Turn Your Connection Into A Free Destination - Stop Over Programs

C1ayton

Newbie
Jan 1, 2024
3
0
Missouri
I am new and wanted to provide valuable content to the forum, and noticed that I didn't see anything regarding stop-over programs which is one of my favorite travel hacks to take advantage of.

If you aren't familiar with the term "Stop-Over Programs", it's where airlines allow you to turn your connection into a free vacation destination in that they will not charge you any additional money in airfare cost. Sure you will need to pay for your hotels, and everything else. But they will let you stay at your connection either on your departure or the return for 1 up to 10 nights depending on the airline. Most of them are 7 nights max, but 1 airline allows you to do up to 10 nights.

Where is the destination that you can do this at?
This all depends on the airline. Essentially, where ever their main hub of where they are based out if is where they allow you to do this. For exampel Icelandair is in Reykjavík, TAP Air Portugal is in Lisbon or Porto which ever city your flight happens to connect in.

There are probably a dozen or so airlines that I know of that have this program, some are much better than others but it's an amazing way to plan a multi city destination trip without having to book a multi city destination.

A few things are a must!
You must book directly with the airline in order to take advantage of this offer, and you need to do it at the time of your booking in order to avoid any additonal change fees later for most airlines.

I have seen examples recently where a round trip flight to Iceland was $650 from JFK airport on Icelanair. However I received an alert from JFK to Stockholm Sweden for $501 round trip and it happen to be on Iceland air (Exact same dates). So what this allowed one to do, is add Iceland as a stop-over. So no only did you get that flight to Iceland for $150 cheaper than it was to book it round trip, but you also go to go to Sweden for that $501 as well. Anyways, I think you get the point.

I was going to post a link with all the airlines that have stop-over programs, where they allow you to add this stop-over and all the details of thier program but the website the forum will not allow me to do so as it says "This post is not allowed as it is likely spam". I am guessing this is because I am new, as it shows links are able to be put in a post and I only attempted to add a single url. So I am sorry I can not provide source information with more details, maybe after my account has more time active in the forum I can post links and I will come back and edit this post and include a link for you to get all the details. But if you Google "Airlines With Stop-Over Programs" you can find more information.


Cheers, Happy New Year, and Safe Travels in 2024
 
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