BenSenise

I think I may have a method to achieve what I'm looking for but thought I would run it by the collective wisdom of this forum to check my reasoning. It's not massively complicated but not a simple return ticket.

there have been other posts here regarding booking a one-way now and then adding the return to the ticket in order to take advantage of the stopover benefit on the return but the posts that i have found are many years old. So I'm not sure if the recent and upcoming changes to aeroplan would have an impact.

my wife and I would like to travel together from Canada to S Africa next year. there are tickets available at the very end of the booking window (beginning sept.)

then, two or three weeks later, we would like to stop in europe to visit her family. the complication is that I would stay a week or so while she would stay a month or so. because, you know, inlaws.

this means that i would fly back to canada on my own and so would she at a later date.

in order to avoid the potential complications of adding a return with a stopover to an existing booking, i was thinking of waiting a few days hoping the outbounds are still available and booking a dummy return with the correct cities but the dates being immediately after our arrival in S Africa.
Then, as soon as the calendars are loaded for our returns, change our tickets, first mine as per above, then hers.

i'm thinking that this is somewhat of an "insurance" to ensure that we get our outbound tickets.

i'm also assuming that changing the dates on two parts of an award ticket, i.e. S Africa to Europe -> stopover -> Europe to Canada, will not incur two change fees as it still one ticket.

if anyone sees any holes or flaws in my reasoning, i would be grateful for your opinions.