Hi, sorry if someone has asked this question before, but if so, I guess I missed it. Here's the itinerary I'm playing with for an A or DONE5: DCA-JFK-SCL-IPC-SCL//GRU-xMIA-xEWR//JFK-HKG-BKK//DPS-NRT-LHR-IST-LHR-MRU-JNB//NBO-xLHR-JFK.

This is a somewhat convoluted itinerary because I want to force a 20-hour layover in NY between the South America portion of the trip and the Asian portion of the trip, and EWR is somewhat more convenient for me to arrive at. Putting to the side for the moment whether it even makes sense to include South America on this itinerary /*/, I have a rules question: Does the transit without stopover rule for North America (as well as the related rule for re-entering the U.S.) permit this? "This" being (1) multiple transits without stopovers (i.e., transits for < 24 hours) in North America en-route to Asia, and (2) an airport change where I'd be catching my connectng flight to Asia from JFK less than 24 hours after landing at EWR? I could come up with theoretical arguments on either side, but haven't found an answer in the rules.

/*/ As for the other question, which maybe is the more relevant question for me, although it probably won't advance the state of knowledge on this board, including South America and arranging things so that I can stop by NY en-route to Asia seems just a massive headache, since I basically have to come up with a dummy start city (here, DCA) so that I don't violate the rule about crossing my point of origin, plus I'm limited to returning to NY for only 22 hours at most. So, I may just try to figure out how to do the South America piece as some sort of awards ticket (although I'm not quite sure which one at this point, or what I'd do with the remaining segments on the *DONE4 ticket). Anyway, that's an issue for some other day...

Until recently it used to be quite possible but alas, AA now rejects multiple segment transits without stopover.

IPC on an award is tricky, because Easter Island, for the purpose of the AA partner award, is not in South America. The workaround is the oneworld award but that one has its own problems, as you probably know.

Oh, that's too bad. It's kind of annoying that all ambiguities in the rules now get resolved against the customer. Thanks for the response.

I am not so sure that it is not possible...Have you checked with the One World Desk directly ? There are also some specialty companies that deal in these like 1stAir.net

best of luck

The nice person from the AA desk is supposed to call me back on this. We both acknowledged that the rules don't expressly prohibit it, but I'm not sure how far that logic gets me...

As suspected by Viajero, the AA desk person called me back (after speaking with "the OneWorld liaison"), and said, no--you only get one transit without stopover in North America.

It has been reported twice already here recently so it was a little more than just suspected.