open jaw travel news

The Booking Trick to Save You Money on International Flights

By Jessica Puckett

With the state of air travel this summer— constant delays and expensive airfares—any small booking tip to save time or money can make a big difference.

One such trick is booking open jaw flights. An open jaw flight is a different type of round-trip itinerary that includes multiple cities for the destination and city of origin. They can be helpful when planning expensive international trips (especially to regions that are seasonally popular with tourists, like Europe or Asia) or when you’d rather end your trip in a different city than where you began. The good news is that if you know what you’re doing, open jaw flights are incredibly easy to book.

Here’s everything you need to know about open jaw flights, from how to book them online to the best ways to use them to save time and money on your next big vacation .

What exactly are open jaw flights?

Open jaw flights are itineraries in which you continue on to a different city than where your trip originated. For example, if you flew from New York to Rome , instead of returning to New York, you might continue on to Paris before looping back to New York. (As opposed to a regular round-trip flight, where you would go right back to New York.)

It’s important to note that the leg of the trip to the second destination—from Rome to Paris in our example—is not part of the flight itinerary. That would be a slightly different booking maneuver called a multi-city flight. Instead, travelers generally take a different mode of transportation on that segment of the journey, like a train , bus, or car. 

How can open jaw flights save time and money?

As with all plane tickets, the price of open jaw flights depends on a multitude of variables, including the time of year you plan to travel, how far out you book, and the destination. But it’s possible to find more affordable flights, especially internationally, using the booking method. 

They’re almost always cheaper than booking two one-way flights abroad, according to flight deal site Going , and can often be less expensive than a regular round-trip. “While researching a trip over to Europe for this summer, I saved over a hundred dollars by flying out of Dublin instead of London (where I’m flying into),” says Katy Nastro, a travel expert for Going. “Now, instead of rushing back to London, I can explore a bit of Dublin before heading home, offering another city to my itinerary without additional cost.”

Flying into a smaller regional airport on one leg of the trip is a good way to save money using open jaw flights. For instance, if you were flying from New York JFK to Reykjavik , there could be a cheaper return flight available if you’re willing to detour a bit and fly into New York Stewart airport on your way home. While this might be a more time-consuming option, it could be a good idea for travelers with more flexibility who are looking for a deal.

However, it’s also possible to use the technique to save time on a vacation, too. "One of the most significant advantages of booking an open jaw flight is it affords you more time to explore," says Nastro. Say you’re traveling from LA to Japan and want to see several cities in the country. You could depart LAX to Tokyo and fly home from Osaka to LAX without losing time schlepping back to Tokyo from Osaka.

How do you book open jaw flights?

It’s easy to book open jaw flights using most online flight search engines. When you input your travel information into the search fields, instead of selecting a round-trip or one-way flight, choose the third option: multi-city flight. This will automatically load additional destination search fields. Simply input the four cities you wish to fly from in the correct order and search as normal. (Using the Japan example, you would input departing from LAX, arriving at Tokyo; in the next row, you would input departing from Osaka, arriving at LAX.) 

From there, you can comb through the results and see if the booking trick works for your schedule and budget constraints. Remember to play around with the dates you fly on, as some days of the week can be cheaper than others. But whether you plan to fly during a peak season or holiday, open jaw flights should help find much-needed affordability and flexibility.

By signing up you agree to our User Agreement (including the class action waiver and arbitration provisions ), our Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement and to receive marketing and account-related emails from Traveller. You can unsubscribe at any time. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

• Search Please fill out this field.
• Manage Your Subscription
• Give a Gift Subscription
• Sweepstakes
• Airlines + Airports

Open-jaw Flights: What They Are and Why You Might Want to Book Them

Booking an open-jaw flight could help you save money on your next trip — what to know.

Harrison Pierce is a freelance writer and digital nomad passionate about personal finance and travel. He is traveling full-time with the help of points and miles and enjoys connecting with people on the ground. His work has been published in Travel + Leisure, Condé Nast Traveler, USA Today Blueprint, Matador Network, and other publications. 

What are open-jaw flights, and how do they work?

Open-jaw vs. multi-city flights.

• Benefits of Booking an Open-jaw Flight

How to Book Open-jaw Flights

Tang Ming Tung/Getty Images

Airfare is expensive, and there’s no way around it. Or is there? If you’re looking for a creative way to save money on holiday travel, or you’re already prepping for summer 2024, you should consider booking an open-jaw flight. These flights allow much more flexibility in your trip and are a great way to cut costs while seeing the world. I spoke with a representative from Expedia to discover just how open-jaw flights can revolutionize the way we travel. 

