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Will extending a layover drastically increase my flight cost?

I'm planning a trip "home" to Greece to see my family and check up on my house. This usually guarantees a stopover somewhere in Europe (usually London, Madrid or Paris), and I thought for once I'd like to extend the layover to a day or two instead of a few hours at the airport. Whenever I try to do this online it increases my ticket cost by $300-400 although the flight is still midweek etc etc. I'm going to talk to a travel agent next week to see if he has any better ideas/options, but I was wondering whether any of you regularly extend layovers and avoid the cost of your flight going up dramatically.

Re: Will extending a layover drastically increase my flight cost?

  • imageimnotcoherent22:
    I'm planning a trip "home" to Greece to see my family and check up on my house. This usually guarantees a stopover somewhere in Europe (usually London, Madrid or Paris), and I thought for once I'd like to extend the layover to a day or two instead of a few hours at the airport. Whenever I try to do this online it increases my ticket cost by $300-400 although the flight is still midweek etc etc. I'm going to talk to a travel agent next week to see if he has any better ideas/options, but I was wondering whether any of you regularly extend layovers and avoid the cost of your flight going up dramatically.

    It would technically be considered two separate tickets, not one with a "layover" , so I would think that it would def increase the cost:(

  • If you are looking at the non-US airlines they usually allow the stopover for a certain amount of time for free or a small fee in the hub city. I've even been able to do it with US airlines, but I notice it more with non-US airlines.You could also check actually looking at two tickets (ie. one to London with BA and then a separate flight London-Athens) but then there will be different rules for baggage on the inter-Europe flight. 

    It could be that the base fare for not doing a stopover is significantly cheaper than the base fare of a ticket that allows you to do one. I'm not sure. Anyway, here's some links about stopovers:

    http://www.airfrance.us/US/en/local/resainfovol/meilleuresoffres/marketing_Paris_stopover.htm 

    http://www.britishairways.com/travel/lcinfo/public/en_in

    Most recently I did a stopover with Aer Lingus in Dublin and there was no fee. 

  • I've done it before on BA - spent a day and a half in London on the way home from Ireland. It did not increase our cost, but I did have to call them to arrange it, I couldn't do it online.
    The former jen5/03.

    AlternaTickers - Cool, free Web tickers
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    AlternaTickers - Cool, free Web tickers

  • Thanks for this tip. I've been looking at booking through BA because they have the best flight times and can get me all the way over there with only one switch in Europe. I might try giving them a call and check it out! Thanks again!
  • imagechefamy:

    imageimnotcoherent22:
    I'm planning a trip "home" to Greece to see my family and check up on my house. This usually guarantees a stopover somewhere in Europe (usually London, Madrid or Paris), and I thought for once I'd like to extend the layover to a day or two instead of a few hours at the airport. Whenever I try to do this online it increases my ticket cost by $300-400 although the flight is still midweek etc etc. I'm going to talk to a travel agent next week to see if he has any better ideas/options, but I was wondering whether any of you regularly extend layovers and avoid the cost of your flight going up dramatically.

    It would technically be considered two separate tickets, not one with a "layover" , so I would think that it would def increase the cost:(

    This is not accurate at all!  On international flights it's called a stop over and can usually be done for 1-4 nights.  We did it on our Honeymoon.  We were only planning on New Zealand because pricing out Australia and NZ was so expensive flight wise.  I booked directly with United and the agent was the one whom suggested the stop over, for us it was $250 each to add the 4 nights so while not super cheap it was definitely worth it to us.

  • Now this was 3 years ago, but when we went to J'burg we extended our layover in Amsterdam for a day and Paris on the way home for 3 days and the cost the exact same if just did the 'hours' layover.

     

    We flew KLM/Air France from JFK - Amsterdam - J'burg - Paris - Philly 

    image
  • Thanks for the tip! Did you arrange this with the airline directly or did you use a travel agent?
  • I have also done this on Northwest/Delta without any issues. Call the airline directly and tell them you would like to book an extended layover on your way to Greece. Have fun!
  • We booked through Orbitz using the  multiple city option.
    image
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