I'm just wondering what people know about creative ways to use open jaws on award tix.

As a simple example, say you're flying IAD-Europe. On the return, you could presumably fly Europe-LAS through IAD, thus getting a free trip from IAD to LAS.

However, some things occur to me. First, it's not that useful unless a stopover is allowed. Otherwise, you have to take your two trips back-to-back. Second even if a stopover is allowed, if you are not actually departing from IAD (or some other gateway for that matter), the usefulness is limited. Say you are flying RDU-OTP (the actual usual routing in my case), it might have limited usefulness if you were routing through CLT, or would actually be useful if you were taking the one overseas flight from RDU, basically flying RDU-OTP, then returning OTP-LHR-RDU (stop) - LAS.

So I'm just tapping into the collective wisdom and infinite creativity of FTers and wondering what ideas they have. FWIW, I have miles on all three alliances.

Not sure if it's exactly what you're looking for, but the MileValue blog has excellent posts on taking advantage of stopovers and open jaws to get a free one way. There's posts on doing it for American, United, US Airways, and Delta.

http://milevalue.com/category/free-oneway/

The possibilities differ greatly by program. I second the suggestion to go to milevalue and check all the work he's done on this issue.

We're using AA miles to go Cathay Pacific JFK-HKG-BKK. Wanted to stop at HKG on the return but no stopovers outside the US are possible so we booked BKK-HKG on Avios and HKG-JFK on AA. Flight home is January 30th.

Have a trip to Palm Springs in May. Got AA to book me First Class EWR to LAX as a continuation of the HKG-JFK one way, making JFK a three+ month stayover! Never would have thought of it but for places like FT. Saved the two of us 50,000 miles!