On a standard round-trip flight, you fly from your city of origin to your destination and back. You might fly from Atlanta to San Francisco, enjoy a few days in the city, and return from San Francisco back to Atlanta. An open-jaw flight is when you go from your origin to a destination, move to a different destination, and then return from your second (or third or fourth) stop back to your origin. Using this same example, you could fly from Atlanta to San Francisco, take a road trip along the coast to Los Angeles, and then fly from Los Angeles back to Atlanta. Open-jaw flights might be on the same airline, or they could be two one-way tickets on different airlines. 

Related: The Best Time to Book a Flight for Domestic, International, and Summer Travel

Mariah Tyler/Travel + Leisure

“Open-jaw flights are a type of multi-city flight where a traveler books a return flight from a different destination than the one they originally flew into, but returns to the same ‘home’ airport,” says Expedia. “It usually means the traveler will take an alternate form of transportation between two of their destinations, such as a train, car, boat, etc.” 

The biggest distinction between an open-jaw flight and a multi-city flight is that you’re not booking one-way plane tickets throughout your journey. “There are other kinds of multi-city flights, where the traveler flies to each destination on their journey, such as NYC > London, London > Paris, Paris > NYC, or where they book a series of one-way flights and don’t return to a “home” airport,” says Expedia. Both open-jaw and multi-city flights are fantastic ways to save time and money. 

Benefits of Booking an Open-jaw Flight 

There are several reasons why booking an open-jaw flight can make sense. To start, you can save a good chunk of money. Open-jaw flights are especially beneficial if you go somewhere widely serviced by train. If you’re traveling from the U.S. to Europe and want to hit major cities like Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, and Berlin, it makes little sense to pay for a round-trip ticket from the U.S. to Paris. This means you’ll have to start and end your trip in the same city, which can quickly become expensive and time-consuming. It’s much easier to fly back to the U.S. from Berlin than it is to fly from Berlin back to Paris and then back to the U.S. Not only are you able to see more cities, but you’re saving on your transatlantic ticket and the travel within Europe.  

“Booking open-jaw or multi-city flights can sometimes yield savings because you have more flexibility in your trip in terms of departure airports, routes, and carriers,” says Expedia. “It can also be a great way to build more flexibility and spontaneity into your trip, allowing you to explore more destinations during your trip.” 

Ultimately, saving money, increasing flexibility, and planning an excellent itinerary are all reasons to book an open-jaw flight. Even if you don’t want to visit multiple cities, you can implement the open-jaw model when traveling to larger cities with multiple airports. I went to New York in September and found it was much cheaper to fly into John F. Kennedy International Airport and out of LaGuardia Airport – both on Delta. 

Related: How to Book a Flight to Get the Best Deals

Artur Debat/Getty Images

To book an open-jaw flight, you’ll need an idea of where you want to end up on your trip. If you’re flying from New York to Paris, think of all the cities you can reach from Paris by train. Maybe you want to go to Brussels and Amsterdam and book your return from the Amsterdam (AMS) airport. Or, head south and fly back through Geneva, an easy train ride away.

Once you have this tentative route, you can use search engines, like Expedia or Google Flights , to see your options. You’ll select “multi-city” instead of round-trip and enter your origin and destination for each route. 

“Expedia is the perfect place to book this type of itinerary because of the breadth of options and ability to pair flights on different airlines to find the optimal itinerary and price for your trip,” explains Expedia. “Travelers can choose from more than 500 airlines and compare routes, prices, and availability and then build the perfect itinerary to meet their needs.”

Of course, if you book with an airline, the open-jaw savings can also apply to mileage redemptions, not just cash. 

Open-jaw flights can work for anyone and any itinerary, but it takes slightly more planning than booking a traditional round-trip ticket. The payoff is worth the effort; every little bit saved can go toward your next trip.

Advertiser Disclosure

Many of the credit card offers that appear on this site are from credit card companies from which we receive financial compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site (including, for example, the order in which they appear). However, the credit card information that we publish has been written and evaluated by experts who know these products inside out. We only recommend products we either use ourselves or endorse. This site does not include all credit card companies or all available credit card offers that are on the market. See our advertising policy here where we list advertisers that we work with, and how we make money. You can also review our credit card rating methodology .

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

Senior Content Contributor

486 Published Articles

Countries Visited: 24 U.S. States Visited: 22

Keri Stooksbury

Editor-in-Chief

31 Published Articles 3102 Edited Articles

Countries Visited: 45 U.S. States Visited: 28

An Introduction to Stopovers and Open-jaws

Alaska airlines mileage plan, air canada aeroplan, all nippon airways (ana) mileage club, asiana airlines mileage club, cathay pacific asia miles, emirates skywards, japan airlines mileage bank, singapore airlines krisflyer, united airlines, final thoughts.

