How and Why to Book Long Layovers

Now despite coming up with all kinds of crazy routes, I’m no Rapid Travel Chai. Partly for sustainability reasons as full time travelers, we like to stay in one place for a long time.

However, there are some cities that I only need 24 hours in. And there are great routes which would allow layovers in great cities. I’ll first talk about booking long layovers, and then go into picking cities perfect for layovers, and my strategies for hotels and baggage during a layover.

Booking The Layovers

Each airline has different routing rules and policies for layovers. But in general airlines allow layovers that are less than 24 hours on international tickets.

This means we were able to book a 23 hour layover in Aruba (not including the fact our flight coming in was super early).

In general, this is how I go about finding and booking a layover.

The Passive Layover Booking

The first and easiest way is just look at the natural connections during your award search. Usually the flights at the top are your shortest travel times and the flights at the bottom are the longest travel times. To look for long layovers, simply check out the award options at the bottom of the search results.

Again, these are sorted by total travel time, so flights with more connections could be at the bottom. But more connections and more flying isn’t what we want. We want longer time at our connections, with less of them. So look for the flight furthest down the list with only one connection.

As I’ll discuss, I don’t just take the longest route, I take the most desirable route. I personally don’t want a 13 hour layover in London, as I’ve already seen it and it’s not a short trip into town. But if there is a city I haven’t seen or would love to visit, that makes sense for a layover, I will favor that route.

Scrolling to the bottom on a few random examples, I found some possibly cool layover options.

8 hours in Vienna

Or Brussels for 10+ hours

 

 

While this first method might work for airlines that show most of their partners, like United and Aeroplan, it doesn’t often work with airlines that don’t show all their partners, like US Airways or AA.

 

The Not Passive Layover Booking

The other way to book a layover is to piece together the itinerary you want. This is pretty simple in theory.

1. Pick a city you would like to have a layover in
2. Find the arrival times for that city
3. Find outbound flights that depart less than 24 hours after arrival

For example, let’s just say I want to go to Istanbul, but on the way I’d like to visit Budapest, which isn’t a hub. I’ll be using United miles.

On an April 13th departure from Chicago, I’d land in Budapest on the 14th. Possible times are:

• 10:50 am
• 8:55 am
• 2:10 pm
• 6:10 pm
• 10:30 pm

Plenty of options getting to Budapest.

Now I’m going to check out flights from Budapest to Istanbul on April 15th. I found outbound flights at:

• 11:25 am
• 7:00 am
• 2:45 pm

Now there are so many options. I could fly in on 14th at 6:10 pm and fly out at 11:25 am or 2:45 pm the next day. Or I could fly in at 8:55 am on the 14th and fly out at 7:00 am the next day.

United gives a stopover and a destination, this layover counts as neither. So what I’ll do is book this layover in Budapest on the way to Turkey and then a stopover for a week in Paris on the return flight.

However, I’ll show what this looked like just booking a oneway with a layover.

The result:

Unfortunately, with most of these routes you’ll have to call in. With most airlines you have to call in, and if you were to make this a roundtrip with United and add a stopover too, you’ll likely have to call in.

 

Airlines whose routing rules allow long layovers

I know routes like this are very possible with many airlines. For exmaple:

• United miles
• US Airways miles
• Aeroplan miles
• AA miles

 

What you need to know about United and AA routes:

United has connection limits.

Going from North America to any of the following destinations will result in a limitation of connections (4 connections on roundtrips and 3 for one-ways): Australia, Oceania, Japan, SE Asia, North Asia, and Central Asia.  Otherwise these limitations don’t apply.

If you’d like to learn more, read the Complete Guide to United’s Routing Rules.

 

AA has MPM limits.

For the most part you just need to know the zone limits of AA’s routing rules. Read Hacking AA’s Routing Rules.

However, they also have a Maximum Permitted Mileage which only allows you to fly so many miles on the way to a route. Again, for the most part, the post above explains the routing limits properly. So it’s not as important to limit the number of connections as it is to remain in the same region and anything reasonable on the way.

If you look at the actual flight route, according to GCMap.com, on a flight from Chicago to Istanbul, you fly over Germany and Vienna.

