United’s frequent flyer program, MileagePlus, allows you to use one stopover and two open jaws for free on a round-trip award ticket. By taking advantage of this generous booking policy, you can see more places without paying more miles. For example, you could spend a few days in Hawaii on your way to Japan for the same cost as flying directly to Tokyo.
United allows MileagePlus members to use a stopover and two open jaws for free on a round-trip award flight. You can use this policy to your advantage and fly to more places for free. Sometimes you can even save miles by adding a stopover to your itinerary. In this post, we’ll see how to maximize the destinations on your itinerary and save miles at the same time.
A stopover is when you stop somewhere on your way to your final destination for more than four hours on a domestic flight, or for more than 24 hours on an international flight. On a United award ticket, you can visit two cities in Europe or two cities on different continents for the price of a round-trip flight.
We’re continuing our series on how to get the most out of United award tickets by looking at the airline’s free open jaw. With an open jaw, you can fly to one destination and return from another, or you can depart from one city and return to a different one. Either way, you can visit more places for the same price as a round-trip award ticket.
Using United’s free stopover, you can see more places for the same amount of miles. But did you know that you can save miles by adding a stopover to your itinerary?
In our last post on stopovers, we talked about how to use United’s free stopovers to see two places in Europe for the same amount of miles as a roundtrip. In this post, we’ll discuss how to visit two destinations on two continents using United stopovers.
Stopovers are an underutilized mechanism that can be used to see more places on an award ticket for the same amount of miles as a direct flight. While most people want to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible, seasoned travelers know how to get the most for their miles.
Alaska Airlines may be smaller than the three big U.S. carriers—Delta, American and United—but it has an extensive domestic network of routes, as well as flights to some vacation hot spots in Mexico, the Caribbean and Central America. The airline isn’t just for visiting Alaska, which makes the Alaska Airlines Visa® Business Card valuable to anyone who often flies in the U.S., regardless of where you live.
Middle East Airlines, or MEA, is the flag carrier of Lebanon. It flies to 39 destinations in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Africa out of Beirut–Rafic Hariri International Airport. MEA does not fly to the United States.
Thai Airways, the flag carrier of Thailand, is based at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport. The
Lufthansa, the largest airline in Europe, also has the largest frequent flyer program in Europe, Miles & More. Since its inception in 1993, 13 airlines have joined Miles & More. Lufthansa and most of those airlines are members of the Star Alliance, giving the program a truly global scope.
Air China, based out of Beijing Capital International Airport, is one of the largest airlines in China. The carrier flies to nearly 180 domestic and international destinations, including the following U.S. cities: Honolulu, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and Washington, D.C.
In many ways Cuba is a country frozen in time, which makes it a fascinating destination. Meticulously maintained vintage cars from the 1950s roam the streets, and colonial architecture still dominates Havana. Only an hour and a half away from the capital, and you’re in Veradero enjoying some of the best unspoiled beaches and pristine waters in the Caribbean.
American Airlines does not allow stopovers on domestic award tickets, but does permit them for international travel. I live on the west coast and often use the rule to my advantage to squeeze in a stopover on the way to a foreign destination or to book one leg of a bonus trip on the way back from overseas travel.
