How To Maximize Stopovers and Open-Jaws [Ultimate Guide]

Key Takeaways

• Stopovers allow passengers to extend layovers for 24 hours or more in a connecting city, adding extra value by enabling travelers to visit an additional destination.
• Open-jaw tickets let passengers fly into one city and return from another, offering more flexibility in multicity itineraries.
• Programs such as Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan, Air Canada Aeroplan, and All Nippon Airways (ANA) Mileage Club have generous routing rules allowing you to take advantage of stopovers and open-jaws.

In the award travel world, stopovers and open-jaws get a ton of attention. They can be difficult to plan and overwhelming to visualize, but they can allow you to visit 2 or more places for the price of 1!

With revenue tickets, these routes are normally not allowed — so, in this sense, award tickets are sometimes objectively better than revenue tickets.

Several frequent flyer programs have incredibly generous award routing rules: Japan Airlines Mileage Bank, Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan, and Cathay Pacific Asia Miles immediately come to mind.

In this guide, we’ll provide an overview of award routing rules with specific airlines and discuss the planning side of stopovers and open-jaws. Lastly, we will show you some amazing example itineraries you can build with each frequent flyer program, which can be worth tens of thousands of dollars in added value — for free!

An Introduction to Stopovers and Open-Jaws

Let’s first define what a stopover and open-jaw are, exactly.

A stopover is stopping and staying in a city for longer than 24 hours. Here’s an example of a stopover:

An open-jaw is named that because of how the flight trajectory physically looks. Here’s what we mean.

Let’s say you were in New York (JFK) and wanted to fly to Hong Kong (HKG), then return to NYC from Tokyo (HND). Basically, you’re flying from Point A to Point B, and then going to Point C for your return journey to Point A.

The map would look like this:

The last term we’ll discuss is double open-jaw. This might be tremendously beneficial if you’re visiting multiple cities!

Here’s an example of what we mean:

The 9 Best Programs To Maximize Stopovers and Open-Jaws

Before we discuss each rewards program in depth, it’s important to note that airlines can change their award routing rules at any time without notice. In the past, airlines such as American, Delta, and United have had very generous award routing rules. Unfortunately, this is no longer the case.

These are the best programs you can still use to work in stopovers and open-jaws on your vacation.

Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan

Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan wins so many awards in the hearts of frequent flyers. It has an easy-to-use online award search engine (with the exception of Cathay Pacific and LATAM) and generous “beginner” routing rules!

What do we mean by beginner routing rules? Well, these routing rules are very generous but also extremely simple to understand and use.

Here are Alaska’s routing rules:

• You may only fly 1 partner airline and Alaska Airlines on an award ticket.
• You can have 1 stopover on a one-way ticket and 2 stopovers on a round-trip ticket.
  • The terms and conditions state that the stopover must occur in a hub city (i.e. Hong Kong when flying Cathay Pacific), but you might have luck calling in and requesting another stopover.
• There are no close-in booking fees; the partner booking fee is $12.50.
• Changes and cancellations are free.
• You can transit via a third region.
• You may be able to backtrack, but this is unconfirmed and generally not allowed.

Now that you have an idea of the routing rules, let’s see how we can implement them.

Alaska used to have a separate award chart for each of its partners, but now it has new award charts based on the total distance you fly. There are 3 different award charts: One for redemptions in the Americas, one for Asian and Pacific redemptions, and another for redemptions to Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. 

There are ways to eke out extra value without paying more miles, particularly from Air Tahiti Nui, Cathay Pacific, Fiji Airways, Hainan Airlines, Japan Airlines, and Qantas.

Let’s put some numbers to routes now. Here are great example routes you can take:

• San Francisco (SFO) – Taipei (TPE) one-way for 75,000 Alaska miles in Starlux business class.
• Los Angeles (LAX) – Brisbane (BNE) – Perth (PER) one-way for as few as 90,000 Alaska miles in Qantas first class (or 60,000 in business class)
• Los Angeles (LAX) – Nadi (NAN) – Apia (APW) one-way for 50,000 Alaska miles in Fiji Airways business class

These are just a few examples of ways you can build additional value into your trip!

Hot Tip: Want more inspiration for using Alaska miles? Check out our guide on the best ways to redeem Alaska miles.

Air Canada Aeroplan

We love Air Canada Aeroplan‘s generous routing rules when traveling round-trip with any long-haul itinerary on different continents.

Right now, you can pay just 5,000 additional Aeroplan points to add a stopover on flights, even one-way flights! You can add up to 2 stopovers on round-trip tickets.