Flight direct:

Flight with stops in Berlin and Vienna:

This is a stupid simple way of explaining this, but in general “on the way” layovers are allowed. If you want to find the limits of “on the way” you need to look up your route on expertflyer.com and, find the MPM, add 25% and then test routes on GCmap.com. But above is an example of assuming it’s allowed because it’s reasonably on the way. For the most part that’s all you need.

 

Pick cities for Layovers

I don’t think I would ever do a long layover in London. It would take an hour and 30 minutes just to get downtown on the subway. 3 hours of transit is too much. Kuala Lumpur is another city where the airport is absurdly far from downtown. Although if you’re willing to pay, both cities have faster direct trains (but I’m too cheap).

Examples of great cities for layovers:

• Singapore
• Hong Kong
• Panama City
• Amsterdam
• Prague
• Vienna

Singapore is actually the best example. The airport isn’t but 15 minutes from downtown, and taxis are reasonable. Close to town, cheap transport options, and multiple transport options.

Plus, I don’t really feel the need to spend a week in Singapore. Vienna, I could spend forever. But really, Singapore and Hong Kong area great examples of seeing the skyline. Panama City is another example where I go to see the old city and the skyline and I’m ready to move on.

 

Strategy: Hotels & Bags

Some people sleep on the plane and layover in a city for the day. I personally find this absolutely looney. I can’t sleep on a plane. And even so, I want to be well rested for my day in a city.

Thus, I typically try to make my layover fit so we spend the night in the city. This is both so I’m getting well rested so I can actually enjoy the city, and also because I need a place to put my bags. My first time in Singapore a few years ago we drug our bags everywhere and were completely exhausted by the experience, seeing as we just got off an international flight. We had from 6 am to 10 pm in Singapore and just spent the entire evening in the Singapore business class lounge (not a bad thing).

Just in terms of feeling well rested, getting a hotel for our next trip to Singapore was well worth it. I feel like we saw more and actually slept well.

In terms of luggage, I suppose there are many ways to go about a layover:

• Get a hotel
• Check your bags all the way through
• I once read about a guy who had a layover and asked a random 5-star hotel downtown to hold his luggage. I’m not sure if they thought he was staying there, but if not, it’s a very nice hotel. Although I’m sure a tip to the bell boy wouldn’t hurt.

Picking a hotel

This is normally a time where I justify splurging. I’ve said this a few times, but I love the view of Hong Kong, and the last two times we were there it was for something like 18-20 hours.

What would be the point of laying over in Hong Kong and getting a hotel far away from Hong Kong? I would hopefully have the energy after a flight to take the train downtown and see the view. But as it was, we stayed at the InterContinental Hong Kong, which has the best view of Hong Kong, period. I woke up and saw the Hong Kong skyline.

In my opinion you need a hotel downtown, or if you have a really early flight, a hotel near the airport, which is usually cheaper.

Getting a free hotel downtown for one night is usually pretty easy.

• You can use a free night cert from a credit card, like the annual cert from the IHG card, or Hyatt card.
• Use points. After all, it’s only one night.
• The new IHG Promo gives two free night certs.
• Hotel’s Best Rate Guarantee

I’ve written about in the past how I’ve gotten completely free nights at downtown hotels due to Best Rate Guarantees with IHG, Choice, Hilton and some booking sites. While this is normally a tedious task that only gets one night… in this case, 1 night is all you need.

I know that for our layover in Dusseldorf, Germany last year, the hotel prices downtown were insane. Or anywhere. But a couple days before our flight I checked back again and scored a BRG at the IC Dusseldorf.

(Oddly enough, the hotel still charged my card and I got a qualifying night that earned 22,000 points from the $350 stay. Then IHG mailed me a check that was $15+ more than my stay to adjust for foreign transaction fees, which I don’t pay on my credit cards. I made a few bucks and 22,000 points, and stayed in a luxury hotel with lounge access).

If you’re interested in more, read the Complete Guide to Hotel Best Rate Guarantees.

Places we’ve stayed on layovers:

I’d like to end with some pictures of our layovers. It’s more or less the “why” of layovers.

Hong Kong many times

Singapore

Panama City

Aruba (the Renaissance is right next to the airport and has a private island)

Sydney

Auckland

New York City

 

If you have any tips on layovers, perfect layover cities (like airports close to town), or especially any tips on what to do with your bags, please let me know.

Drew