Something Fishy is Going on with Delta Stopovers

Update 11/17/14: To book a stopover on an international award, you need to call Delta because the functionality has been removed from the website. I speculate that starting 1/1/15, Delta awards will not allow stopovers.

One Mile at a Time reports that Delta has stealthily eliminated stopovers on awards.

That's not quite correct, but something very fishy is going on. Here's how I know it is not true.

Above is a roundtrip award from Washington DC to Los Angeles. On the outbound, there is a one week stopover in Minneapolis.

How to Use Delta Miles to Book an Open Jaw Across Regions

Delta allows one open jaw per roundtrip award that you can use to see more cities on a single award and to unlock free one ways.

A simple, valid open jaw routing on Delta. The open jaw is between Amsterdam and Paris.

Delta allows an open jaw to straddle two regions, so that your outbound can go to Bangkok in Southeast Asia and your return can start from Sydney, Australia.

Unlimited Free Stopovers on British Airways Awards, But No Free Oneways

You get unlimited stopovers on awards booked with British Airways Avios

But you can't get any free oneways on awards booked with British Airways Avios.

Huh? How can that be?

For some people, those concepts are hard to untangle, so let me state the concepts as clearly as possible.

A free stopover is the absence of a flight. It is being in a place. Let's use yesterday's Anatomy of an Award as an example.