Stopovers are prohibited on travel wholly within North America (including the U.S., Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central America).

With such a diverse network of partners in the Star Alliance, it’s easy to build awesome vacations. Keep in mind that Aeroplan uses a hybrid region-based and distance-based award chart.

Here are some great example routes you can take:

• Chicago (ORD) – Seoul (ICN) – Singapore (SIN) for 90,000 Aeroplan points on Asiana Airlines business class
• Los Angeles (LAX) – London (LHR) – Athens (ATH) for 80,000 Aeroplan points on United Polaris business class and Aegean Airlines business class
• New York (JFK) – Taipei (TPE) – Bangkok (BKK) for 90,000 Aeroplan points on EVA Air Royal Laurel business class
• Seattle (SEA) – Auckland (AKL) – Tokyo (HND) for 90,000 Aeroplan points on ANA business class and Air New Zealand business class

Overall, Aeroplan offers a simple way to book stopovers. You can get tons of extra value from it!

Hot Tip:

Want to know some better ways to redeem Aeroplan points? Look at our best ways to use Aeroplan points!

All Nippon Airways (ANA) Mileage Club

ANA Mileage Club‘s routing rules are generous for simple travelers.

You might wonder what differentiates Alaska Airlines from ANA since we used the same “generous for simple travelers” description above. ANA allows 1 stopover and 1 open-jaw, but it only allows round-trip flights. Basically, Alaska has generous routing rules on one-ways, while ANA requires round-trip travel to access a stopover or an open-jaw on your itinerary.

ANA also has very generous fares for round-trip business class awards and routing rules for round-the-world awards. Combining these routing rules with the best-in-class award prices, ANA offers a lot of value.

Remember that ANA-operated flights are subject to seasonality rules, so keep that in mind when planning trips.

Let’s get into some example redemptions you can make:

• Miami (MIA) – Zurich (ZRH) – Dubai (DXB) – Miami (MIA) for 104,000 ANA miles in SWISS Air business class (high fuel surcharges)
• New York (JFK) – Tokyo (HND) – Jakarta (CGK) – New York (JFK) for 100,000 ANA miles during the low season in ANA business class
• San Francisco (SFO) – London (LHR) – Istanbul (IST) – San Francisco (SFO) for 88,000 ANA miles in United Polaris business class and Turkish Airlines business class
• Washington, D.C. (IAD) – Brussels (BRU) – Accra (FRA) – Washington, D.C. (IAD) for 104,000 ANA miles in Brussels Airlines business class and South African Airways business class

Overall, using ANA miles is an excellent way to add some value to your trip.

Hot Tip:

Be careful of huge fuel surcharges and avoid them by trying to fly on United (preferably its brand-new Polaris class), Air Canada, LOT Polish, or Turkish Airlines. Otherwise, you’ll be paying upwards of $1,000 in total taxes and fees.

Asiana Airlines Mileage Club

Asiana Airlines Asiana Club employs 2 region-based award charts: 1 for Asiana flights, and 1 for partner flights.

Additionally, Asiana Airlines-operated flights are subject to seasonality, so in a sense, its award redemption scheme is very similar to ANA.

Asiana Airlines allows up to 7 stopovers, but they cost extra miles (no additional value added). This is overall a pretty weak offering, but it can still provide value flying to places like Europe, South Korea, and South America.

Here’s an idea of how to use an open-jaw for convenience on a well-known sweet spot to Europe:

• Los Angeles (LAX) – Frankfurt (FRA), Munich (MUC) – Los Angeles (LAX) for 100,000 Asiana miles in Lufthansa first class

Since they’re in the same region, you’d be charged for 2 U.S.-Europe one-way awards, which price out at 50,000 miles each way.

Cathay Pacific Asia Miles

Cathay Pacific Asia Miles continues to be one of the most underrated loyalty programs out there.

Asia Miles offers tons of optimization, but the program is complex. For this reason, we think Asia Miles is for advanced award travelers. Let’s get into the routing rules.

You can fall into 3 sets of award redemption buckets:

1. Asia Miles awards chart (only flying Cathay Pacific)
2. Airline partners award chart (only flying 1 partner the entire way)
3. Oneworld multicarrier award chart (flying 3 or more partners if part of your itinerary includes Cathay Pacific; otherwise, up to 2 partners without Cathay Pacific)

Each is distance-based and subject to different open-jaw and stopover rules. We will focus on Oneworld multicarrier awards, which are the most complex and can provide the most value.

