Maximizing Openjaws and Stopovers on award travel was always an area that confused me, I got the premise, but couldn’t believe that airlines would be so generous in their routing rules. What they have created is a way to make every single award trip you make a trip and a half, and I found a loophole already that means is you take the trip and half option – you pay less miles.
Award Tickets alone offer fantastic opportunities for travelling without spending money on tickets. Sometimes this means you can add another trip or two per year, and sometimes it means you get to sit in Business or First Class when normally the prices would be prohibitive.
The same is true of all things, to save the most you have to earn as much as you can, and spend as little as you can, which is why I write about travel hacking along with personal finance, they are the same beast. Yesterday I found a new travel hack that I want to share with you; it’s a fantastic little thing that simply blew me away when I tried out the concept, and it worked. (many of my hairbrained schemes are great ideas but blow up in my face)
The Basics of Maximizing Openjaws and Stopovers on award travel
Certain Airline Frequent Flyer Programs allow Stopovers and Openjaws for award travel. Notable ones for me are United and American Airlines. You have to book a roundtrip journey to qualify for this, but once you do, you get an amazing opportunity for value.
I needed to book a flight to Rome from NYC, and after a lot of struggling found a routing as follows:
- NYC-Zurich-Milan (Outbound changing planes in Zurich for 1hr)
- Rome-NYC (Return nonstop)
This basic itinerary above is how you use an Openjaw in your reservation, it allows us to travel down to Rome for our 4 night stay, and return from Rome rather than go back up to Milan for our flight home. Doing this saves us a 3-6hr journey and is a no brainer. The price of this ticket is 60K UA miles, 30K each way in Saver Economy.
However I had heard that I could then perhaps bolt on another leg after I return to NYC, even though my trip has officially ended; I could pretend I was going back to somewhere else, like San Francisco, or New Orleans. Furthermore I could use the Stopover rule to stay in New York for several months before I took the flight onwards.
This is exciting stuff – basically what you have here is half of your next trip booked for free, I get the outbound ticket paid included in the cost of my regular trip to Europe.
I wasn’t sure about the rules for United, so I asked on Flyertalk about the limitations and TheMilesProfessor kindly helped by explaining that I didn’t have to take the 3rd leg inside the same zone as I started in. United would calculate instead on Europe to the zone I was travelling to. An example she used was Rio de Janeiro. Since that was in United’s Southern South America Zone, travelling from Europe would cost 47.5K Miles in Saver Economy, rather than the 30K between Europe and North America.
Travel must be completed within one year
Also, the United Terms and Conditions simply stated that all travel must be completed within 1 year of the first leg. Since we are heading to Italy from June 5th-June 11th that means I can book my onward leg from NYC any time up until June 11th 2014. A free ticket one way anywhere until 2014… that’s travel hacking. We racked our brains thinking of where to go, and in the end decided upon Panama City. There were tons of flights there so we could pick a date we liked, and the city looks like a great way to spend a long weekend. Here is our reservation:
Panama City is in the Central America Zone for United, so using their interactive Chart we can see that the ticket from Europe will cost me 32.5K miles (2.5K more than coming back to NYC). So I am paying a slight extra amount here, but think a one way flight to Panama for 2.5K United Miles is unbelievable value.
If we had decided on SFO or LAX and taken a trip to Napa or something instead, the cost would have remained at 30K for the return leg, but we felt like Panama would be fun. Then, my brain started ticking….
If Central and South America cost a little more miles… are there any locations that might cost less?
Paying LESS miles for adding an extra flight in the future by maximizing openjaws and stopovers on award travel.
Scrolling through the interactive maps on United for award prices I found something very interesting indeed. For reasons unknown to humankind… A Saver Award from Europe to the Caribbean is less than it is to North America. They are priced at 27,500 miles.
What that meant, theoretically… is that I could fly:
- NYC-Zurich-Milan (Outbound changing planes in Zurich for 1hr)
- Rome-NYC (Return nonstop
For a cost of 60,000 UA Miles
However, by Maximizing Openjaws and Stopovers on Award Travel I could fly
- NYC-Zurich-Milan (Outbound changing planes in Zurich for 1hr)
- Rome-NYC (Return nonstop)
- NYC- Caribbean
For a cost of 57,500 Miles
That’s right, I do the same itinerary and then get a free one way ticket to the Caribbean at any time up to 1 year from my last trip, and United charges me LESS MILEAGE for it.
Blown. Away. Not only do I get a free trip to the Bahamas, a credit of 2500 miles for taking it, I also get a 9hr layover in Toronto too, so I can spend the day in that city enjoying the sights: then head down for some time in the Sun. I can’t think of better value.
I bet there are many more things like this that offer loopholes for even cheaper travel.
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