Layovers get a bad rap when it comes to air travel, but if it leads to huge savings, a better opportunity to use points and miles, or a free stopover , I'm always happy to take the connection.
Everyone, it seems, loves the nonstop flight itinerary – and I don't blame you! Leaving your home airport and arriving at your destination in the same seat you started in is a great luxury, but it's a luxury you're usually paying extra for. By taking quick connections when flying in the U.S. or abroad, I've saved thousands of dollars over the past few years, and stand to save thousands more over the next few months, too.
Plus, when flying cross-country or overseas, a layover can be a nice reprieve from being stuck in a metal tube in the sky for an extended period. Think of it as an intermission to stretch your legs and get some real (read: non-microwaved) food and drink to break up the long journey.
Booking connecting flights can and should be done. Here are four main reasons why.
It's Often Cheaper
This is the most important reason you should consider booking a flight with a connection over a nonstop flight. It's to avoid flight prices like this.
I refuse to pay four-digit airfares – especially in economy. Flying from Salt Lake City (SLC) to London (LHR) cannot and should not cost you more than $1,000 just for basic economy, where you don't get a seat assignment or the ability to make changes.
But just a few days ago, we found a bunch of steeply discounted fares to London for travelers willing to take a connection and sent them to our Thrifty Traveler Premium flight deal alert subscribers in these cities.
For half the price of the nonstop flight, you could take a connection on American or United Airlines and fly from Utah to England this fall!
The savings aren't always that drastic, but they're typically still meaningful. Nonstop flights from Atlanta (ATL) to London aren't quite as oppressive. There's enough competition on that route that prices aren't as eye-watering as they were from Salt Lake. I cherry-picked the cheapest date on the calendar in October for this example, too – most of the roundtrip fares are in the $700s and $800s between these two cities.
But there are still big savings to be had if you take a connection on Atlanta's new service flying Scandinavian Airlines.
This doesn't just work for long-haul flights, either. Many airlines will offer discounts to take connecting itineraries. WestJet is doing just that this summer flying to and from Western Canada. If a trip to Banff National Park is on your bucket list (as it should be!) you might like what you see here for July travel.
The nonstop Delta flight between Minneapolis (MSP) and Calgary (YYC) is running travelers $700 or more roundtrip in basic economy this summer. But WestJet fares with connections in Western Canada? Less than $300 roundtrip in most cases.
The same savings apply when you're booking with Delta SkyMiles. When filtering for nonstop Delta flights on this route, the best rates you can find are about 58,000 SkyMiles roundtrip for basic economy.
Add a connection to your search and those WestJet fares will be included in these results, thanks to their partnership with Delta. Suddenly, those rates plummet to 25,000 SkyMiles roundtrip.
In fact, all of these cities with Delta service were able to snag those 25,000-mile fares to Banff. We rounded all of them up and sent out this Thrifty Traveler Premium flight deal to our members a few days ago.
Far and away the best reason to take a connection is to snag a steeply discounted fare.
More Points & Miles Award Availability
When it comes to using points and miles to book cheap travel in economy or business class, the key is flexibility. We always encourage flexibility in dates and time of travel, but possibly the most important thing to be flexible with is your departure and arrival cities.
Take Iberia Business Class . Iberia isn't the fanciest lie-flat offering crossing the Atlantic, but it's usually the cheapest business class seat you can book with points and miles. Just 34,000 points each way are enough to secure these seats in the winter and spring every year – making for possibly the best deals in the world of award travel .
But to take advantage of these fares, you have to fly to Madrid (MAD), which may not be your desired destination in Europe. Let's say, for example, that you want to go to Italy instead. What you're going to have to do here is book your own connection – which we call a positioning flight . Luckily, once you land in Madrid, flying to the rest of Europe (including Italy) is insanely cheap. Just look at the prices of these one-way flights!
Read Next: The #1 Trick to Saving on Flights to Europe
Tack on another $19 to $50 to your trip and make that short, cheap connection in Europe – it's worth it!
You may also have to build a connection on the front end of your trip because unless you live in one of these cities, you won't be able to take advantage of these cheap business class seats to Spain.
Luckily, you can book another positioning flight to get to that long-haul flight across the Atlantic. Grab a short, cheap flight from your home airport to Boston (BOS), Chicago (ORD), New York (JFK), or D.C. (IAD) and you're ready to fly business class for less in 2024 or 2025.
Free Stopovers
Clomping through another country's airport between two flights: Tired.
Spending a few nights in another country between two flights for the same price as the roundtrip: Wired.
Stopovers are for the true Thrifty Traveler. The traveler who's getting two countries on their trip for the price of one roundtrip flight. It's one of our favorite practices in travel, and it can lead to huge savings and unbelievable experiences.
Let's say you want to book a summer vacation to the Swiss Alps.
You search from your home airport New York (JFK) for nonstop flights to Zurich (ZRH) and see fares like these … not bad! But if you open it up to one-stop itineraries you'll see that you can save about $100 by taking a connection in Iceland flying Icelandair . That's one good reason to take the connection. But it gets better.
We sent this roundup of cheap fares to Switzerland this August a few weeks ago, and most of them are still around, if not cheaper!
This itinerary from Raleigh (RDU) to Zurich is a perfect example of a super-cheap one-stop itinerary to the Alps. The total is $578 roundtrip when booked through Icelandair – just slightly higher than the Google Flights price listed here.
But once you have that, you should pay a visit to Icelandair's stopover page to build an itinerary with an Iceland stopover . You can attach the stopover to the beginning or end of the trip (although the end-of-trip stopovers tend to be cheaper). And once you do that, you realize you can tack on two nights in Iceland at the end of your trip for the exact same cost…
Read our step-by-step guide to booking an Iceland stopover!
Stopovers are game-changing, and Icelandair's stopover program is among the best. The following airlines also offer free stopovers when booking connecting flights.
Turkish Airlines in Istanbul (IST)
Iberia Airlines in Madrid (MAD)
TAP Air Portugal in Lisbon (LIS)
Aer Lingus in Dublin (DUB)
Fiji Airways in Fiji (NAN)
Qatar Airways in Doha (DOH)
Hawaiian Airlines in Honolulu (HNL)
and more!
Because You Have To!
Finally, there's a last category of layover lovers, and those are the travelers who don't have a choice. Want to fly to Vietnam from the United States? There's only one way to do it, and that's on the one and only nonstop flight between the two countries: SFO-SGN on Vietnam Airlines. And with zero competition, that flight is never affordable.
To get fares like this, sometimes you're going to have to have a layover. In this case, these flights all connect in Asia, giving you an hour or so to stretch your legs before your short-hop flight over to Vietnam.
But sometimes the connection is required for places a little closer to home, too. For instance, American Airlines slashed prices to Belize (BZE) recently on its connecting flights through Charlotte (CLT) from all of these airports this summer and fall. It was a stunning sale.
The interesting part is, that airports like Atlanta (ATL) and Minneapolis (MSP) have nonstop flights to Belize already…but only in the winter. Travelers who wanted to go to Belize in the summer or fall had to grab these one-stop flights at steeply discounted rates. I doubt any of them were upset with prices like those, though!
Bottom Line
Everyone loves their nonstop flights, but lovers of layovers know where the savings are and where the best travel opportunities are: Connecting flights.
They're not as sexy as their nonstop counterparts, but connecting itineraries allow travelers to save up to half-off (or more), book better points and miles availability, book stopovers, and fly to places they otherwise couldn't.
All Rights Reserved Travel