as i said in my post, i have had by far the greatest success with this on delta/sabena/swissair. since the majority of my travel has been to europe, with atlantic excellence providing hubs in at least five cities, it was fairly easy to take advantage of this loophole. i usually did this out of bru, as zrh usually had more limited flighttimes. it worked really well because traveling out of ny, dl/sn/sr had up to three flights through the european hubs, so i could easily take an 11pm flight, arrive around 12 the next afternoon, connect to somewhere else arriving at 3 or 4, and leave at 2 the next day(+2). this could also be done on the earlier flights, but leaving anywhere usually before 7am is a big hassle, especially if you arrived the day before!! i have also had success with this on nw/klm flights stopping over in ams, and some bizarre combo flights on aa/ba (some routes to scandinavia as well as spain price under one universal fare code with an obvious changeover in lhr) however, i think this can easily be done on any european airline. i used to have the advantage of booking the dl/sn itineraries on easysabre, but that is no more. (bye bye atlantic excellence ). if you do this now, you must make sure all flights are on the same airline(as opposed to code share flights/alliance partners). last year, i made a stopover in hannover, germany for the atp tennis championships, and then flew back to bru and onto prg for $4 more than just going straight to prague. this year, coming back from greece via bru, i visited friends in fra overnight, and then back through bru for $30 less than just going straight home.

and your are right about the status element, it's amazing how many additional segment you can pick up this way. i used this so much last fall, i couldn't even entertain doing delta's match and more this year.

in terms of the in the us, american has offered me the greatest opportunity for this. i have taken their flights from europe into ord, and then been able to take a flight back to nyc the next day within 24 hrs. this can also work sometimes with bos or mia(flights to spain). also to south america, this works through mia or dfw, and i'm sure it works to asia through any of those gateways. depending on the market, you may even do this with other carriers. my nyc-eze-scl-eze-nyc itinerary had aa flights from the us but lan chile one way and aerolineas argentina the other way for the same as a regular round trip to scl($550 at the time).

however, i've never been able to stick in another domestic round trip in the middle without it being calculated as an additional trip. that's when the 4 hr rule kicks in. i think most airlines allow you the hub stopover particularly if they don't have an appropriate routing from your home city. for example, ua never lets me do this to europe through ord, but would let me do this through iad. (i guess that's why i don't fly them; iad is NOWHERE near dc). i think this can also work in canada or mexico. but the key thing is play around on a booking program unless you definitely want to stop in a airline's hub city. then you can call the airline direct and book it.

have fun getting two(ehh, maybe 1 1/2) trips for the price of one.


[This message has been edited by lonman (edited 11-30-1999).]