Over the weekend I was looking to book tickets for the upcoming holidays (Within Europe). We are fairly late booking for the summer so I figured these stopover awards would be a good way to book into business for roughly the same price as paid economy would have been (assuming 1 cent per mile). Had found all flights at 25K per segment, and verified that the minimum price between start and final destination point is 25K as well.

First call: Asking for ATH-AMS AMS-KRK. Was told that backtracking is not allowed, she priced it at 50K. She also tried ATH-AMS-LON and that priced at 37K. So..I guess that was on me (Even though ATH-AMS-KRK is for sale as a regular award at 25K, so one could argue that this is a 'natural' stopover point for AFKL). Shifting gears and changing Krakov for Valencia and Barcelona instead.

Second call: Asking for ATH-AMS AMS-VLC and BCN-AMS AMS-ATH. Multiple times on hold to talk to the expert/supervisor on duty, after about an hour of this I was asked if they could call back. Eventually ATH-AMS AMS-VLC was successfully booked at 25K (Z fare). However BCN-AMS AMS-ATH was priced at 37K (O fare). I mentioned that each segment is still available at 25K however at that point the agent clearly was no longer motivated and call was ended.

Third call: Asking for BCN-AMS AMS-ATH. Explaining to the agent (as per the wiki on this thread) that these stopovers sometimes may be tricky to price correctly, and that manual mode may be helpful. Was told that with 18 years of experience at Flying Blue there was no need to tell him how to do his job. Allright then. He then priced it at 37K rather than the expected 25K. Explanation was that this is not a limitation of availability (all segments in O, individual segments at 25K) but rather that these stopovers at lowest fares don't apply to BCN specifically. Ended call and gave up for the weekend.

Fourth call: It is now Monday. Agent isn't aware of stopovers for awards, insists it has to be a roundtrip, and when I mention that I was able to book a one-way with stopover a few days ago she comes back with 50K (Just the two legs priced separately). Asked about manual mode and she confirms that's what she used. Ended call.

Fifth call: Agent asks about the route and proceeds to price the exact same BCN flights (and same fare/booking class code) at the expected 25K. And he did so in under a minute. Lightning fast, with the expected results. Rest of the tickets issued, itineraries linked, seats selected, all done. Total of 100K miles (Plus taxes) for effectively 8 European flights in business. Quite a good deal.

So that was quite a thing, taking a substantial amount of time for both me and these FB agents, and multiple times I was thinking to give up on this completely. However if you insist it is in fact still possible, it is just that there seem to be at least 3 ways to price these (In my case coming out to 50K, 37K and 25K) - and the majority of agents, even the more experienced ones, do not know how to apply the correct method to get to that lowest price point. One agent mentioned that their supervisor/escalation resource had not gotten a request for a stopover booking in over 6 months.