Originally Posted by
xliioper
The difference here is that revenue fares on SFO-OGG permit connections of up to 6 hours before creating a stopover (see stopover section from fare rules below), while award fares do not. Only a standard domestic 4 hour connection is allowed on award fares before creating a stopover and the award fares do not permit stopovers (revenue fares on this route have a stopover allowance for a fee as shown below) . Thus the 4hr 35m connection exceeds what is allowed for award fares. You can use multi-city search to book an award with those flights, but it will cost significantly more miles since it will be a broken fare (separate award fares for SFO-LAX and LAX-OGG segments) rather than a single through fare.
This is not the only thing that can be different between revenue fares and award fares on a route. Sometimes award fares can have different routing allowances than revenue fares and you may see routings available for award redemptions that are not available for purchase with a revenue fare (or the reverse).
STOPOVERS
2 STOPOVERS PERMITTED ON THE PRICING UNIT - 1 IN EACH DIRECTION IN CONTIGUOUS U.S.A. AT USD 60.00 EACH. INFANT IS FREE. NO STOPOVER OCCURS IF PASSENGER TAKES NEXT AVAILABLE FLIGHT WITHIN 6 HOURS. NOTE - TO QUALIFY THE STOPOVER CITY MUST BE ON THE APPLICABLE FARE ROUTING AND - 2 STOPOVERS PERMITTED ON THE PRICING UNIT - 1 IN EACH DIRECTION IN HAWAII AT USD 80.00 EACH. INFANT IS FREE. NO STOPOVER OCCURS IF PASSENGER TAKES NEXT AVAILABLE FLIGHT WITHIN 6 HOURS. NOTE - TO QUALIFY THE STOPOVER CITY MUST BE ON THE APPLICABLE FARE ROUTING
The next available flight within six hours language surprises me in that I'm used to seeing within 4/24 hours or next available flight as a requirement, although not all airlines make the next available exception to the normal 4/24 hour limits for connections. The fare rules would seem to require a tight but legal connection if there's some other available connection that doesn't exceed six hours if I'm reading this correctly. OTOH is is next available within six hours an exception to the normal four hour rule that could be part of the CoC and thus apply to all through fares?