Two stopovers on one award? Is it possible?
 

Is there any FF award that allows two stopovers?

Example: MCI-LAX-(stopover)-HNL-(stopover)-HKG-MCI.

This would also be acceptable: MCI-LAX-(stopover)-HKG-HNL-(stopover)-MCI. (Simple plane-change connections omitted.)

The main objective is to avoid unnecessary connections needed to complete the requirements of a two-award itinerary. If I save a few miles, that would be a bonus too.

American Airlines Advantage awards for travel on Cathay Pacific allow stopovers at the North American gateway (Los Angeles), BOTH ways... they also allow stopovers in Hong Kong to most onward destinations BOTH ways.

The answer is affirmative. Many FF programs I know offer 2 or more stopovers in addition to the point of turnaround. AA offers 2 stopovers on joint awards with BA, QF and CX that I know of but not on partner awards within the same continent (e.g. no stopover for QF travel within Australia). Air Canada offers 2 stopovers + destination between North America and Asia, Australia or the Middle East. Cathay Pacific awards allow two stopovers + destination on any round-trip as well. BA and partner joint awards allow 2 stopovers + destination. There are many others... LH on certain award levels, Oneworld awards and etc.

Northwest Worldperks is offering 2 stopover domestic awards for 37.5K starting next program year (March 1, 2003)

This is only a domestic aweard feayure and I haven't heard much about if they would do this with an Intl award ticket.

Good luck!

I have done this on UA's international awards using a little known feature called a "forced stopover".

So when I flew from xxx-HKG, I flew late enough into SFO to miss the daily SFO-HKG departure by one hour. This left 23 hours in SFO until the next UA flight to HKG.

On the way back, I had 3 days scheduled in SFO. This was my ACTUAL stopover.

UA allows EITHER one stopover or one open jaw. But you can actually add a "free" forced stopover.

Note that the hotel, transit, nd meal costs on the forced stopover must be covered by the pax.

This is called a 'layover' not stopover since it's less than 24 hours.

roberto99, How did you go about to have the agent ticked a 'forced stopover' for you? Was the agent just being nice or that was indeed a 'legal' itinerary?

Most travel agents I know will do this for you, and you can do it for yourself by calling reservations, which will mainly want to make sure you know the airline won't pay for your hotel. I don't think many consumer online res systems can do such a booking, but someone may know better.

It's entirely legit.

Edited to add: I just discovered an airline called "Air Vladivostok" which provides the only service from Vladivostok to Niigata, Japan, and flies just on Thursday and Sunday. Suppose you arrived in Vladivostok on Sunday night after they left, bound for Niigata, could you stay until Thursday without it being a "stopover"? Mostly hypothetical, just curious if any guru knows.

[This message has been edited by RichardInSF (edited 12-20-2002).]

That would really upset business travelers to be stuck in a city from Sunday to Thursday because of limited service.

Good Luck!

[This message has been edited by Radiocycle (edited 12-21-2002).]

two stopovers on award tickets no problem with the Qualiflyer program (swiss et al).

Wait a minute..I thought we were only allowed one stopover >24hrs, not counting the destination.

Concerto, every year, again and again, I book successfully my mother in law (living in Mallorca) over the holidays on swiss (before Swissair) on a Qualiflyer business-class-ticket for 25'000 miles: business-class because of the Lounges comfort, the free green SBB luggage tags (for luggage sent directly to Wengen) and the higher luggage allowance: XMAS-presents for us ...:

dec-6-2002:
LX PMI (Palma di Mallorca)-ZRH-VIE for her regualr annual 'theatre holidays' in Vienna

dec-20-2002:
LX VIE-ZRH, holidays with us at our home away from home in Wengen
http://www.wengen.ch

jan-3-2003
LX ZRH-PMI

I agree, that it is in fact only one stopover (Zürich) plus the regular point of return (Vienna). But that is also the case in the opening (questioning) post here, isn't it?

Yes, indeed. That's excellent that your mother-in-law can benefit from your hard-earned miles. My mother similarly gets free tickets to Hong Kong to see family.

CX would be perfect because AA is where my miles are and LAX is a gateway to a HKG nonstop. The key question is whether they'd consider HNL part of a valid routing and allow me to do a stopover there (i.e., HKG-HNL on CX, HNL-MCI a few days later on AA).

I believe the correct term is "forced overnight." It essentially counts as a connection or layover.

I just did a "forced overnight" of 23 hours, 55 minutes in HNL on UA miles. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

AA OneWorld awards allow unlimited stopovers + one open-jaw but require use of >=2 non-AA airlines. AFAIK, CX doesn't fly to HNL. Best I could see is to fly HKG-Vancouver/CX & backtrackingly connect to YVR-HNL/QF. If you spend <24 hours in Vancouver, it will price as if HKG-HNL were nonstop.
Also check if any OW airline flies Japan-HNL nonstop.

------------------
Play the travel game 3 vacations into the future!

[This message has been edited by Brendan (edited 12-21-2002).]

JAL flies NRT-HNL. They actually have a good award from HNL to HKG via NRT. That's what I will probably do if I can't get this booked as one award: a JAL award in biz + an AA or UA award NA-to-Hawaii in coach. Total cost of 105K per person with the stopovers I need - but - I spend an extra day getting home HKG-NRT-HNL-West Coast-ORD-MCI instead of something smoother.

Why not try to book a 90K biz award from LAX to HKG on AA/JL, using HNL as your gateway city on the outbound and LAX on the return?

[This message has been edited by mileagerunner (edited 12-21-2002).]

That sounds like it would work.

Good suggestion!

I'm afraid that won't work.

JL won't permit it unless you claim 2 separate awards. JL divides its route areas into "zones" for the purpose of award tickets with AA. Hawaii is in a different "zone" than continental US, therefore you can't count it as the "gateway".

An oneWorld award would make it worse, because CX and QF are the only oneWorld partners in Asia and neither of them fly HNL-HKG.

[This message has been edited by Plato90s (edited 12-21-2002).]