This is great because it gives you a lot of options. For example, you can book a one-way ticket to

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This is great because it gives you a lot of options.  For example, you can book a one-way ticket to Rome using American Airlines miles, but book a return one-way ticket using United hotels miami or Continental miles.
For example, say I am traveling from Chicago (origin) to Barcelona (destination) and decide to break my journey in London (stopover) for 3 days.  In this case, I have made a stopover in London and my flights would be like this: Chicago (origin) London (stop) Barcelona (destination).
Or I am traveling from Kansas City (origin) to London (destination), but decide to break my journey in New York (stop over) for 5 days.  In this case, I have made a stopover in New York and flights would be like this: Kansas City (origin) New York (stop) London (destination).
American Airlines also has different rules for stopovers when using their Oneworld awards.  But this post focuses only on the stopover rules for the more common American Airlines All Airline Award chart.
This means that if you are flying from Detroit to Tampa, you can t stop for a few days in Chicago (stopover) on 1 award ticket.  You d have to book Detroit to Chicago as 1 award and another award from Chicago to Tampa if you wanted to stopover in Chicago.
hotels miami There is an exception if the only flight to your destination (Tampa) is more than 4 hours away (say you arrived in Chicago late at night and the next flight to Tampa is the next day), you can take that flight, the next day, and still be charged for only 1 award.
I CAN T have a stopover in London, because London is NOT a North American Gateway city. Technically, you can have a layover hotels miami in London of not more than 24 hours. Anything longer than 24 hours will be priced as 2 separate awards.
1.  Book 3 one-way awards.  Say you want to go from San Fransisco to London, stop for a few days in London and then fly back to San Fransisco from Berlin.  You ll have to book 3 separate one-way awards:
You would book a 1-way award ticket from the Dallas to London.  Next you would buy a cheap plane or train ticket hotels miami from London to Barcelona.  And finally you would book a one-way award ticket from Barcelona back to the Dallas.
hotels miami 3.  Consider a Oneworld award.   Oneworld awards are distance based , but allow you to have up to 16 segments and have many stopovers.  But check to make sure that you re not paying more miles (especially if you only have 1 or 2 stopovers planned).
American Airlines flights: If ALL your flights are on an American Airlines operated flight,  you can book the stopover award at AA.com by using the multi-city option.  We ll cover this in a future post.
But, if you want to use a oneworld partner or other airline partner (which open up lots more options) for one or more segments on your award, you will have to call American Airlines and tell them that you want to book an award from your origin to destination with a North American gateway stopover.
I compiled a list of North American gateway cities at the end of the post for American Airlines their Oneworld and other partners.   I also included the partner airlines flights so that you see just how many more options you have when you consider hotels miami partner airlines when trying to book award tickets.
I expect there to be errors in the list below so please comment and let me know of changes.  And please let me know if this information existed elsewhere so that I can bang my head on the desk for all the hours I spent squinting hotels miami at route maps!
For example, you can t fly from Seattle to Mexico City, have a stopover in Mexico City and then fly to London.  But you could fly from Seattle to almost any other continental US or Canadian city, say Washington, DC, have a stopover there, hotels miami and then fly to London.
We ll cover how to check the maximum permitted mileage (MPM) which American lets you exceed by 25%, routing rules, and how to add a free stopover to your flight if you re lucky to live in a gateway city in a future post.
1) Plan Stopovers.   If you want to stopover in Denver en route to say Europe, you can use the list to see that you would have to fly on British Airways from Denver to London.  British Airways charges fuel surcharges (~$350 per segment) so this doesn t make sense in coach.
Booking award tickets is like a puzzle, but the most important pieces are the international flight segments (sometimes referred to as over water segments).  The list below gives you a good idea of your options when departing from the US.
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I have booked a roundtrip award ticket from FRA to CLT for the holidays. I am now aware that I can have a free one way ticket segment with this. Could I modify this reservation and do FRA to LHR or LHR to FRA to use at a later date?
@Krys - With American Airlines miles, you can only stop over at the North American Gateway city, so you couldn t stop over in London. I suspect you re using United or US miles for the trip above. If so, you can have a stopover in London. You d have to call to change the reservation. Also see MileValue for more information.