We may be compensated when you click on product links, such as credit cards, from one or more of our advertising partners. Terms apply to the offers below. See our Advertising Policy for more about our partners, how we make money, and our rating methodology. Opinions and recommendations are ours alone.

In the award travel world, stopovers and open-jaws are topics that get a ton of attention. They can be difficult to plan and overwhelming to visualize, but 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.

But there are several frequent flyer programs that 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 you 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 that can be worth tens of thousands of dollars in added value, for free!

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

A stopover is the act of 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, and you wanted to fly to Hong Kong — but then return to NYC from Tokyo. 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 talk about is a  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 go in-depth into each rewards program, 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.

Here, we’ve compiled what we think are the best programs you can use to work in stopovers and open-jaws to your vacation.

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 it also has 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 .

Basically, here are Alaska’s routing rules:

• You may only fly 1 partner airline and Alaska Airlines on an award 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, and the partner booking fee is $12.50 plus a $15 phone booking fee.
• Changes and cancellations are free until 60 days before departure. After that, you must pay $125.
• 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 put this in practice.

Keep in mind that each airline has its own award chart with Alaska Airlines — so this might be hard to keep track of, but it will be totally worth it!

There are some 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 some great example routes you can take:

• Boston (BOS) – Beijing (PEK) – Urumqi (URC)  one-way for 50,000 Alaska miles in  Hainan Airlines business class
• Chicago (ORD ) – Hong Kong (HKG) – Johannesburg (JNB)  one-way for 70,000 Alaska miles in Cathay Pacific first class (or 50,000 in business class )
• Los Angeles (LAX) – Brisbane (BNE) – Perth (PER) one-way for 70,000 Alaska miles in Qantas first class (or 55,000 in business class )
• Los Angeles (LAX) – Nadi (NAN) – Adelaide (ADL)  one-way for 55,000 Alaska miles in Fiji Airways business class
• New York (JFK) – Tokyo (HND) – Bangkok (BKK) one-way for 75,000 Alaska miles in Japan Airlines first class (or 65,000 in business class )

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

Take the ORD-HKG-JNB itinerary, for instance. You are literally adding 13 hours of first or business class flying time and ~$10,000 worth of first-class flights for no additional miles.

Let that sink in for a moment … you will get $10,000 in free plane tickets, just for knowing about Alaska’s award routing rules !

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

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 not permitted 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 !

Let’s call ANA Mileage Club ‘s routing rules as they are: generous for simple travelers.

You might be wondering what differentiates Alaska Airlines from ANA since we used the same “generous for simple travelers” above? Well, 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.

ANA also has very generous fares for  round-trip business class awards . Combining these routing rules with the best-in-class award prices, ANA becomes a powerful asset that we can use.

To be specific, ANA has its regular routing rules and round-the-world award routing rules (the latter is generally going to be out of scope of this guide, so we’ll focus on adding value from the regular routing rules).

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 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 some value flying to places like Europe , Korea , and South America .

We won’t go over some stopovers with the airline since this always costs extra miles, but here’s an idea of how to use an open-jaw for convenience purposes (and also using 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’ll be charged for 2 U.S.-Europe one-way awards, which price out at 50,000 miles each way.

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

There are tons of optimization to be had using Asia Miles , but the program is a bit complex. For this reason, we think Asia Miles is for “advanced award travelers.” Let’s get into the routing rules.

Basically, you can fall into 3 sets of award redemption buckets:

• Asia Miles Awards Chart (only flying Cathay Pacific)
• Airline Partners Award Chart  (only flying 1 partner the entire way)
• Oneworld Multi-carrier Award Chart  (flying 3+ partners if part of your itinerary includes Cathay Pacific; otherwise, up to 2 partners  without Cathay Pacific)

Each of these is distance-based, and they are subject to different open-jaw and stopover rules. We will focus on Oneworld multi-carrier awards, as they 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:

• If your travel includes Cathay Pacific, you may fly on 3 or more Oneworld airlines. Otherwise, you may fly up to 2 partners. Basically, you should add Cathay Pacific, if not for its amazing inflight product, because it allows you to fly more partners!
• 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 ).
• The total mileage is determined by the sum of the distances from each of the segments (airport A to airport B). For example, if you’re flying from New York to Hong Kong to New Delhi, you must add the total distances between the 2 segments as opposed to taking the distance between New York and Delhi without considering Hong Kong.
• You are allowed a maximum of 5 stopovers, 2 transfers (layovers), and 2 open-jaws per itinerary.
• Mixed cabin awards will be charged the highest class mileage price for the entire itinerary. Don’t book mixed cabins unless you don’t have a choice.
• You can’t book premium economy.

