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booking

Stopover

Award Routing Stopover
Definition
An overnight (or longer) layover on an award ticket, usually allowed once per direction on certain programs. Effectively two destinations on a single award.
Why it matters
Best programs for stopovers: Alaska Mileage Plan (one stopover allowed on most award tickets), a transfer partner (one stopover at hub-city), and Korean Air SKYPASS (stopover on round-trip). Use stopovers to split a single award into two trips.

A stopover is not merely a long layover you sit through at an airport gate. It is a deliberate routing move that turns one award ticket into two meaningful destinations. Consider a traveler redeeming Alaska Mileage Plan miles for a round-trip to Tokyo. Alaska permits one stopover on most international award tickets, so that same ticket can include a multi-night stay in Tokyo and an onward segment to, say, Osaka, all priced as a single award. The stopover city becomes a real stop, not a connection, without triggering a separate award charge.

The term most commonly gets confused with a "connection" or a "layover." A connection is a same-day transfer between flights with no intent to stay. A layover extends that window but typically means less than 24 hours in most program rule sets. A stopover, by contrast, is an overnight or longer break in travel at an intermediate point. Some programs define it by hours (24 hours or more), others by calendar date. Mixing up these terms when building a routing can cause an agent or an online booking tool to reject or reprice your itinerary.

The programs most worth studying here differ in where and how they allow the stop. Alaska Mileage Plan permits one stopover on most partner award tickets, making it the most flexible option for mixing regions. a transfer partner allows one stopover at a hub city on certain round-trip awards, which can be powerful for adding a Canadian gateway stop. Korean Air SKYPASS permits a stopover on round-trip awards routed through Seoul. None of these programs guarantee that premium-cabin space will be available on both the outbound and return legs of a stopover routing; business and first class saver space is capacity-controlled, and a stopover itinerary is only as good as the award availability on every individual segment.

The practical takeaway: before you transfer any points into a program to exploit a stopover rule, confirm that open saver space exists on every segment of the routing, because transfers are immediate and almost never reversible.

Related terms in booking

Saver Award
The cheapest published points price for a flight or hotel night. Award charts publish two tiers: saver (lower, capacity-controlled) and standard (higher, more available).
Saver-Level Inventory
Award seats released at the cheapest published price. Typically 0-4 saver seats per flight, often released 11 months out and then closed within hours.
Open Jaw
An award ticket where the outbound destination and return origin (or outbound origin and return destination) are different cities.
Round-the-World
A single award ticket that includes multiple long-haul segments across multiple continents. Available on a few programs (Star Alliance, oneworld).