How to Book Multiple Long Layovers with United Miles

How did I use 17,500 United miles to see two Caribbean Islands and Panama? Better yet  -how can you route to see 3 or more places with 17,500 United Miles? This is a post on how to use oneway awards to create 20 hour layovers in multiple hotspots at no extra cost.

Slightly more back story. It’s our anniversary coming up and I wanted to burn the remaining miles from a left over stash of United miles. But I only had 18,000 each – barely enough for the two of us to get a oneway to a Caribbean island. Then it dawned on me, we could burn those miles to Puerto Rico and use up the rest of my Southwest miles to get back (now that they opened up a new Baltimore to San Juan route (was it AirTran’s?)).

But the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to go to Aruba or Central America. So why not both?

Ya know how I also say you can book the craziest stopovers with United? Like routes that aren’t even close to on the way? Same same with layovers. And as long as they aren’t more than 24 hours, it doesn’t cost any extra. In this case I saw a stop in Aruba that was only 23 hours long. Enough to go to a hotel’s private island, snorkel and enjoy the beach. Then I noticed I could do nearly the same thing with other places like St. Maarten and Trinidad and Tobago.

To find routes that have a less than 24 hour turn around, you may just have to continually search oneways. After you’ve pieced together a route, try it out in the multi destination award search.

You’ll just have to play around and click through and see if it gives the price you want.

Next, Panama City is an area hub and has many options for long layovers. For as much time as we’ve spent in the PTY Airport, it seemed fitting to get out this time and spend 17.5 hours exploring the area. Then we continue on to San Juan.

There are other options but these are the three we narrowed it down to, due to the desire to make it a purely points adventure. We can burn either our Hyatt Category 4 certs, Marriott category 5 cert, or tap into the stash of Radisson points and there are many Radisson options on many of the routes we looked at.

We could have stopped in Houston for 18 hours as well to see my parents, but it wouldn’t work for the dates we wanted, and we quickly ruled out the option after being unimpressed by pictures of Trinidad. C’mon, the Beach Boys didn’t even bother to mention Trinidad, but I guess Port of Spain wouldn’t have fit as well lyrically.

So we could have gotten 18 hours in Houston but were picky with dates. So this is the itinerary we ended up with:

• 20 – 23 hours in Aruba, St. Maarten, Trinidad, etc…
• 17 hours in Panama City
• As long as we want to Puerto Rico

That instead of straight to Puerto Rico for the same cost. We’ll be using Southwest points to get back home.

But the best part? No extra cost. Plus, I was able to work in some other stops but I won’t go into to much detail as I don’t want to kill this.

The Kelly Blue Book value says these miles would be worth 7 cents a piece. But truthfully, this is a little fast paced for me and a little too much economy, but they’re at least short hauls. Still, it’s nice to be in one place for like 4 days. And I would have been happier if my first night was in Houston rather than DC (which is a two hour drive from our place anyways).

Now I can’t explain everything it allows you to route though, as sometimes it lets you back track and sometimes it doesn’t. These routes seem to work and others might not. But this same concept can be added on to a roundtrip which then allows stopovers. Aruba could have been my stopover, or perhaps I could add another destination as a stopover, making it an even crazier trip routing like this both ways and staying longer in a second destination as well.

This is just the same concept as always. Use the multi destination tool to book whatever trip you have in mind. Of course I was flexible with my destination and had to compromise a little. The end result is seeing some great beaches… Well I assume their great.

I mentioned in a post earlier, that this year I wanted to see more of the Caribbean and this is a chance to do just that. But again, this could be applied to other routes. I just found out my cousin is moving to the Toronto area so it would be nice to create a 23 stop there to visit. What the routes above show is that it doesn’t have to be on the way. Wherever it is, you may be able to book it as a layover at no extra cost and still saving your stopover if it’s a roundtrip ticket. Of course, it has to be a destination you want to see in 24 hours. Hong Kong in 24 hours? Sure. Bali? No way.

So any guesses as to which hotel where staying at? Also, if you have any suggestions on Panama City in 17 hours, please let me know. Jungle? Snorkel? Stay in the City? No clue…