These might be confusing, but if you take the time to really 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:

• New York (JFK) – Tokyo (HND)  [Japan Airlines]
• Tokyo (HND) – Hong Kong (HKG) [Cathay Pacific]
• Hong Kong (HKG) – Kuala Lumpur (KUL) [Malaysia Airlines]
• Kuala Lumpur (KUL) – Sydney (SYD) [Malaysia Airlines]
• Sydney (SYD) – Doha (DOH) [Qatar Airways]
• Doha (DOH) – Colombo (CMB) [SriLankan Airlines]
• Chennai (MAA) – London (LHR) [British Airways]
• Madrid (MAD) – New York (JFK) [Iberia]

How long is this itinerary? You’d be flying 32,975 miles and over 71 hours on 8 different airlines across 9 countries.

How complex is this itinerary? It has 5 stopovers and 2 open-jaws between Doha/Dubai and London/Madrid.

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

Just 210,000 Asia Miles in business class?!

So, for 40,000 miles more than a round-trip JFK-HKG ticket in Cathay Pacific business class, you can visit 7 more countries, try 8 different business class products (including Malaysia Airlines’ A330 and A350 business class), and fly more than  double the distance?

Yes, please!

We can’t overstate just how amazing using Cathay Pacific Asia Miles for Oneworld multi-carrier award tickets truly is.

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

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

We’ll focus on Saver awards for economy and business class because they 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/economy).

In practice, 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 the zone definitions, so the best way to find out 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:

• Visit the Emirates Skywards Miles Calculator .
• Type in your route (e.g., Los Angeles – Dubai).
• Note the award costs (e.g., Business Saver on LAX – DXB = 165,000 miles round-trip).
• Type in another route with one different city (e.g., New York City – Dubai).
• Note the award costs (e.g., Business Saver on JFK – DXB = 145,000 miles round-trip).
• Compare the award costs (165,000 ≠ 145,000).
• If they’re the same, you can be pretty certain that the 2 cities are in the same zone; if not, they are not in the same region.

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

Here are some 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) round-trip 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 145,000 Emirates Skywards miles in Emirates business class
• San Francisco (SFO) – Dubai (DXB) – Malé (MLE) round-trip for 180,000 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, but because of its hub-and-spoke model of airline networks, it’s very difficult to add open-jaws since Emirates only allows them for “cities in the same zone.”

Japan Airlines Mileage Bank is similar to Cathay Pacific Asia Miles: 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:

• Oneworld partners
• Non-alliance partners (including Air France, Korean Air, Emirates, etc.)

Here are the routing rules for partner airlines:

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

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

• Los Angeles (LAX) – Paris (CDG) [Air France]
• Paris (CDG) – Dubai (DXB) [Emirates]
• Dubai (DXB) – Sydney (SYD) [Emirates]
• Sydney (SYD) – Hangzhou (HGH) [China Eastern]
• Shanghai (PVG) – New York (JFK) [China Eastern]

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

A minor caveat to consider is that Air France, Emirates, Malaysia Airlines, and Korean Air don’t allow first class award bookings , so you’ll 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 is generally very strict with award routing rules. These are the following:

• Round-trip saver awards are allowed 1 stopover and 1 open-jaw.
• One-way  advantage (more expensive!)  awards are allowed 1 stopover.
• 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 would be entitled to a free stopover in either Tokyo (NRT) or Manchester (MAN). That said, the price for itinerary #1 is 128,500 miles, while the price for itinerary #2 is 143,500 miles.

United Airlines has something peculiar called the  Excursionist Perk .

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

• For example, if your journey begins in North America, you will only receive the Excursionist Perk if travel is within a region outside of North America.
• Travel must end in the same MileagePlus defined region where travel originates.
• The origin and destination of the Excursionist Perk are within a single MileagePlus defined region.
• The cabin of service and award type of the free one-way award is the same or lower than the one-way award preceding it.
• If 2 or more one-way awards qualify for this benefit, only the first occurrence will be 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 intra-region award flight. Because United has so many regions, it’s not super useful to extract extra value.

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

Nevertheless, using the Excursionist Perk will get you a tiny bit of extra value, though it’s really only useful for convenience purposes.

Whew, what a guide! Between reading crazy legal documents, obscure terms and conditions, and confusing award charts, we’ve definitely scrutinized the fine print in this guide to maximizing open-jaws and stopovers.

Of course, there are tons more airline programs out there, but we covered most of our bases here. There are also some outdated resources out there, so we made sure to show you award maximization opportunities based on up-to-date rules!

Frequently Asked Questions

What is an open-jaw.

