List Of Airline Miles Stopover Rules

I first posted a “list of stopover rules” 6 or 7 years ago, and recently realized how out of date the list was (it included US Airways).

Today I’m posting an updated list, but below I also include more details from the terms and conditions.

(Note that this is completely different that the List of Round The World Tickets with Miles, and ANA is the only RTW ticket I’ll include).

The other thing I try to do in this updated list of stopover and open-jaw rules, is to only source my information directly from the airline programs (or my own testing/research).

I realized when I first made the list and suddenly found the post elsewhere, one blog even copied and pasted directly from my chart. And I’ve long noticed how quickly bad information can spread on blogs this way, and therefore I only use sourced information.

This means, 1) All my summaries below have links to find more detailed info on the site, and 2) it means I leave off some details. This means I end up leaving out details – like JAL, Asia Miles, and Asiana, it didn’t say whether or not it is roundtrip or oneway.

So, hopefully it’s now the best list of stopover rules.

 

The List of Airline Stopover & Open-Jaw Rules (with Miles)

Airline	Stopover	Open-Jaws	Requirement
United	1 free flight	unlimited	Roundtrip
AeroPlan	2 stopovers on intercontinental flights	Trade a stopover for an open-jaw	Roundtrip
Alaska	1 stopover		Oneway
ANA	1 or 8 stopovers (depending on award chart)	2 or 4 open-jaws (depending on the award chart)	Roundtrip
JAL	7 stopovers	Trade 1 stopover for 1 open-jaw	?
Asia Miles	5 stopovers (on OneWorld awards)	2 open-jaws	?
Asiana	7 stopovers (on Star Alliance awards)
Singapore	1 free stopover (can buy up to 3 additional for $100 each)		Roundtrip
EVA	2 stopovers	1 open-jaw	Roundtrip
Korean	1 stopover	1 open-jaw	Roundtrip

 

United Miles Stopover Rules

There are few airlines with more confusing stopover rules than United, and it’s something I personally have spent a lot of time researching and writing about.

Read: Guide to United Stopover Tricks.

The short version is that you get 1 free flight within a single region.

 

To give a very brief set of basic rules mentioned in my guide on United stopovers:

• Free flight has to be within a single region.
• Unlimited open-jaws
• To get a free flight, your very first and very last city on the reservation have to be in the same region.
• The free flight must be in a different region than the region of origin.

 

Alaska Miles Stopover Rules

This is a program that does not publish stopover rules in their terms and conditions (which I find odd).

But luckily, this is a program I have a lot of experience with.

Check out these Alaska Miles posts:

• Finding The Best Alaska Miles Stopovers
• 11 Best Stopovers with Alaska Miles

The main things to know are that you get 1 stopover on a oneway, which is even better than two stopovers on a roundtrip. Well, it’s the same thing if you end up booking two tickets with a stopover each, but the fact that you’re allowed to book a stopover on a oneway is unique.

The only problem with Alaska Miles is that you can’t mix partners. You can fly 1 partner plus an Alaska flight, but you can’t mix partners. This greatly limits stopovers internationally, mostly to hubs.

 

Also, I know open-jaws are technically possible, but I don’t understand the rhyme or reason of when it allows open-jaws and when it doesn’t.

 

Air Canada’s Aeroplan Miles Stopover Rules

I really like Aeroplan but rarely used it because 1) United always did the same things but better.

But now that’s changing, my only complaint is, 2) You can’t book either stopovers or open-jaws online. However, you can book one stopover on their website.

 

Detailed Aeroplan stopover rules (found here):

• “Travel within Canada or between Canada and the Continental USA (not including Hawaii/Puerto Rico): One stopover permitted in addition to the point of turnaround. One open jaw is permitted in lieu of the one stopover.”
• To Latin America: “Rule for rewards containing only Air Canada flight: Two stopovers are permitted in addition to the point of turnaround. One open jaw is permitted in lieu of one stopover.”
• 1 partner: “One stopover is permitted in addition to the point of turnaround. One open jaw is permitted in addition to the one stopover.”
• “Intercontinental travel (travel between two continents): Two stopovers permitted in addition to the point of turnaround. One open jaw is permitted in lieu of one of the two stopovers.”

 

ANA Miles Stopover Rules

ANA Miles has a normal region based award chart, and they have a distance based award chart, which is technically a “round the world” award chart, with unusually cheap award prices.

