Originally Posted by
kilo
Unless I have missed your point, I would have thought this was 'basic' knowledge - but it might be helpful to some.
This.
OP, thank you for the helpful contribution! However, to ensure that nobody gets confused, this
is a very basic fact about award redemptions -- for all airlines. The OP is basically observing that award tickets (just like purchased tix) do not need to be nonstop -- e.g., you can fly ORD-EWR-LHR rather than being limited to ORD-LHR nonstop.
This is fairly obvious to those of us who live in non-hub cities and are used to flying routes like FAI-DEN-IAD-CDG-VIE to get places. However, flyers who are lucky enough to live in a hub and get more or less everywhere nonstop may indeed find it useful. I suspect most FTers have moved on to more complicated challenges like trying to maximize the number of 23-hour layovers on a four-partner double-open-jaw to Asia with stopover in Europe.
One observation that may be useful to those who appreciated the original post is that routing rules on award tix are often
much looser, in terms of connecting cities, than those on paid fares. For example, the routing that I mentioned above (to VIE via CDG) is not generally legal on paid fares, because CDG is not a hub. But for an award routing, you can connect (and have a stopover!) almost anywhere as long as it doesn't involve backtracking.