There a few occasions where your desired destination might be cheaper if you turn your destination into a stopover on a longer route. It’s well known that you can sometimes make your Asia vacation route through Europe, but similar tricks might actually save you miles.
Here are some ideas of destinations that may already interest you, and can be booked as a stopover on the way to a cheaper zone. Look at the award chart to see if you can map out a route that includes a layover in your desired location on the way to a cheaper destination. A strategy for those who have more time than miles, perhaps.
UNITED
- US to Middle East/Central Asia via South East Asia.
- North America, Central American, South Asia, North Asia, Japan and Oceania to Australia & New Zealand via Oceania.
US Airways
- US – “South & Central Asia” via “South Pacific”, US Airways business/first. Saves 10,000 miles.
- North Asia to the Middle East via Europe. Could save 20k/60k/80k miles.
AMERICAN AIRLINES
AA is a bit more strict about stopovers but if you do find the option to route through a cheaper place, you can simply get out at a convenient layover.
AA’s award chart is tighter but here might be a few ideas for breaking it.
- US to “South America Zone 1” via “South America Zone 2”. On a few occasions you can route to Peru (for example) via Santiago. If you want to go to Santiago, try to find the days that AA or Lan doesn’t have a flight to a place like Lima and get routed through Santiago. You can’t create a layover, but you can simply get out (like I said above).
- US to the “Indian Subcontinental Middle East” zone is cheaper as two tickets during Europe off season. AA to “Indian Subcontinental Middle East” is 45,000 miles. In off season (Oct 15 – May 15) US to Europe is 20,000 and Europe to the Middle East is 20,000. A 10,000 discount isn’t a ton but it is essentially a way to create a stopover for a cheaper price.
The same concept can be applied to many routes. This is more a practice and an example of stretching your understanding of what your miles can do for you. If you have any more ideas (or Delta options) please send them along!
Whenever I look for US to Central Asia, I get it via Europe. How would the booking be done on United for US to Middle East/Central Asia via South East Asia?
A few ways to go about this, though this is perhaps a harder stopover to route.
There are really two options.
1) United partners with Star Alliance AND Qatar (hub in Doha) and Jet Airways (hub in Mumbai). So your stopovers are limited to these two locations. If you look at where they frequently fly to in Asia AND Europe and base your route off this info, you can create a stopover.
I just searched May 9 LHR – KUL and got a layover in DOH. So when you call insist that you want your first flight to LHR and create a layover. Actually, I then searched from IAH and saw the same route.
2) If you want to go to someplace that isn’t a hub you’ll have to leave from a European hub, (create a stopover), and fly into an Asian Hub.
The problem might be that there are plenty of flights between two hubs (both Lufthansa and Thai will have plenty of routes between FRA and BKK). They still might let you route through the Middle East Area if it is the only connection (or if you pick a day where all the direct flights are sold out).
Either way, the computer will either allow it or it won’t and its worth a call. My guess is that if you create a nice layover in Europe first it will go through despite seeing direct flights from IAD to DOH (though I could be wrong about that, if you see it – might as well try it).
I really hope this provides clarity and is helpful.
Thanks the comment.