that's the point of my thread. Many people posted over a long period of time including recently who have done so, but today the ICC says not. I am hoping other flyertalkers may be able to help me provide them evidence that will help them change their mind by providing some of the many successful previous examples of this.

Hang up and try again. Should be no problem. I booked it 4 times last week (GIG-IAD-Europe and Europe-EWR-EZE). one direction has stopover of 1 week. Charged as Z1-Z4.

It is a legal routing.

Remeber to book as 2 one-ways if you return from GRU/GIG - you'll save several hundred on YQ.

Yes, like I said, lots of people have done it. I can recall there have been such bookings this year.

excellent, good to know :D

this should be asked in the other thread too, but I wonder, to make such a stopover in the US does it have to be a simple, straightforward route?

i.e. GIG-IAD-LHR?

I found availability GIG-IAD-Florida (various airports), then RSW-PHL-MAN... but I wonder if that's acceptable :confused:

You can ask, but that will likely, almost definitely, be pushing your luck. That's a perfect example of take whatever award you can and buy a cheap US domestic revenue ticket to finish the routing.

fair point, thanks :D

update:

just called the ICC and was told that GIG-IAD-LHR (with a few days in washington) would be 25,000 miles in economy

My current reservation is in Business...so I'd have to cancel that, and hope the flight is still available when the miles are back in my account, hmmm

See now this all depends on where you are flying to. If its a destination in Europe served by TAM direct then you won't pull it through. Also try and avoid ZRH/FRA (all cities served directly by the LH group) I know you can't redeem on them anymore but DC use the *A timetable to check routings and ZRH/FRA will give show direct options from South America to Europe.

The trick here is to pick a European destination served by US carriers like UA and US and not served directly from South America. If you are looking at a zone4 to zone 1 then just give them flights one by one EZE-MCO-EWR-DUB. There is no way they can say no to that routing. Once you have booked it call back after a few hours and change it to EZE-MCO-EWR-then to any zone 1 destination you want.

That should work. Let me know how you get along.

how about open-jaw stopovers?

SFO-xIAH-BOS//PWM-EWR-MXP, for instance?

I doubt it. You are asking for 3 domestic flights on your way to MXP?

Surface sectors are OK but I'm not sure about this routing...it seems way too convoluted.

Hi all,

Trying to think how to use up my remaining miles and have come up with the following trip. It is a bit long-winded, but I think it should be valid. I just wonder if you guys think differently.

DUB - IST (Stopover) - PVG - SZX (Shenzen, China)

SZX - PVG (Stopover) - CPH - LHR - BHD

I am happy to pay the extra 7500 miles for the stopover in Istanbul as part of this.

Thanks,
Sean

No stopovers allowed in Europe, otherwise it should be fine.

The 7500 is not relevant as you're going to Z8, and as noted above you can't stop over in Z2 (IST). But what you could do is book this as three one-ways: a Z1-Z2 (DUB-IST) followed by Z2-Z8 (IST-SZX) and the return as a Z8-Z1 (SZX-BHD). Bizarrely, this actually saves you some miles on the outbound as well as getting round the restriction on the stop in Istanbul.

Your return routing is a bit fiddly but I've seen worse. Could depend on how the agent is feeling on the day - but it will be interesting to see if they're a bit more relaxed about multiple hops within Europe now that FRA and ZRH are effectively off the map.

Could one argue that IST isn't quite in Europe?