Originally Posted by
blvestergaard
If we did not care about the stopovers we could have saved at least 400$ per ticket by flying over New York, Detroit or Atlanta... But because we had only one stop in Frankfurt we decided to take this flight.
This is exactly why the airlines market "direct" flights: It makes their connecting flights appear to be better than they really are. Sorry that you got caught by this deceptive (yet legal) practice.
Nevertheless, I hope you enjoy your trip, and welcome to FlyerTalk!