Open jaw FF awards?
 

Which FF programs (if any) permit open jaw FF awards? I have miles with US, NW, CO, and DL. (Since this is not specific to one airline I am posting it here). I would like to do an open jaw ATL-SVO, PEK or CAN or HKG-ATL. Obviously, availability will be an issue, but is this even permitted in theory? If so, what are my chances of getting in practice?

CO allows it in theory and in practice.

DL allows it.

I've done open jaws on NW.

I just did large open jaw IND-SFO return BWI-IND on CO. Also have done IND-LGA return EWR-SFO on DL. UA and NW would not allow either of these (jaw too wide) while CO, AA and DL had no problem. UA and NW do allow some open jaws and I have done IND-SFO return LAS-IND. Do not know about US. Good luck.

I think most major airlines allow open-jawed FF awards. The general rule of thumb is that the distance between the two cities that make up the "open" part must be the shortest leg of the itinerary.
Also most airlines will allow you EITHER a stopover or an open jaw on the award.

While this is certainly the policy with DL and US, the creation of an open jaw ticket is solely with the agent's discretion. I flew one on US in 1995 that was DCA-GNV and then GNV to Seattle. That open part was pretty wide open!!

Then I have done some with DL where the open part is obviously the shortest part and had to have extended discussions to get it finalized.

My point. . . there are no computer program edits on this type of ticket.

no stopovers on CO/NW unless you use more miles. Have had one instance where CO allowed the "jaw" to be longer than another leg, but the exception.

I had some AS miles, and only TW would allow stopovers. Nogo on AA, CO or NW

Had one last year in ams on the way back from mad.
From nw site using wp miles. http://www.nwa.com/asia/en/freqfly/travel/index.shtml

US allows open jaws. But they don't fly to any of the places you've mentioned other tha ATL. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

UA allows "legal" open jaws on FF award tickets. Legal is defined as the unflown portion must be shorter than either of the flown portions.

Just double-checked with NW about their policy (since some of the posts had made me nervous about a trip I was planning)
In the continental 49 states stopovers are not permitted, while open jaws are.
Hawaii and outside of US, open jaws OR stopeovers are permitted (not both).

But their partners do... they use Northwest as a partner to Asia and several airlines to Europe. Unfortunately, NW is not a partner to Europe so an open jaw using US miles would have to be on, say, Swiss Air to SVO and then on NW coming back from Asia. Is that possible?

Most of my miles are on US and NW, so it would be nice if I could do this using one of them or their partners.

By the way, does an open jaw to Europe returning from Asia take the average of the number of miles each of those destinations would cost if r/t? I.e. on NW an off-peak coach ticket to Europe is 40,000 and to Asia is 50,000. Would the trip I am proposing then cost 45,000?

AA does allow stopovers on award tickets. At least, I always have been able to book them this way.

I recently did BOS-EYW
1 week stopover
EYW-SFO
1 month (destination city)
SFO-BOS

That was using a 40K domestic F award.

Last fall I flew to CDG on a DL RT award ticket; but the day before I was to return I was in BRU. I asked DL if I could fly back from there rather than taking the train back to CDG. They said "fine" and reissued the ticket without any penalty.

CO Awards, except for Series 0 (48 US/Canada/Alaska) awards allow both:

"Open Jaw: One allowed on all Continental rewards listed above (excluding YPass and AllPass rewards).

Stopover: One free stopover allowed along the most direct route on all Continental rewards listed above (excluding Series 0 [travel within or between the 48 contiguous U.S., Alaska and Canada] Off-Peak and Standard rewards, and all YPass and AllPass rewards)."

http://onepass.continental.com/irewa...htm#restricted

Most recent award tickets used:
US Envoy class: Tampa(via Charlotte)to CDG
LGW (via Philly) to Tampa

NWA F class: Tampa (via MSP) to HNL
But they would not allow me to
go on to OGG from HNL.
HNL to SFO,4 day stop-over)
SFO (via MSP) to Tampa
I guess it all depend on the schedule.
Mike


[This message has been edited by MIKESILV (edited 06-13-2001).]