Here are the rules when using the multi-carrier award chart, as well as what they mean for you:

1. If your travel includes Cathay Pacific, you may fly on 3 or more Oneworld airlines. Otherwise, you may fly up to 2 partners. You should add Cathay Pacific, if not for its amazing inflight product, then because it also allows you to fly more partners!
2. The maximum distance you can fly in 1 itinerary is 50,000 miles (50,000 miles is an extremely long distance — 99.99% of travelers will be under this all the time).
3. The total mileage is determined by the sum of the distances from each segment (airport A to airport B). For example, if you’re flying from New York to Hong Kong to New Delhi (DEL), you must add the total distances between the 2 segments instead of taking the distance between New York and Delhi without considering Hong Kong.
4. You are allowed a maximum of 5 stopovers, 2 transfers (layovers), and 2 open-jaws per itinerary.
5. Mixed cabin awards are charged the highest class mileage price for the entire itinerary. Don’t book mixed cabins unless you don’t have a choice.
6. You can’t book premium economy.

These might be confusing, but if you take the time to understand what you could be booking, you can get some outsized value from using Asia Miles’ generous routing rules.

Here’s an extreme example of a trip you could take, illustrating the value you can get with these routing rules:

1. New York (JFK) – Tokyo (HND) on Japan Airlines
2. Tokyo (HND) – Hong Kong (HKG) on Cathay Pacific
3. Hong Kong (HKG) – Kuala Lumpur (KUL) on Malaysia Airlines
4. Kuala Lumpur (KUL) – Sydney (SYD) on Malaysia Airlines
5. Sydney (SYD) – Doha (DOH) on Qatar Airways
6. Doha (DOH) – Colombo (CMB) on SriLankan Airlines
7. Chennai (MAA) – London (LHR) on British Airways
8. Madrid (MAD) – New York (JFK) on Iberia

How long is this itinerary? You’d fly 32,881 miles and over 71 hours on 8 flights on 7 airlines across 10 countries.

If this doesn’t have you drooling yet, just wait. This amazingly complex itinerary would cost 130,000 miles in economy, 210,000 miles in business class, and 300,000 in first class! Using the Asia Miles award calculator will help price out your itinerary.

For 40,000 miles more than a round-trip JFK-HKG ticket in Cathay Pacific business class, you could visit 7 more countries, try 8 business class products (including Malaysia Airlines’ A330 and A350 business class), and fly more than double the distance. Yes, please!

We can’t overstate how amazing using Cathay Pacific Asia Miles for Oneworld multicarrier award tickets truly is.

The biggest challenge is finding award availability for all flights. If you can pull off a huge, round-the-world trip using Asia Miles, you’d have the opportunity to try loads of amazing airlines and visit many countries!

Emirates Skywards

Emirates has 3 reward tiers for redemptions: Saver, Flex, and Flex Plus.

Saver awards for economy and business class are the cheapest options for its cabin classes. Also, Emirates eliminated Flex first class awards a while ago, so those are no longer possible.

The stopover allowance is 1 free stopover on round-trip saver tickets (business or economy). You can always add stopovers to Flex Plus tickets, though these are considerably more expensive than Saver and Flex tickets. Also, open-jaws are allowed if they are in the same zone.

Emirates doesn’t publish its zone definitions, so the best way to determine if 2 places are in the same zone is to compare the mileage costs using the Emirates Skywards Miles Calculator. To find out, follow these steps:

1. Visit the Emirates Skywards Miles Calculator.
2. Type in your route (e.g., Los Angeles – Dubai).
3. Note the award costs (e.g., Business Saver on LAX – DXB = 198,000 miles round-trip).
4. Type in another route with another city (e.g., New York City – Dubai).
5. Note the award costs (e.g., Business Saver on JFK – DXB = 174,000 miles round-trip).
6. Compare the award costs (198,000 is not the same as 174,000).
7. If the costs are the same, you can be certain that the 2 cities are in the same zone; if not, they are not in the same region.

Of course, you still need to pay for fuel surcharges, which can be upward of $1,500 for round-trip tickets.

Here are great example routes you can take to maximize open-jaws and stopovers:

• Los Angeles (LAX) – Dubai (DXB) – Johannesburg (JNB) round-trip for 200,000 Emirates Skywards miles in Emirates A380 business class
• New York (JFK) – Milan (MXP) – Dubai (DXB) one-way with a stopover in Milan for 90,000 Emirates Skywards miles in Emirates A380 business class
• Newark (EWR) – Athens (ATH) – Dubai (DXB) round-trip for 174,000 Emirates Skywards miles in Emirates business class
• San Francisco (SFO) – Dubai (DXB) – Malé (MLE) round-trip for 198,000 Emirates Skywards miles in Emirates business class

In all examples, Business Saver allows for 1 stopover.

