Any input welcome.
As you know, I do a fair amount of travel, but I've had the fuel stop
maybe once every four or five years tops. The airlines don't like them
any more than you do, but there are sometimes circumstances such
as described by the other posters require a change in plans. One
additional possibility regarding the choice of an intermediate
destination might be the direction of the wind currents. I'm not
sure how often a headwind would be more substantial going from
the east to SFO rather than to FAT, but one never knows. A quick
look indicates, though, that FAT is about 120 miles closer to JFK.