Originally Posted by
FrequentFlyer9000
Thanks. That is interesting because now I completely do not understand The PointsGuy's sample itinerary in a post related to the one you quoted from his blog. See
here.
He mentions he could have hypothetically done this itinerary:
JFK – Paris (stop), Paris – Madrid (destination), Barcelona – Paris – Montreal (22 hours in Montreal), Montreal – JFK.
My read on it:
JFK - Paris - Madrid makes perfect sense. I am sure CDG is a published connection from JFK to Madrid on SkyTeam. The open jaw between Madrid and Barcelona is also fine. Here is where it stops making sense, and it is possible TPG made an honest mistake:
Barcelona - Paris - Montreal - JFK does not make sense. From Barcelona to JFK, I can see CDG being a published connection, but
not both CDG and Montreal. I could not find that route, and it doesn't make sense regardless.
So how did he add Montreal as a layover if the same rules apply to stopovers and layovers? Thanks.
P.S. Did not see your post edit adding the Oslo point until now, but believe me, this is a general question. I'm not longer worrying about Oslo, as that was a lost cause. I do not think there are any SkyTeam awards that use Oslo as a connection between City A and Zagreb, so the point is moot in that specific case.
I think the more accepted terms are stopover and connection. Montreal is a connecting city because it is <24 hours. You don't always have to use a logical (to you or me) routing. Thus YUL works in his case.
I know domestically someone did something like BOS-DCA (stopover)-DTW-IND in one direction and that was OK too even though DCA is not a hub, etc.
Specific cities is key in trying to figure out rules. A/B/C/D just doesn't cut it. Yesterday I booked an award ticket MSP-SEA-JNU (destination)-SIT (stopover)-SEA-MSP. I had to use the non stop SIT-SEA flight on the return in order for this to work for 25K miles. I also had to be sure my connection in SEA on the outbound was <4 hours which was a trick. The connection I saw online and asked on the phone to book came back with an error. The later SEA-JNU flight increased the mileage since the SEA layover was >4 hours. After a talk with online support, and after they "long sold" the AS flight, it all worked out.