An open-jaw is a flight where the destination and return city are not the same. An example flight could be:

• New York (JFK) – Detroit (DTW)
• Detroit (DTW) – Washington, D.C. (IAD)

What is a stopover flight?

A stopover is a stay in a city that lasts 24 hours or more.

An example would be:

• Flying San Francisco (SFO) – Tel Aviv (TLV)
• Stay in Tel Aviv for a week
• Tel Aviv (TLV) – New Delhi (DEL)

What is a transfer/layover flight?

A layover is a stay in a city for less than 24 hours.

Which airlines stopover in Singapore?

Lufthansa and Singapore Airlines are the main airlines that stopover in Singapore.

Which airlines stopover in Bangkok?

THAI Air, EVA Air, Korean Air, and Singapore Air are the main airlines that stopover in Bangkok.

Which airlines stopover in Hong Kong?

Singapore Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Malaysia Airlines, and Korean Air are the main airlines that stopover in Hong Kong.

Which airlines stopover in Dubai?

Cathay Pacific, SWISS Air, and Emirates are the main airlines that stopover in Dubai.

Which airlines have the best award routing rules?

We’ll split this answer up into airlines that have the best award routing rules for simple itineraries and complex itineraries.

The airlines with the best award routing rules for simple itineraries are Alaska Airlines, Air Canada, and Singapore Airlines.

The airlines with the best award routing rules for complex itineraries are Cathay Pacific, Japan Airlines, and Asiana Airlines.

Was this page helpful?

About Stephen Au

Stephen is an established voice in the credit card space, with over 70 to his name. His work has been in publications like The Washington Post, and his Au Points and Awards Consulting Services is used by hundreds of clients.

INSIDERS ONLY: UP PULSE ™

Get the latest travel tips, crucial news, flight & hotel deal alerts...

Plus — expert strategies to maximize your points & miles by joining our (free) newsletter.

We respect your privacy . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA. Google's privacy policy and terms of service apply.

Related Posts

UP's Bonus Valuation

This bonus value is an estimated valuation calculated by UP after analyzing redemption options, transfer partners, award availability and how much UP would pay to buy these points.

Simple Flying

What are open jaw flights & how do you book one.

Open jaw flights have several advantages, but can be tricky to find.

• Open-jaw flights are those where the origin or destination city is different on the return leg of a journey.
• They offer flexibility and can save time and money by allowing travelers to fly into one city and return from another.
• Open-jaw flights are booked as part of the same ticket to ensure protection in case of delays or disruptions.

When planning trips for business or leisure, many individuals and organizations spend a lot of time looking for the best deals on flights to cut down on things like costs and traveling time. Luckily, many airlines offer flexible ticketing options, like the so-called open-jaw flights. This is in addition to the more common one-way and return tickets.

Open-jaw flights sometimes allow greater convenience and flexibility but can be harder to find than the more straightforward options. Let us look at what they are and how they can be booked.

What is an open-jaw flight?

An open-jaw flight or ticket is simply an airline return ticket booked by a passenger where the origin and/or destination cities are different. For example, a simple return flight could be between Los Angeles International (LAX) and New York John F Kennedy (JFK) . If either of these cities are different on the return leg, it becomes an open jaw. The term "open jaw" derives from how the routes are illustrated on a map.

There are three types of open-jaw flights: destination, origin, and double open-jaw. With the destination open-jaw, a passenger flies from one airport to another but returns to their origin from a different city. With the origin open-jaw, a passenger would fly from one city to another, but instead of returning to the origin, they would fly to a different city. With the double, the origin and destination airports would be different in both directions. Here are a few examples:

• Destination open-jaw: An outbound flight from London to New York JFK, returning from Chicago to London.
• Origin open-jaw: An outbound flight from London to New York JFK, returning from JFK to Paris instead of London.
• Double open-jaw: An outbound flight from London to New York and a return from Chicago to Paris. This may involve two separate fares.

Advantages of open jaw flights

It is important to note that flying to or from different airports in the same city is not considered an open-jaw flight. So, for example, an outbound flight from London Heathrow to JFK returning from JFK to London Gatwick (LGW) does not count.

However, if you consider booking an open-jaw flight, several advantages exist. Here are some of them:

• Flexibility: Most obviously, they allow for more flexible travel. Open-jaw flights could save time or add more destinations to a trip (for a similar price). If your travels take you from one place to another, there is no need to return to the same airport.
• Cheaper fares: The ticket may be cheaper. It will be no surprise that airlines price tickets to different cities differently. By selecting a cheaper origin or destination, an open-jaw ticket could be cheaper than a standard return ticket. Of course, there is no guarantee of this and no set formula. It could also be more expensive, but it is worth experimenting with some options if you want to save money.
• Ticket availability: The availability of tickets could be better. As with prices, the ticket availability on different routes can vary significantly. One route may be sold out for the dates you want (or priced highly), but flights from a nearby alternative city may be available. This is particularly the case with busy business routes or peak-time tourist routes.

