Avoiding Egypt
Hi all. I currently have a problem (aka an opportunity?). My wife and I are currently in Thailand, in the middle of a United roundtrip award (economy). Our outbound leg was USA to Nepal, with no stopovers. Our booked return leg is Bangkok to Cairo, with a stopover in Cairo, then Cairo-->Toronto-->Denver. We're supposed to fly to Cairo in about a week ... though with the U.S. evacuating personnel from Egypt, that no longer seems reasonable. So I looked into alternate ways home (Bangkok to Denver), with a fun stopover, and found a stopover in Tokyo. I called United to book it (they agreed to waive the change fee, even though they don't currently have a travel advisory to Egypt ... huh?), but was told that changing the routing to go through Tokyo would make it a round-the-world itinerary and cost much more in miles (and she couldn't even figure out how much more). Does this sound correct? She said that we'd have to fly back through "Europe", and could take a stopover there. (Cairo, then, counts as "Europe"? She couldn't elucidate.) Does this sound correct? I suppose my overall question is, should I try again to go through everything with a different agent (she *did* sound fairly knowledgable), or is this correct and I should hunt for a fun stopover in Europe (continental Europe?)? Thanks very much, if anyone reading here knows the United subtleties so well.