Originally Posted by
MSPeconomist
Please be careful about terminology: in airline-speak DIRECT does not equal NONSTOP. In fact, you can think of a direct flight as being two or more segments (sometimes with an aircraft change) using the same flight number. The requirement for 72/144 hour TWOV is NONSTOP flights. Having a DIRECT flight or not is irrelevant; either a direct flight or a connection makes you ineligible for the 72/144 hour TWOV.
+1
You can even have a direct flight which involves two entirely different aircraft (eg. arrive at a hub on a 767 and then continue on a 737). Misuse of "direct" rather than "nonstop" is a pet peeve of mine as well, though it should be noted that nonstop is a subset of direct. In other words, a flight can be direct but not nonstop, however a flight cannot be nonstop but not direct.