How Airline Ticket Pricing Works

How to book open-jaw flights.

Open-jaw flights are booked as part of the same single ticket. If not, the journey would consist of two one-way tickets. Having all flights as part of the same itinerary gives protection in case of delays or disruption. If the flights were instead booked as separate one-ways, the airline would likely not offer any assistance, cancelation, or rebooking options if one of the legs was disrupted. These days, this is more important than ever.

Open-jaw flights can often be booked directly with the airline on its website by clicking the "multi-city" or "multiple destinations" options. However, multi-city flights may sometimes include flights between cities , whereas open-jaw flights do not. Alternatively, you can use an online travel agent or flight search engine to find flights.

While prices may differ from site to site , many platforms like Google Flights are suitable for searching for these tickets and usually return more options than an airline search engine. Of course, you can always try to find the same flights directly with an airline when you are ready to book. Additionally, the search functionality on an airline website may not be as good as with a flight search engine. Good search options can help to find better open-jaw options. You can often include nearby airports in a search or sometimes search for destinations flexibly with a map interface.

Do you often book open-jaw tickets? Would you like to share some experiences or discuss them in more detail? Feel free to do so in the comment section.

Get Daily Travel Tips & Deals!

By proceeding, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use .

What Is an Open-Jaw Ticket, and How Can I Use One?

A nationally recognized reporter, writer, and consumer advocate, Ed Perkins focuses on how travelers can find the best deals and avoid scams.

He is the author of "Online Travel" (2000) and "Business Travel: When It's Your Money" (2004), the first step-by-step guide specifically written for small business and self-employed professional travelers. He was also the co-author of the annual "Best Travel Deals" series from Consumers Union.

Perkins' advice for business travelers is featured on MyBusinessTravel.com , a website devoted to helping small business and self-employed professional travelers find the best value for their travel dollars.

Perkins was founding editor of Consumer Reports Travel Letter, one of the country's most influential travel publications, from which he retired in 1998. He has also written for Business Traveller magazine (London).

Perkins' travel expertise has led to frequent television appearances, including ABC's "Good Morning America" and "This Week with David Brinkley," "The CBS Evening News with Dan Rather," CNN, and numerous local TV and radio stations.

Before editing Consumer Reports Travel Letter, Perkins spent 25 years in travel research and consulting with assignments ranging from national tourism development strategies to the design of computer-based tourism models.

Born in Evanston, Illinois, Perkins lives in Ashland, Oregon with his wife.

Travel Smarter! Sign up for our free newsletter.

I’ve occasionally suggested an “open jaw” air ticket as an alternative option for some trips—and I’ve often assumed everyone knows what that is. I’m sure that’s not true; that some of you aren’t aware of this term. And even if you do know, you may not be quite sure how they work or how to research and book them. A reader put the question this way.

“Are ‘open-jaw’ rates the same as ‘multi-destination’ rates? My wife and I are trying to figure out how to go on a cruise from Santiago to Buenos Aires, and all of the travel sites show ‘multi’ and then they give you a rate.”

The short answer is that, although in airline terms, they are not the same, you use the multiple destinations option to book them on the big online ticket agencies.

The Basic Idea

You often find yourself planning a trip where you would like to fly from your home to one city and return from another. Our reader’s situation—a cruise between two foreign ports—is a perfect example. By returning directly from Buenos Aires, he would save time and avoid the extra expense of flying back to Santiago just to catch a return flight.

In another case, a traveler asked about the best way to travel by train from Madrid to Paris, Paris to Rome, then back to Madrid “to catch a return flight.” I suggested that rather than spend up to two days on the long train haul from Rome to Madrid at the end of his trip, he should consider flying home directly from Rome on an open-jaw ticket.

Although it probably arises less frequently, you might also want to fly from one airport to a destination and back from that destination to a different city. In either case, the airlines call that sort of ticket an open jaw. The name comes from the similarity of the line drawing of the trip flight path (sort of) to an open jaw.

Fare Construction

When low-priced excursion fares first came to the marketplace, they all required a round-trip purchase (as well as advance purchase and minimum stay). And those round-trip prices were usually less than each one-way fare—often less than half. Almost immediately, to accommodate travelers such as our two readers, the airlines introduced the concept of open-jaw fares. And they were generally set as the average of the round-trip fares from the origin to the two different destinations.

The main restrictions were (1) you had to honor the minimum-stay restrictions on the round-trips, and (2) the “open” portion of the itinerary—the distance between the arrival and departure destinations—had to be less than either of the flight legs.