Check the ANA Award Charts (on the List of Airline Award Charts).

 

Details on ANA Stopover rules (as described here):

• On region based award chart:
  • 1 stopover and 2 open-jaws.
• “Round The World” award chart:
  • Up to 8 stopovers are permitted between the departure point and the final return point. (Up to 3 stopovers are permitted within Europe and up to 4 stopovers are permitted within Japan.)
  • A maximum of 12 flight segments and 4 open-jaws.

 

JAL Miles Stopover Rules

Just one note about JAL’s stopover rules… Anytime you see lots of “stopovers” listed, there is a large chance that it’s a “round the world” style ticket, where the destination is a stopover.

With Aeroplan, you get 2 stopovers plus your destination. With JAL you get 7 stops of 24 hours or more.

 

JAL Miles stopover rules (as described here).

• A maximum of 8 segments.
• A maximum of 7 stopovers
• One open-jaw, which is counted as a stopover.
• https://www.jal.co.jp/en/jalmile/use/partner_air/oneworld/conditions.html

 

Asia Miles Stopover Rules

Similar to JAL, I believe “stopovers” include destinations.

 

Asia Miles allows a maximum of 5 stopovers on “OneWorld MultiCarrier Awards”.

5 stopovers and “two transfers and two open-jaws are permitted”. (Rule details found here).

 

For Flight Awards (not “OneWorld MultiCarrier Award”) tickets:

I believe that for “Flight Awards” you get 3 stopovers, and can trade 2 of those stopovers for 2 open-jaws. But the entire thing is confusing.

Here are additional details:

• “A maximum of 2 sectors are allowed, with only 1 stopover or 1 transfer”
• “For the round-trip Flight Award… a maximum of 4 sectors are allowed with a minimum of 1 stopover. A maximum of 2 sectors only is allowed on each direction, inbound and outbound.”
• “A maximum of 1 open jaw is allowed either at the point of origin or at the turnaround point in a round-trip Flight Award.”

 

Singapore KrisFlyer Miles Stopover Rules

I recently wrote about Singapore Stopovers in my post Best Use Of Singapore Miles.

In short, you get 1 stopover on roundtrips, but can buy additional stopovers for $100 each.

 

Here are the details (as described here).

• Must be international
• Must be roundtrip
• “One complimentary en route stopover is permitted for round-trip awards, unless otherwise stated below. Up to three additional stopovers are also permitted at USD100 each, regardless of the class of service.”

 

Asiana Miles Stopover Rules

This is another case where the Alliance partner awards offer way more stopovers than booking on the airline itself, with Star Alliance awards offer 7 stopovers.

 

Asiana Miles Stopover Rules (as found here, and click notes):

• Asiana Flights:
  • “Allows one stopover per one-way trip for all routes.”
• Star Alliance Flights:
  • “Up to seven (7) stopovers are allowed that are longer than 24 hours if there are eight (8) segments in total, without Open-Jaw segments”

 

EVA Air Miles Stopover Rules

EVA Air is a program I’m less familiar with, but I recently made and posted the EVA Air Miles Award Chart.

Since I’m less familiar with the program I haven’t promoted it, but I noticed Gary Leff (ViewFromTheWing) posted “EVA Air is an Underappreciated Mileage Transfer Partner“, pointing out 65k/85k miles for business/first to Europe.

 

More relevant here, EVA allows 2 stopovers.

 

EVA Miles Stopover Rules (as described here):

• Two stopovers per roundtrip.
  • “Including one in outbound and one in inbound… Maximum of six sectors are allowed for each round trip award ticket.”
• Open-jaw allowed on “point of turn around” (aka, destination, I believe).

 

Conclusion

Unfortunately, neither Delta nor AA allow stopovers any more.

British Airways prices per segment, so you could book as many stopovers as you wanted. I don’t really think of it as unlimited stopovers, because you’re not just booking a bunch of oneways, again, it’s pricing each and every segment. So getting to the places you would want to stopover in would add up quickly.

Also, I don’t believe either Virgin program allows stopovers.

 

I found no “stopover” language on Lufthansa’s Miles & More. None. It’s just all gone. I’ll try to see if I can find some confirmation there. LATAM too, just gone.

 

Are there any other programs you’d like to see added? And is this worthy of adding to the Resource page?