Bottom Line: Overall, Emirates has a decent stopover policy for round-trip flights. However, because of its hub-and-spoke airline network model, it’s very difficult to add open-jaws since Emirates only allows them for “cities in the same zone.”

Japan Airlines Mileage Bank

Japan Airlines Mileage Bank is similar to Cathay Pacific Asia Miles in that it employs a region-based award chart for JAL flights and 2 distance-based award charts for partners. We’ll focus on the distance-based award charts for partners since there’s more opportunity to optimize using the partner award chart.

The 2 award charts are for travel on:

1. Oneworld partners
2. Nonalliance partners (including Air France, Korean Air, Emirates, etc.)

Here are the routing rules for partner airlines:

1. One-way itineraries are allowed.
2. Itineraries cannot backtrack to the point of origin to continue onwards to a final destination.
3. Itineraries cannot backtrack to the country of origin to continue onwards to a final destination.
4. Departure and arrival cities may differ, but they must be in the same country.
5. You’re allowed a total of 6 segments, excluding an open-jaw.
6. You are allowed 3 stopovers or 2 stopovers and 1 open-jaw.
7. The distance of the open-jaw is counted in the total itinerary distance.
8. You cannot mix nonalliance partners and Oneworld partners.

Here is a great example redemption you can make with Japan Airlines while maximizing stopovers and open-jaws:

1. Los Angeles (LAX) – Paris (CDG) on Air France
2. Paris (CDG) – Dubai (DXB) on Emirates
3. Dubai (DXB) – Sydney (SYD) on Emirates
4. Sydney (SYD) – Hangzhou (HGH) on China Eastern
5. Shanghai (PVG) – New York (JFK) on China Eastern

The total trip distance is 28,639 miles (according to JAL’s Total Mileage Calculator), costing 110,000 miles in economy or 160,000 miles in business class.

A minor caveat is that Air France, Emirates, Malaysia Airlines, and Korean Air don’t allow first class award bookings, so you’d have to plan another itinerary that allows you to fly first class the whole way. We think 160,000 miles in business class is the best redemption for this particular itinerary.

This is a great way to optimize Japan Airlines’ distance-based award chart!

Hot Tip:

Using Oneworld partners is an easier way to book complex itineraries, but it is quite a bit more expensive in terms of mileage costs.

Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer

Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer is generally very strict with award routing rules. These are the following:

1. Round-trip saver awards are allowed 1 stopover and 1 open-jaw.
2. One-way advantage (more expensive) awards are allowed 1 stopover.
3. Stopovers are only allowed up to 30 days.

Here are some other itineraries where you can take advantage of the routing rules provided by Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer:

• Los Angeles (LAX) – Tokyo (NRT) – Singapore (SIN) 
• Houston (IAH) – Manchester (MAN) – Singapore (SIN) 

If you book an Advantage award, you’re entitled to a free stopover in Tokyo (NRT) or Manchester (MAN). That said, the price for LAX to SIN is 128,500 miles, while the price for IAH to SIN is 143,500 miles.

United Airlines

United Airlines has something peculiar called the Excursionist Perk.

According to United, here are the rules to use it:

1. The Excursionist Perk cannot be in the MileagePlus-defined region where your travel originates.
   • For example, if your journey begins in North America, you only receive the Excursionist Perk if travel is within a region outside of North America.
2. Travel must end in the same MileagePlus-defined region where travel originates.
3. The origin and destination of the Excursionist Perk are within a single MileagePlus-defined region.
4. The cabin of service and award type of the free one-way award are the same or lower than those of the one-way award preceding it.
5. If 2 or more one-way awards qualify for this benefit, only the first occurrence is free.

Here’s an example that qualifies:

• Los Angeles (LAX) – London (LHR) – Frankfurt (FRA) – Los Angeles (LAX)

There’s not much else to talk about besides the fact that you basically get a free intraregional award flight. Because United has so many regions, extracting extra value is not very useful.

In the example above, the only added value you get is the London-Frankfurt flight, which isn’t great because intra-European business class is horrible anyway.

Nevertheless, the Excursionist Perk offers a tiny bit of extra value, though it’s really only useful for convenience.

Final Thoughts

We’ve scrutinized the fine print to help you maximize open-jaws and stopovers with some of the best airlines in the world. Of course, many more airline programs are out there, but you can get great value from the programs we’ve highlighted here based on up-to-date rules!