Award Travel Experts...please
 

What major US carriers allow one way award travel? Does it extend to their partners or only on that particular carriers metal?

If you booked one way to a foreign country, while in that country could you book an award that originated in a foreign country to return?

If you found an airline that didn't offer ow award, but their partner did, whose rules apply? Is possible that you could get away with utilizing less skypesos by using one of their partners instead?


Be gentle with me please. I have a few miles in various accounts and don't know how the reward travel works very well.

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AA and UA/CO permit one-way redemptions on their flights and on partner-carrier flights. DL and US do not permit one-way redemptions on their flights or on partner-carrier flights. (Technicallly, DL permits one-way redemptions, but charges the full roundtrip award mileage for them.) Not sure what AS' policy is on one-way redemptions. The rules of the program whose miles you are redeeming govern, so even if one of US' partners allows one-way redemptions out of its frequent-flyer program, if you are redeeming US miles, you can only book a roundtrip award.

You can use AA or UA/CO miles from any country served by them or their partners. So, for example, you might use UA/CO miles to fly one way from North America to Europe, and AA miles to fly back from Europe to North America.

Be aware that some foreign country require proof of onward travel (i.e., an onward plane, train, or bus ticket) as a condition of permitting a foreigner to enter the country.

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That last sentence should read, "some foreign countries."

Also, if using AA miles for a one-way international award, do not overlook the North America "gateway stopover" option to maximize value of your miles.

what are the tickets that you want?...you can book on line while anywhere....

some immigration folks want you to have a departure ticket to enter, iirc...

Follow up question: Do AA or/or UA allow a foreign stopover on a one way international award?

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No. UA only offers them on its roundtrip awards.

AA does not offer roundtrip awards, and does not permit foreign stopovers on its one-way awards.

AS allows one-way awards on their metal.

With regards to DL and one-way awards, if you are looking for a one-way business class award, you can tack on a false coach return for the price of (business+coach)/2 rather than the full business price- so 80K one-way transatlantic in business instead of 100K.

Huh?

All AA/All-Partner awards are one-ways, a "round trip" is actually just two one-ways.

AS even allow en-route stop-over for one-way awards.

Nope. I booked a one-way award with US DM last month, albeit at the full round trip price. All legs on a *A partner. I didn't book a dummy return since I didn't want to pay airport taxes.

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OK. I thought that only DL allowed that, but I stand corrected.

I think required RT was a rule before, but they must have realized that people were booking dummy returns (which are tough to police) and that it was costing them, especially when they were booked on partners.

Fantastic! You folks are awesome. So...it appears AA and UA are better options and perhaps even AS. In theory, one could book a one-way award (not using RT miles) on UA to go to say Thailand or Germany, and not knowing how long they want to stay or if they want to travel elsewhere by land, could use a totally different airline AA to book an award home.

I wasn't sure if when trying to book the award, which I gather would be on the airlines website that it would accept a beginning location outside of the US.

Thanks so much. I really appreciate your help. Hope to return in kind.

Natalie