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US Airways and American Airlines have merged since the publication of this post so it is no longer valid.
The punctuation in this post’s title is different than in previous posts on the subject of tacking free oneways onto awards. In the last week, I’ve shown how to add free oneways to your United, Delta, and American awards. The process and generosity of the free oneways has varied, but all three of the other legacy airlines allowed some form of a free oneway to be tacked on to their awards.
As you’ll recall, we add a free oneway by combining an open jaw and a stopover. Example:
EWR-LHR
LHR-EWR
EWR-LAX <— free oneway
The free oneway from Newark to Los Angeles at the end is the product of a stopover in Newark, this flyer’s home airport, and an open jaw–the award begins in Newark but ends in Los Angeles. Both are necessary for a free oneway at a later date.
US Airways awards allow one stopover or one open jaw. We need one stopover and one open jaw to construct a free oneway, so according to the rules of the US Airways program, free oneways are impossible.
That should be the end of the story, but from my experience with my Award Booking Service, I know that US Airways representatives are among the most incompetent in the industry. Generally if you’re polite, and you have already researched flights to find availability, they are happy to route you however you ask.
I knew I would have to call up to attempt to book a free oneway on US Airways since at usairways.com, you can only search and book roundtrips with no open jaws or stopovers. I also knew that US Airways only allows stopovers at Star Alliance hubs. Here is a list of Star Alliance hubs in North America:
US Airways- Charlotte, Philadelphia, Phoenix
United- Chicago-O’Hare, Cleveland, Denver, Houston-Intercontinental, Los Angeles, Newark, San Francisco, Washington-Dulles
Air Canada- Calgary, Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver
If you don’t live in one of those cities, you can’t have a stopover on a US Air award at your home airport, so you can’t use a free oneway on US Air awards from your home airport.
With all this in mind, I set about to see if US Airways would let me add a free oneway to its awards. The first experiment was a roundtrip Philadelphia to Rome with a free oneway Philadelphia to Honolulu added to the end. I found low level coach award space on all flights and called US Airways at 800-622-1015.
I’ll try to recount what I said verbatim in case you want to do something similar. When the computer voice asked for the details of my award trip, I said one passenger PHL to FCO (Rome) on the dates of the Rome flights, March 26 and April 3. When the agent answered, I said, “Hi, I want to book the award on your screen in coach; I have the flights in mind.” She found availability on the dates, commenting, “Wow, this was easy.”
I replied. “I searched for availability in advance to make it easier. We’re almost done. I just want to add two more flights. On April 10, United flight 345 from PHL to ORD at 7:30 AM.” She found it. “And I want to add United flight 300 at 10:05 AM from ORD to HNL.” She found that.
“Great thanks so much. How many miles and dollars is this award?” She informed me that it was 60,000 miles and $104 including US Airways’ $50 fee for awards to Europe. It had priced with a free oneway, which means I had been allowed a stopover and an open jaw on the same itinerary. Here’s what it looked like at usairways.com when I looked up the confirmation code she gave me:
As you can see, the award is properly reserved with a roundtrip from Philly to Rome, followed by a later oneway to Honolulu. Unfortunately the website was not showing the price, but the agent was going to charge me 60,000 Dividend Miles and $104.
What’s the takeaway from this reservation? It’s not definitive proof that it is possible to get an agent to book a free oneway, since I did not ticket the reservation, and perhaps she would have noticed that my routing had both an open jaw and a stopover.
But I think it shows that many agents will allow a free oneway via allowing both a stopover and an open jaw. To increase your chances of that, I think it’s important to be polite, to have already found the award space you want to book, and not to use terms like stopover and open jaw that might remind the agent to check the routing rules. Just say things like, “Great, now I’d like to add US Air flight 123 on day XYZ.”
Maybe my first try was a fluke, so I tried again. This time I tested a United hub, Los Angeles, on a flight to Asia. I had the same results. I was able to reserve Los Angeles to Tokyo (Narita), Tokyo to Los Angeles, then Los Angeles to Tampa (free oneway) at a later date. The agent informed me the itinerary cost 60,000 miles and $107. Again the free oneway was allowed.
I’ve highlighted the unknown cabin. Maybe usairways.com doesn’t know, but I do know that X is United’s code for a coach award. Again the price didn’t display online, but the price the agent quoted meant that LA to Tampa was a free oneway.
After my second successful attempt, I retired from attempting to book free oneways on US Air awards a perfect two for two. I don’t want to knowingly break the rules, so I won’t book any free oneways on US Air awards for myself or the clients of my award booking service.
But if you want to book a free oneway on a US Air award, and you live at a Star Alliance hub, it certainly seems possible given the right agent. And both agents with whom I talked were the right agent. I guess it’s phone-agent roulette except that you can respin the wheel by hanging up, so you can’t lose.
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I noticed on both attempt the “extra” leg are following an on going direction.
Would it work for LAX NRT, NRT LAX, LAX HNL?
You see LAX HNL is heading “back”
You would only know by asking the “right” agent, and using a masterful but subtle approach to the request. But, it will ALWAYS be a game of roulette. From experience, be careful not to argue with the agent, since they can and will put notes into your record. I had to cancel (let expire) an award I was trying to do once because I chose to press my point. Better to hang up and call back, than argue.
Can this be done in domestic awards. I am from bos and want to go to clt, bos-clt is there any way to
Add free oneway to any destination
“Stopovers are not permitted when travel is within one award region or for multi-city travel.” from http://www.usairways.com/en-us/dividendmiles/programdetails/memberguide.html
Awards completely within the domestic US are all in the same region, so no stopovers (or free oneways) are possible.
I agree with D. Any free oneways is against the rules, so we don’t know whether any particular one will work until we actually get on the phone and try. I’d say that that attempt might raise more red flags if they know any geography they’d see the backtrack and might think harder about whether it’s a legal award.
D is definitely right that you should not argue. Just be polite if they say no because they might note that you’re trying to put one over on the airline. Instead say, “Thanks for your help.” Hang up, and call back.
Anything is possible when talking about US Airways award tickets routing and rules
Any comment on adding free one-ways onto the off-peak awards involving europe/S.america? thanks
Like all free oneways on US Air, they technically shouldn’t be allowed. But if you call up, follow my suggestions in the post for the best results. Remember that they’ll only let you stopover at hubs.
Thanks. And just to clarify, you search for united availability on united.com and this can be booked using usairways miles by phone?
Exactly, when I book a US Air award, I do the availability searches on united.com because of its superior usability and partner availability info. I note the dates and flight numbers, and I call US Air to book with US Air miles.
If your want your free one-way to originate in a US/Canada location the start of your trip, you can book a flight that ends in that same location and just not take it. For example, I have a free oneway from EWR to YQB (Quebec City) from United. I want fly back from YQB, then go on vacation in South Africa a couple of months later. I’ll book an itinerary that starts and ends in YQB, with a stopover in EWR, and I’ll just ignore the last leg (in lower case):
YQB-EWR//EWR-JNB/JNB-EWR/ewr-yqb
(Disclaimer: I haven’t done this yet, it’s part of my summer 2013 plans)
It’s not as glamorous as Hawaii, but you won’t waste miles by booking a leg at the end you won’t use. There’s a lot of small small cities in North America that are lovely but super expensive to get to. The EWR-YQB flight is only an hour and a half from New York, but tickets consistently cost $500 or more. Same thing for other locations on my bucket list (Savannah, Charleston, Flagstaff…)
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