return to LAX.
I, myself, am currently on an AS award which allowed me to stop over in SEA en route SNA-SEA-DCA, which I felt was a pretty good deal for
20K miles. Unfortunately, AS wouldn't let me return from MIA though because their policy is one stopover OR one open jaw. TMK, AA is the only one of the majors that allows both a stopover and an open jaw; moreover, the stopover needn't take place at an AA hub (i.e. lax-bos-mia-msy-lax is totally cool).
Please correct me if I'm wrong about DL/NW; that would help me a lot next year.
[This message has been edited by moondog (edited Dec 31, 2003).]