If you’re looking to maximize your hard-earned airline miles by booking trips to multiple cities, or even countries, United MileagePlus is one of the best programs to do just that. The program allows for a longer stop in a city on the way to your destination, dubbed the Excursionist Perk, which lets passengers book a free one-way flight within a round-trip. Essentially, you can book three flights for the price of two if you do it correctly. A stop can be as short as 24 hours and as long as the calendar allows you to book.

When United recently overhauled its award ticket rules this past summer many saw it as a massive devaluation. United had relatively friendly award routing rules that allowed one stopover and two open jaws on roundtrip award tickets.Those rules are gone now though and have been replaced by the “Excursionist Perk,” which is essentially a free segment on an international itinerary. It comes with new rules. We bring you workarounds. Read on.

The dust has settled from United Airlines’ new award booking rules which went into effect on October 6. While the news was worse than originally thought, there are some tricks that allow for creative award routings. In United’s zeal to create a mechanical computer-dependent system, it seems they did not program in enough rules to prevent travelers from hopping around the globe with complex itineraries that provide tons of value for MileagePlus members.