What stopover tickets have we personally booked?

Someone asked on the FAQ about what stopovers we have personally booked and flown. And in all honesty, some of it doesn’t apply anymore, but a lot of it is.

First, I’ll say that back in the day, British Airways allowed unlimited stopovers. In hindsight, I can’t believe that we didn’t book way more flights with this. Why even consider anything else? I guess the fuel surcharges, although we did find it worth it for a Cathay flight with stopovers which were responsible for our first trips to China and Bali.

But the best trip we booked with British Airways pre-Avios was Santiago – Easter Island – Lima – Miami – Houston for 20,000 miles! Isn’t that incredible? Understand that these days are long dead (died October 2011?), but it was awesome.

We did a week near Santiago, Chile, 4 days in Easter Island, and a month in Peru, and it was still only 20,000 miles.

This is why I love stopovers still, I was spoiled in the past.

The Pacific Hopper

In early 2012 I noticed that Oceania to Oceania was not only 12,500 miles on United’s award chart, it was impossible to book without routing through Asia and New Zealand if you were going from Micronesia to Polynesia. Specifically; Guam to Rarotonga.

I recall it being 40,000 miles each in business class and a ton of flying. Even on Air New Zealand’s lie flat beds, it was a lot. But here’s what we booked and then I’ll tell you what we did.

What we booked:

• Start in Guam
• spend a day in Singapore (17 hour layover)
• stopover in New Zealand for 2 weeks
• destination in Rarotonga, Cooke Islands for 2 weeks
• spend a night in Sydney (15 hour layover)
• layover in Tokyo (via BKK)
• End in Guam

But instead of actually returning to Guam we got off the plane in Tokyo. So on one 40,000 mile ticket, we were in lie-flat beds the entire way and saw: Guam, Singapore (layover), New Zealand, the Cooke Islands, Sydney (layover), and Tokyo.

To see the modern day version of this trip, see 4 Variations of the Pacific Hopper. Although I do know it has been booked recently (manual override).

More recently we’ve done two other United stopover trips.

Caribbean Hopper

The concept here was to take my United miles and stopover in a Caribbean island and destination in a Caribbean island. Although, oddly enough, you have to route through Panama to get from one island to the other.

But what we did, since we were on a shorter schedule this time, was pay 17,500 miles and forgo the stopover.

We booked a 23.5 hour layover in Aruba. Fortunately the flight was an hour early. By far the earliest I’ve seen a flight. So we ended up getting a full 24 hours in Aruba and our hotel was right next to the airport – the Renaissance Aruba. The hotel had a boat that picks you up in the hotel lobby and whisks you away to their private island, and at the time it was a category 4, so I could use my free night cert.

Then we had a 17.5 hour layover in Panama City.

Then we we hopped over to our destination, Puerto Rico. The oddest routing to Puerto Rico I know of… but it worked and it was only 17,500 United miles, the same as if we booked direct. We spent 5 nights in Puerto Rico before Southwest companion pass-ing it home for 8,000 points.

See the Complete Guide to the Caribbean Hopper with United Miles

The Latin Hopper

If you followed my $0 Trip to Latin America, then you know that the booking on this ticket was quite odd.

Imagine a round trip from Panama to Colombia; it would be 20,000 United miles. Okay, but now on the way back we’ll use our stopover in Costa Rica. Still 20,000 United miles. Okay, but now instead of returning to Panama, we return to Guatemala… and it’s still 20,000 United miles.

Again, our route was: Panama City – Cali, Colombia – San Jose, Costa Rica – Guatemala City.

This is all close together, but you could do the same thing starting in Mexico and going to Peru instead of Colombia. I call it the Latin Hopper.

Conclusion

Those are a few of the trips we’ve booked with miles, and while we’ve booked our last few and next few tickets with mistake fares (the one that got us to Europe was $142 total), I have some big stopover plans for 2015. Maybe soon if I can get it to ticket (so far no luck).

Now I know I’ve talked about all these things on here before, and have come up with other routes I’ve never personally taken. So I’m curious, what routes have YOU booked? Anyone booked anything they’re proud of, or feel like sharing? Brag it up, and inspire the newbies. 😀

Cheers,
Drew