madbrain wrote:2stepsbehind wrote:
That is Flyingblue. Airline programs vary. The current United program allows you one free stop over. Aeroplan (an amex transfer partner) allows you two. Hence the ability to get both a Paris trip and a Saigon trip on one award. Both sites can be buggy so as ResearchMed mentioned sometimes you have to call or hire those with experience booking these kinds of rewards.
Thanks, that is good to know. I don't have any Amex or Amex points. I will look into Aeroplan. It seems I would need to create an account to figure out what's possible. As I mentioned, I only want to fly nonstop, ie. I don't want to have 2 flights the same day. For stopovers, I want to actually stop more than a few hours
There are 2 nonstop flights for SFO-CDG - one on Air France, and one on United. And only 1 nonstop flight for CDG-SGN on Vietnam.
Would Aeroplan allow me to book these 2 nonstop flights together ?
Again, you can *phone* to "figure out what's possible", and you'll probably get a lot more information that way, too.
You don't need to have any points to ask about it.
Call a couple of airlines, especially those with different partners.
For example, we don't transfer points to some other program until we know there are flights that we want.
In some cases, they won't "hold" flights, but American will - including for their partners.
So with American, for flights on their partners, one can get a few days' hold while transferring points if necessary.
And yes, "stopovers" don't mean "change of plane". They mean stopovers, as in, get off the plane, spend some time locally (which is the point of a stopover, rather than just a "connection"), and eventually get back on and continue your trip.
Not all programs allow this, however.
It can indeed get rather complicated, but if you travel a lot, it would be very good to start asking the airlines' awards desks.
You've got some exciting travel in your future, so it's worth starting to check this all out.
(We are waaaay behind you in terms of getting a late start. Sure, we wish we had started learning all of this sooner, but at least we are doing it now. Sort of like "Pre-Bogleheads" investing.
)
RM
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