Originally Posted by
lhr baby
I can't guarantee this will work but the following solution might be plausible. The reason why they won't put you on the flight two days earlier is probably because anything more than 24 hours is a stopover and you are only usually allowed one stopover on a return redemption. You are already taking that between your SFO and Vegas flights. What routing are you taking back from Vegas? If you are flying direct Vegas to Chicago then you could get two separate tickets to and from SFO as one way redemptions. SFO-LAS_ORD-ZHR would in all liklihood be a valid route for the return leg and on one way redemptions you are allowed a stopover in each directon. You can then have a free stopover in ORD on the outward and Vegas on the return. If they reissue the ticket though there is a risk someone else takes the seats between then cancelling the return and reissuing them. PTS should be Plan A as already stated. This is only a back up plan!
On the return they fly LAS-IAD-FRA-MAN with a stopover in IAD.
I appreciate that they already have one stopover and bringing the Zurich-Chicago flights forward two days would mean a second stopover, it is afterall an involuntary one. They don't want to stop in Chicago for two nights - they're Northern - as it means an extra two nights hotels they have to fork out for, but it's a matter of needs must.
The agent wouldn't have known they were going to have a stopover in ORD as we didn;t actually get as far as him searching for seats or even listening to what I had to say. He was more interested in fobbing them off with a refund rather than actually helping.
And they have already prepaid hotels in San Francisco and Washington, so changing those dates isn't really an option.