In today’s more chaotic airfare marketplace, few tickets fall into such simple formulas. But in my experience, in markets where one-way fares are very expensive, the current open-jaw pricing remains close to that old formula.

I checked a few sample trips to illustrate the pricing:

1.) Chicago (ORD) to Santiago (SCL), and Buenos Aires (EZE) to ORD, for midweek flights in April:

• Round-trip ORD to SCL: $996
• Round-trip ORD to EZE: $942
• Open jaw ORD to SCL, plus EZE to ORD: $832

This, I think, isn’t typical: Expedia ‘s result page told me it had found an “even cheaper” option in its open-jaw search. I would have expected something closer to the round-trip rates.

This search revealed another unexpected result. The open jaw was on American , the leading U.S. line to Latin America, and American’s one-way fares from ORD to SCL started at $1,379. But if you were willing to detour a bit, Air Canada would take you there one-way by way of Toronto for $506.

2.) San Francisco (SFO) to Stockholm (ARN), and London (LHR) to SFO for midweek flights in June:

• Round-trip SFO to ARN: $1,120
• Round-trip SFO to LHR: $1,171
• Open jaw SFO to ARN, plus LHR to SFO: $1,202

Here, the open jaw is a bit pricier, for reasons that aren’t at all clear. But the small difference is far less than you’d have to pay to fly back from London to Stockholm to catch a return flight. And I didn’t find any one-way fares less than half the open jaw: The least expensive one-way ticket, at $815, was on a combination of United and Malaysia , requiring you to schlep from JFK to Newark.

3.) Portland, Maine (PWM), to San Diego (SAN), plus Portland, Oregon (PDX), to PWM:

• Round-trip PWM to SAN: $297
• Round-trip PWM to PDX: $303
• Open jaw PWM to SAN, plus PDX to PWM: $393

Here, the crazy fare situation in domestic markets comes into play. The PWM/SAN round-trip flight is cheaper than the PWM/PDX ticket because it’s on JetBlue , a line that offers lower fares. The open jaw is on Continental .

Within the U.S., you often don’t need open jaws, because one-way fares are about half the round-trip rates in on so many routes. The one-way fare on JetBlue from PDX to PWM, for example, is $139. In answering another reader, I found a similar situation for a one-way cruise to Alaska: Two one-way tickets, to Seattle and back from Anchorage, cost no more than a single open jaw.

Booking Open Jaws

As our reader concluded, you book an open-jaw trip online by entering it as a multi-destination trip. The initial menu of Expedia (where I checked) calls it “multiple destinations,” Orbitz calls it “multi-city,” Travelocity calls it “multi-destination,” and individual airline sites use similar terms. Whatever the name, you enter the first one-way trip, then the return, and you get the open-jaw result.

In general, I find that open-jaw trips are most useful for international flights, where one-way fares can still be very high. But you find some strange anomalies in the general pattern of fares, such as the fact that Air Canada is offering cheap deals through Toronto, and Malaysia is heavily discounting its transatlantic service. The obvious conclusion remains: You have to research each trip.

(Editor’s Note: SmarterTravel.com is a member of the TripAdvisor Media Network, an operating company of Expedia, Inc. Expedia, Inc. also owns Expedia.com.)

We hand-pick everything we recommend and select items through testing and reviews. Some products are sent to us free of charge with no incentive to offer a favorable review. We offer our unbiased opinions and do not accept compensation to review products. All items are in stock and prices are accurate at the time of publication. If you buy something through our links, we may earn a commission.

Top Fares From

Don't see a fare you like? View all flight deals from your city.

Today's top travel deals.

Brought to you by ShermansTravel

Porto to Lisbon: 7-Nt, Small-Group Portugal...

Indus Travels

Luxe, 12-Night Spain, France, Monaco &...

Regent Seven Seas Cruises

Ohio: Daily Car Rentals from Cincinnati

Trending on SmarterTravel

Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

UK Edition Change

• UK Politics
• News Videos
• Paris 2024 Olympics
• Rugby Union
• Sport Videos
• John Rentoul
• Mary Dejevsky
• Andrew Grice
• Sean O’Grady
• Photography
• Theatre & Dance
• Culture Videos
• Food & Drink
• Health & Families
• Royal Family
• Electric Vehicles
• Car Insurance deals
• Lifestyle Videos
• UK Hotel Reviews
• News & Advice
• Simon Calder
• Australia & New Zealand
• South America
• C. America & Caribbean
• Middle East
• Politics Explained
• News Analysis
• Today’s Edition
• Home & Garden
• Broadband deals
• Fashion & Beauty
• Travel & Outdoors
• Sports & Fitness
• Sustainable Living
• Climate Videos
• Solar Panels
• Behind The Headlines
• On The Ground
• Decomplicated
• You Ask The Questions
• Binge Watch
• Travel Smart
• Watch on your TV
• Crosswords & Puzzles
• Most Commented
• Newsletters
• Ask Me Anything
• Virtual Events
• Betting Sites
• Online Casinos
• Wine Offers

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in Please refresh your browser to be logged in

How to book cheap ‘open-jaw’ flights

Plane talk:  flying out to one city and back from another is often the best plan  , article bookmarked.

