How to Visit Multiple Cities/Countries on 1 Airline Ticket

by Palo · September 14, 2016

You can visit multiple cities/countries on 1 airline ticket by using stopovers, layovers and/or open-jaw tickets. These can be very complex to ticket but very lucrative if redeeming miles! You’ll need to research the fare/award rules of the airline as to how many stopovers are permitted. Some airlines will let you add 1 for only $100.

What are these terms?

Stopover: Staying in a city for >24 hours

Layover: Staying in an airport/city for <24 hours ( you typically need a minimum of a 6 hour layover to leave the airport)

Open-jaw: Departing from Point A to Point B and then returning from Point C to Point A OR Departing from Point A to Point B and then returning from Point B to Point C

When searching for these types of awards or fares you’ll need to use the multi-city search on the airline website or on kayak.com. For award tickets it is usually best to find the availability segment by segment which is the method I used for the 2 examples below of trips I’ve booked in the past…

Trip #1 (Booked with 120,000 United miles in 2013 for Business Class):

Start in LAX

Layover in TPE (<24 hr)

Stopover in KUL (>24hr)

Layover in BKK (<24 hr)

Destination Tokyo

Layover in BKK (<24 hr)

Layover in HKG (<24 hr)

Layover in ICN (<24 hr)

End in LAX