Fly these airlines and get more out of a free award ticket
When it comes to a domestic trip, most people are happy just to get a free mileage award ticket. They don’t squeeze the lemon.
But if you aggressively use award charts and stopover rule strategies on the right domestic airlines, you can get two cities for the price of one, or a free tack-on, or net a free upgrade to First Class by combining two economy trips (if you fly the right airline).
Domestic Airlines that Allow the Free Stop
Air Canada, Alaska, and Delta allow a free en-route stopover on domestic mileage tickets. “En-route” is the word to keep in mind. It means that the stopover has to be on the way to your ticketed destination.
Three Ways to Exploit a Free Stopover
Get two cities for the price of one. If you are going New York-Los Angeles on vacation, you can add an en-route city for free, among them Atlanta, Detroit, Minneapolis, and Salt Lake City since they are all Delta hubs. And, if you have to make a connection, why not get a second city for free?
Add a free tack-on destination. Let’s say you are going Vancouver-Toronto on vacation and you have miles with Air Canada or Amex Rewards. A free Business Class award ticket costs 50,000 miles. But why not make Miami your final destination—the tack-on—and Toronto your free stop? All for just 50,000 miles round-trip (plus $207 in taxes).
Net a free upgrade to First Class by combining two economy trips. Let’s say you’re going on vacation to Southern California, flying New York-Los Angeles, and you also have a second trip planned around the same time to Atlanta. Atlanta is a Delta hub and the carrier also flies the transcon. Two separate round-trip economy tickets on Delta cost 50,000 miles.
But if you combined the trips and made Atlanta the free stopover on your way to Los Angeles—Delta allows a free stopover there and in Atlanta, Detroit, Minneapolis, or Salt Lake City—you could fly First Class for 45,000 miles, 5,000 miles less than two economy tickets.
[aside headline="Defining Stopover" alignment="alignright" width="half" headline_size="default"]In airline terms, a “stopover” is a layover of more than four hours on a domestic itinerary and 24 hours on an international one. If you can make a connection in a city, you can sometimes stopover there for free. In the U.S., connecting cities are often an airline’s hub.[/aside]
Airline Stopover Rules
Air Canada: Allows a free en-route stopover within Canada in hub cities (Calgary, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, and Vancouver), and between Canada and the Continental U.S. on its partner US Airways, but not on an itinerary that includes United. On First Class awards, which cost 70,000 miles round-trip, it also allows an en-route stopover on US Airways flights within the U.S., something US Airways’ own mileage program does not permit. Granted, that’s 20,000 more miles than US Airways charges for a First Class domestic award, but it is 30,000 miles less than cashing in two 50,000-mile awards, which you’d have to do on U.S. Airways. En-route qualifying cities on US Airways include Charlotte, Phoenix, and Philadelphia.
Alaska: Allows free en-route hub city stopovers: Anchorage, Los Angeles, Portland, and Seattle.
Delta: Allows one en-route stopover per award, such as Atlanta, Detroit, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York, and Salt Lake City.