How do you arrange long layovers?
October 29, 2014 7:41 AM Subscribe
Planning a trip to middle-of-nowhere Sweden, and am flying through Stockholm. I'd like to organize a day or two layover in the city before heading to nowheresville. How do you do this? Does it have to involve phone calls, or is it possible to organize online? Would you expect it to be more or less expensive that a regular itinerary?
I did that a few months ago: extended my layover in Tokyo while flying home from Bangkok to LA. I just called the airline and asked, and extending it to 48 hours cost $80 or so, based on the price differential of changing the second leg. of course, I then got dengue fever in Thailand and ended changing it back last-minute for $300.
posted by changeling at 8:17 AM on October 29, 2014
posted by changeling at 8:17 AM on October 29, 2014
Best answer: Sometimes when you enter in your flight info, there will be options with long layovers, even 1 day layovers, which you could book online. Otherwise, the best way is to call them to organize it. I've also done the 2 airline method mskyle mentions, it can save money if there is a domestic discount airline you can use for the second leg of the trip and it makes it easy to book it on your timeframe (just double and triple check the dates! The two different airlines will not know if you are booking it on the wrong date and I have made this mistake once before…).
If you go the call-and-arrange-it route I would anecdotally not recommend going with SAS. I had to deal with their customer service for my recent flight with them and it was terrible. I was calling from the USA but it appeared my call was routed to a call center in Sweden, and the rep had a strong accent that was extremely difficult to understand, plus the connection was poor. The flight itself was also very bare bones - one whole 7 hour international leg with no entertainment system, uncomfortable seating, and the food was awful
posted by treehorn+bunny at 8:30 AM on October 29, 2014
If you go the call-and-arrange-it route I would anecdotally not recommend going with SAS. I had to deal with their customer service for my recent flight with them and it was terrible. I was calling from the USA but it appeared my call was routed to a call center in Sweden, and the rep had a strong accent that was extremely difficult to understand, plus the connection was poor. The flight itself was also very bare bones - one whole 7 hour international leg with no entertainment system, uncomfortable seating, and the food was awful
posted by treehorn+bunny at 8:30 AM on October 29, 2014
Best answer: Try looking into a multi-city trip online. Most of the major airline sites have that as a third type of search (after round trip, and one-way). If they don't, Google Flights, my favorite airfare searching tool definitely does.
I'm not sure of the pricing difference for the stopover, and that will vary by airline, but Google Flights should at least give you a good first step toward an answer. Also, airlines tend to refer to a layover over 24 hours as a stopover, and one shorter as a layover. That may be helpful when talking to airline representatives, or in your search.
There's also a difference if you're buying a ticket, or redeeming miles for one. I know on miles, United, for example, allows one stopover between 24 hours and 364 days at a location on the way to another for no additional miles.
posted by BevosAngryGhost at 8:34 AM on October 29, 2014
I'm not sure of the pricing difference for the stopover, and that will vary by airline, but Google Flights should at least give you a good first step toward an answer. Also, airlines tend to refer to a layover over 24 hours as a stopover, and one shorter as a layover. That may be helpful when talking to airline representatives, or in your search.
There's also a difference if you're buying a ticket, or redeeming miles for one. I know on miles, United, for example, allows one stopover between 24 hours and 364 days at a location on the way to another for no additional miles.
posted by BevosAngryGhost at 8:34 AM on October 29, 2014
Most travel websites will allow you to select "multi-city" instead of roundtrip or one way. You just put in all three flights (SFO to Stockholm, Stockholm to tiny city and then tiny city to SFO). Pick your date for each flight and search. Play around with dates and with putting the layover before vs after the time in tiny city.
posted by soelo at 9:14 AM on October 29, 2014
posted by soelo at 9:14 AM on October 29, 2014
Best answer: Keep in mind that if you book the trip as multi-city or separate itineraries, you will need to get your checked baggage then re-check it, whereas if the stop is a long layover you should have the option of sending it straight through to your final destination, so you only have to wrangle your carry-on for that part of the trip.
posted by solotoro at 9:44 AM on October 29, 2014
posted by solotoro at 9:44 AM on October 29, 2014
Best answer: There's no reason why you should need to do anything fancy like ring the company to book (which they often charge for) or use a travel agent (which they charge for), this is very straight forward and normal. You either book multi-city (which is totally standard on all airline websites I've looked at), book as one flight with an extra long layover if that's available, or book as two separate trips. I do this kind of thing quite often, it's totally standard.
Personally I found SAS very good when I flew Dublin-Copenhagen. The website worked well, the flights were cheap, and it was as pleasant as any budget airline within Europe. Free checked luggage allowance too. I don't know what the customer service was like because I didn't need it.
Also, depending on where you're going, look into trains. We travelled within Sweden and Denmark for so little money on SJ, the high speed trains were lovely, and it wasn't that much slower in the end. I did find the exact same train tickets on a different website for something like 14 times the price, so stick with the official site.
posted by shelleycat at 1:45 PM on October 29, 2014 [1 favorite]
Personally I found SAS very good when I flew Dublin-Copenhagen. The website worked well, the flights were cheap, and it was as pleasant as any budget airline within Europe. Free checked luggage allowance too. I don't know what the customer service was like because I didn't need it.
Also, depending on where you're going, look into trains. We travelled within Sweden and Denmark for so little money on SJ, the high speed trains were lovely, and it wasn't that much slower in the end. I did find the exact same train tickets on a different website for something like 14 times the price, so stick with the official site.
posted by shelleycat at 1:45 PM on October 29, 2014 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Thanks all. Booking separate itineraries is totally reasonable price-wise, *and* solves the miles problem for me! (SAS isn't a partner on my miles program, but booking the international legs separately lets me use a partner airline, and use SAS only for the domestic leg).
posted by colin_l at 2:24 PM on October 29, 2014
posted by colin_l at 2:24 PM on October 29, 2014
Norwegian is usually cheaper than SAS.
Malmö Aviation is also an option; they fly from Bromma, a smaller airport closer to central Stockholm than Arlanda.
posted by iviken at 3:15 PM on October 29, 2014 [1 favorite]
Malmö Aviation is also an option; they fly from Bromma, a smaller airport closer to central Stockholm than Arlanda.
posted by iviken at 3:15 PM on October 29, 2014 [1 favorite]
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It might or might not be more expensive. If your final destination is only served by one or two airlines, you should definitely look into buying two separate tickets: one from your home to Stockholm (round-trip) and then another from Stockholm to your final destination. The downside here is that if you have a tight connection in either direction, you won't have much recourse if you miss your connecting flight. But that won't be a problem in one direction, since you're planning to have a day or two stopover anyway.
posted by mskyle at 8:01 AM on October 29, 2014