Hi All,

My first post here, have been reading for years now and have already picked up tons of useful info. If this isn't the right forum, apologies...

I'm looking at a part-MR, part pleasure trip taking advantage of two transcon hops. As I'm based in DUB, CO and UA have good fares to most US airports. Likewise, they have good fares from US airports to NRT.

I can get a reasonable fare in S on CO's own site, for DUB-IAH-DUB and IAH-NRT-IAH. I'll want a few days in IAH, but would rather them all on the one end, rather than a two days on the way out and two on the return, giving me a buffer if things get delayed.

If I price this as a 3-stop (or even 4-stop, with a 1 day layover on return) then CO's booking engine will only give full fare Y, which is expensive.

Would a travel agent be able to get me the S fare on both? From what I can see, nesting in this way is not backtracking, so should be ok with CO... but advice would be appreciated, as the 20k+ miles (without any routing tricks yet!) I'd rather not lose.

Also, while I'm not new to the FF game it will be my first time with US carriers - posting to either BD or OZ. I take it nobody's ever had any problems here - S gives 100% credit on both according to their websites...

Thanks!