You know all about one-way flights and round-trip flights, and nonstop flights and connecting flights, but do you know what a stopover flight is?
That's when you're flying through a connecting airport and get off the plane for a day or two or more and then continue on to your final destination.
In addition to the obvious visit-two-cities-for-the-price-of-one aspect, stopovers let you recover from a long flight by breaking it into two shorter ones.
Even better, some airlines not only let you stopover for free: they even include free hotel stays and other perks.
Years ago, a stopover would cost much more than it does today, unless it was involuntary, like the two days I spent in Ireland, in a cheap hotel with an assigned roommate, when my London-to-Boston flight landed in Shannon because of weather. (This was a long time ago, when bad weather, I guess, was harder for airlines to manage.)
Passengers traveling on frequent-flier award tickets can also schedule a stopover without forfeiting extra miles or points, on many airlines. British Airways doesn't have a stopover program per se, but you can rest your wings in London, in both directions if you want, if flying on an award without paying additional Avios points.
And even if an airline doesn't have a formal stopover program they might sell a stopover fare for much less than buying a separate onward round-trip used to cost. I recently saw a $721 round-trip fare from Los Angeles to Bangkok on EVA Airways, while a three-day stopover in Taipei with an onward journey to Bangkok on the same dates was priced at $954 round-trip. It's possible you can get a free or cheap stopover on other airlines as well, depending on your type of fare and desired length of stay so check with your airline.
Here's what's on offer:
