Hey there, you're reading an outdated post! The updated series from April 2015 can be found here.

This is the second post in a monthlong series. Each post will take about two minutes to read and may include an action item that takes the reader another two minutes to complete.

I'm rebooting the Free First Class Next Month series. It will basically be the same content as before, but the posts will be enhanced, updated, and reordered to improve them. See directly below this post for post #1.

My dad uncovered my first loyalty card ever. I would guess this is from about 1993, but I'm not sure.

Type in your name and email address here for a 20% off code for you (and a companion if you like) on a Virgin America flight.

I love Avios. Avios have incredible uses like 4,500 Avios domestic trips within the US on American Airlines flights. Or how about combining an Avios award with an AA award to construct free stopovers outside the US on AA awards or to get almost free oneways to Hawaii.

But, I hate the surcharges that Avios awards entail. Surcharges of hundreds of dollars--in some cases more than $1,000--make Avios worthless to me for transatlantic and transpacific awards.

Luckily they don't charge surcharges on domestic awards on American Airlines.

Yesterday, I posted about getting free stopovers on American Airlines awards outside the USA. Hopefully I opened a few eyes, and I certainly caused some confusion. So I'll give a concrete example of getting a free stopover outside the USA on an AA award with screen shots.

This award will go from Los Angeles to Shanghai with a stopover in Tokyo.

There is a trick that can be used to get free stopovers outside the USA on American Airlines awards in certain situations, and I don't just mean 23 hour layovers. Most people probably think that's impossible, since one of the four rules all AA stopovers must comply with is:
1) Stopovers must occur at the North American International Gateway City.

Yesterday I talked about how to book awards with layovers of up to 23 hours to see even more cities en route than would be allowable with normal stopover rules. Is it a good idea?

I'll review two recent 23 hour layovers I had, which were actually eight hours in London and thirteen in Frankfurt.

London

In London, I had to fly into Gatwick and out of Heathrow to make sure I could get an en route stopover in Tampa on an AA award.

Update: The trick in this post doesn't work anymore since American Airlines has eliminated all free stopovers on awards as of April 2014.

Yesterday's post greatly expanded the number of places you can get a stopover on American Airlines award by combining an AA award with a cheap Avios award. I'm sure many of your minds jumped to the big question: if you can get a cheap stopover almost anywhere, can you get a cheap oneway too? Yes!

We got great value out of the almost free stopovers outlined yesterday.

A version of this post appeared today at hackmytrip.com. Thanks to that Scott for the opportunity to make a guest post. I invite my readers to check his stuff out.

Regular readers know that there are four rules to getting a free stopover on AA awards. The first one is:
1) Stopovers must occur at the North American International Gateway City. The North American International Gateway City is the last city in North America you fly out of on awards to other regions from North America. On awards from other regions to North America, the North American International Gateway City is the North American city in which you first arrive.

My brother and I had a trip to the Australian Open in mind and a cache of AA miles from the Citi card sign up bonanza. I had my flight to Australia booked (United Global First), but I knew the return would be tricky to book on my preferred flight, the direct Melbourne to Los Angeles flight on a Qantas A380.

Part of the problem was that January is peak travel time to and from Australia.