What Is an Open Jaw Itinerary? When and How to Use Open Jaws
July 30, 2025
If you don’t know what an open-jaw itinerary is and haven’t booked flights this way, you’re not alone.
The simplest way to think about an open jaw is that it represents a gap without flights at some point in an itinerary. A common use is for two-way travel on an itinerary where the destination and/or the origin cities aren’t the same in both directions.
An example of an open-jaw itinerary with flights from Chicago (ORD) to Paris (CDG) and Madrid (MAD) to Chicago is depicted below.
Reader Question,AAdvantage,Routing Rules
Why Is My American Airlines Award Pricing 25k Miles Higher Than It Should?
March 16, 2014
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.
Best Of,AAdvantage,How to,Cathay Pacific,Award Booking
How to Get to Australia and New Zealand with American Airlines Miles Part 2
October 4, 2012
This is Part 2 of my two-part post on using AA miles to get to Australia and New Zealand. Read Part 1 first.
Here are a few more ways to get to Australia and New Zealand with American miles.
Air Tahiti Nui and Air Pacific: Connect in the Middle of Nowhere
One horribly annoying rule when redeeming AA miles is that your award cannot transit a region other than the origin region and destination region unless explicitly permitted.