We just got an interesting comment on Bill's great recent post about Booking Etihad Business Class Using American Miles.

MojoMama is trying to go from Los Angeles (LAX) to the Maldives (MLE) in First Class.

The United States to the Maldives should be 90k miles each way in First Class according to American Airlines' chart. But she's getting charged 115k miles:

Trying to book LAX-JFK(stopover)-AUH-MLE in first for August, but it’s pricing at 115,000 miles. Being told AUH-MLE is separate award because it’s not in the same region, which I know is false.

US Airways and American Airlines have merged since the publication of this post so it is no longer valid.

US Airways has some incredible deals on its award chart. I've talked about off peak awards, South America deals, and intra-South Asia before.

Yesterday I talked about some great sweet spots on the US Airways chart for awards originating in South America. Maybe you thought that post was irrelevant for Americans.

But Americans can still get half the value of these sweet-spot awards by using open jaw itineraries.

US Airways sweet-spot awards can have tremendous value for Americans if they're employed as part of something I'll call a triangle award.

A triangle award is using three or more oneway itineraries to create a journey that includes two or more destinations.

When I say that United awards can have one stopover and two open jaws, it elicits a lot of confusion. Some people don't know what an open jaw is while others can handle one conceptually, but not two open jaws. Hopefully I can clear it up.

A roundtrip United award is made up of two oneway segments.

An open jaw happens when the origin of one of those two oneways does not match up with the destination of the other.

For example, consider a roundtrip United award with the two oneway segments LAX -> JFK and JFK -> LAX.