When using DL miles to obtain a UA ticket, no open jaw or stopover is permitted. When using UA miles to obtain a UA ticket, open jaw is permitted; don't know about stopover.

DL and AA absolutely allow a stopover.

CO recently denied me a stopover in CLE.

When using US Airways miles you can open jaw US Airways flights (as mentioned above by MIKESILV and the TPA-CDG, LGW-TPA open jaw) and you can also (for just another two months) book an open jaw using a combo of AA and US miles (I was recently trying to get to AMS or BRU from DCA and the US Airways Intl. Award desk had proposed an AA flight to BRU and a US flight out of AMS). Open jaw - two airlines. Unfortunately, the rest of US Airways partners have to be booked as single airline itineraries. Swissair, for example, is a US partner but you can't book a US flight to Europe and then return on a SR flight - it's all Swissair metal or nothing. Same for using US miles for an award on NW (Asia routes) - all NW or nothing.

Hmm, idomoneus, sounds like you are planning a trans-siberian trip http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif If you do, be sure to stop in mongolia! also, the chinese train is much more comfortable than the russian train (there is a very small shower, as in almost no water pressure, in the first class compartments -- shared between four people/two compartments). you can buy tickets once you are in Moscow but summer is peak season and you may not be able to choose your dates that easily (also I can't say that the ticket sellers are all that friendly), so paying a premium for someone to buy your ticket is certainly worth it if your time is short (moonsky (sp?) travel in HKG seems to be pretty good and I've read about a lot of folks using the Russia Experience out of London). however, if you do stop in mongolia, you will probably end up taking the daily mongolian train to beijing -- and all i can remember from that train ride is stopping at the border at midnight and fighting off the mosquitoes that were in killer attack mode... still, I would go back to Mongolia in a heartbeat.

For my trip a few years back, I used DL miles for a partner award on AF. The two open jaw segments were JFK-St Petersburg and Istanbul-JFK. I ended up junking the return (very sad, since it was a waste of 40K miles and now I have no DL miles left) as it would have cost me as much money to fly from where I was at the time (Mumbai) to IST as it would have to fly straight home on British Airways (but in coach http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif but I did get the 7K-ish flight miles credited to my BA/AA accounts). Also, before I decided to buy a new ticket, I had a major problem changing the travel times on the award ticket since I had to go through DL (and there were no DL offices where I was traveling) -- this is definitely one downside of using partner awards and something to consider if you travel dates are ever in flux.

Going back to your question, perhaps you can get a AF award with your DL miles. Or see if you can use your NW/CO miles for a ATL-SVO on KLM (not sure if that is a codeshared route) and then a return from PEK, PVG or HKG on NW. Since the distance between your non-flown segment is lower than the flown segments, you should be able to do the open jaw if the award permits such a thing.

If you have never been to China, I would definitely recommend taking some time to see both PEK and PVG-Shanghai. Crossing/Flying/Training into (and flying out of) HKG will increase your travel costs by $500-$1000 (depending on the number of days you decide to stay there and the quality of the hotel). Going to CAN would be a waste of time, and besides no one flies there. I have another possible routing that you could consider if you had BA/AA miles, but you can email me if interested. It would take you back via Almaty, Kazakstan. It wouldn't necessarily be cost effective but it would be a great adventure that would take you across Russia as well as China.

I took an open jaw reward trip last year on AA from EWR-AUA, SXM-EWR. I was told that it was permitted so as long as both ends of the open jaw were in the same "zone." Because both places were in the Caribbean, which are in the same reward group, it was permitted. I was also going to CCS on that trip, but because South America is a different "zone" I could not have one end of the jaw there and another in the Caribbean. I had to purchase flights on ALM from AUA-CCS-SXM. Most airlines awards allow either an open jaw or a stopover, but not both.

Just booked a FF ticket on UA today with a stopover in MHT, hardly a UA hub - have to dogleg into and out of ORD, but no question about doing it.

Bruce

On an UA award I did PDX-MCO / DCA-PDX about three years ago. But obviously the MCO-DCA jaw was shorter than either of the two legs.

However, it occurs to me than since neither leg is a non-stop how is it determine what constitutes the least shortest leg?