Hi Darius, just found this great post on aa award travel booking. I was playing around with the aa award booking service online and found that some gateway cities don t seen to count as stopovers for some reason and i need to book 2 1 way tickets. I was trying EWR to SFO to TYO stopping hotels miami at SFO for a few days. The only option for this seem to be 2 1 way tickets. One from ewr to sfo and another from sfo to tyo. However when i tried EWR to LAX to TYO, it counted lax as a stopover. Do you happen to know if there is a reason why?
Is it safe to assume that since Aer Lingus is no longer part of One World that the only way to get from North America to Dublin or Shannon via an award ticket would be by using American Airlines to London and then British Airways for the last leg to complete the award ticket?
Great tips. Is there any drawback to making award reservations one segment at a time in order to have a better chance of getting the flights I want on AA? (The 331 days ahead of flight) For example, book ORD-HKG separately from HKG-SYD etc.. I know it would be different record locators but other than that? I fear if I booked all at once, the early flight First Class availability would be gone.
@Bob I. I usually hotels miami do that for long distance flights to lock in availability. The only drawback is that you d pay an extra change fee, but AA lets you cancel a 2nd or more bookings for only $25 after paying the 1st $150 change fee.
Quick question. Whats the best way to search for partner availability. For instances I m interested in finding a jet airways hotels miami flight from toronto to Brussels, but it doesn t show up on aa s search engine. Should I use expert flyer or another online search or call AA directly?
Hi, I live in LA and was hoping to do a trip to both Hawaii and Europe hotels miami next year, although as separate trips, while taking advantage of a “stopover”. I’ve managed hotels miami to find availability on HNL-LAX-BCN-LAX-HNL on AA in coach for only 40k miles, but was wondering if I can now change the dates of the first and last legs so that I end up with a LAX-BCN-LAX flight and then a LAX-HNL-LAX. Will AA let me change the dates and the orders of the flight after booking them? Thanks for the help!
@stu simon - Welcome! You used to be able to get 2 Citi American Airlines cards for 50K miles each, but now you can only get 1 of them. But you may be able to get another 30K American Airlines miles with the GOLD MasterCard.
I m looking to book a flight to Japan next March. I was hoping to do LAX-NRT-LAX-HNL with a free one-way to Hawaii later in Summer hotels miami 2014. I can book the Tokyo flight now, but since HNL will be later in summer and is more than 11 months out, what options do I have? Thanks!
I m interested in booking hotels miami a long stopover at JFK on a SJU-JFK-LHR flight. I can get the miles amount I want. But I noticed I can t mix fare classes. As in, I can t book Business from SJU-JFK, and economy from JFK-LHR without the flight turning to two independent segments.
I am a bit hazey on how this works. I am planning to go from Dallas to London and then from Paris to Dallas in March. Is there a way to work in Hawaii before hotels miami or after the Europe trip? And if so, would it be worth it to do Business or First Class since it would be like getting 2 trips for the price of 1?
We will be using AA miles to fly ORD-HKG-MNL. It requires 50K AA miles total: 35k ORD-HKG AND 15k HKG-MNL. We will be staying in HKG for 3 days. My question is on the HKG-MNL leg: instead of using 15k AA miles, am I better off using 7500 Avios points plus $43.28? Please advise.
Hey, Darius! I had a quick question. My family is heading to Athens in Nov., for a cruise. I’m trying to get the most out of our miles! One thought I had was for our return flight, purchase a ticket that looked like this ATH to AUS (homebase) first week of Dec. and then AUS to HNL in January 2014. When I do a multi-city award search, hotels miami I get no availability hotels miami (but I do get that awesome statement that we can use AUS as a free stopover!). When I search hotels miami separately (ATH to AUS) and then (AUS to HNL), there is availability. Should I just call AA and have them put it together for me?
Also, still trying to figure out our outbound. Any cool suggestions? Business class, stopovers, which partner airlines to fly? Need to get three tickets and have about 100k on AA and 55k on US Air and 12.5k on Alaskan. Would love your help!!!
Anjum You can only do the free stopover in the international gateway city with American Airlines i.e. the 1st place you leave or enter Nor