Find your bookmarks in your Independent Premium section, under my profile

Sign up to Simon Calder’s free travel email for expert advice and money-saving discounts

Get simon calder’s travel email, thanks for signing up to the simon calder’s travel email.

Competition has brought immense benefits for airline passengers. So when rivals across the Atlantic team up, it might look like thoroughly bad news for travellers. But the tie-ups between British Airways and American Airlines, and between Virgin Atlantic and Delta, deliver one clear benefit: increasing the range of flights that can be combined on one ticket.

In particular, the options for an “open-jaw” trip become much wider.

Last weekend, I flew out to Boston on Delta and returned from New York on Virgin Atlantic. Other possible options using this combination of airlines include out to Atlanta and back from Orlando, or out to Salt Lake City and back from Las Vegas.

Open-jaw tickets rarely cost more than a standard round-trip, and remove the cost and time required to retrace your steps.

For almost any journey that includes an overland journey, going from A to B but back from C to A is the best plan. Yet not everyone appreciates their benefits and flexibility. The default (among travellers and airline/agent booking sites) is to fly from A to B and back to A.

The most scenic airports

The technique is particularly appropriate for travel to North America, where there are many great overland journeys to be made: Los Angeles to San Francisco, Boston to New York and Philadelphia to Washington DC; Vancouver to Seattle or even Portland.

Australia is also prime territory: while Sydney may be a good place to start a trip down under, if you are doing any significant travelling around then it is a poor choice for travelling home. All the big Gulf and Asian carriers will offer open-jaw options allowing you to fly back from Melbourne, Brisbane or Perth, with Adelaide, Canberra and Darwin possible if you choose the right airline.

On a trip to both the islands of New Zealand, rather than flying in and out of Auckland on the North Island, fly out from Christchurch or even Queenstown.

There are plenty more examples. Vietnam is a long, thin country and it does not make sense to backtrack from Ho Chi Minh City (formerly known as Saigon) to the glorious capital, Hanoi.

Likewise, an overland adventure through Africa can be a dream trip – but to make the most of your stay you will need an open-jaw ticket out to Addis Ababa or Nairobi and back from Johannesburg or Cape Town.

• How to visit New York City on a budget
• How to book cheap flights when the sales are over
• Cheap flight deals – is there a catch?
• Friday 13th: mystery over cheap flight claims
• Why Chinese airlines can offer such cheap flights
• How to bag cheap flights by using ‘mistake fares’

The trouble is: it can be tricky to book them. The basic rule of thumb is that you can add the cost of a round trip from A to B and A to C together and divide by two to get an idea of the likely cost.

Some carriers make it even easier. I booked my trip last weekend through the Virgin Atlantic platform. I found an excellent fare outbound from Heathrow to Boston on Delta and back from JFK on Virgin.

On the Virgin Atlantic booking platform, the price of each segment was clearly shown. (Incidentally, the Delta timing was better and the fare the same on the JFK-London flight, but I went for Virgin Atlantic to obtain the protection offered by the European air passengers’ rights rules.)

On a Gulf Air booking out to Cochin in India and back from Mumbai later this month, I was also given a good price on the airline’s website.

This is in contrast to British Airways, which seems determined to deter “multi-city” bookings. I made a test booking out to Boston and back from New York on ba.com. Try as I might, I could not get the cost below £405, even though on the dates chosen a round-trip to New York was £274 and to Boston is £303. So the quote was at least £100 higher than I expected.

One reason: on multi-city itineraries, checked baggage is automatically included even if you don’t want or need it (and, given BA’s spectacularly generous cabin-baggage allowance of 46kg, I never do).

Europe is arguably the most promising territory of all for open-jaw trips: Italy from tip (Milan or Venice) to toe (Brindisi or one of the Sicilian airports); Berlin to Prague, along the Elbe river valley; Bergen to Tromso in Norway, using the Hurtigruten coastal ferry between the two; and Porto to Faro along the coast of Portugal. Given the multiplicity of flights, the multi-city option on a comparison site such as Skyscanner is worthwhile.

Of course you can even try a reverse open-jaw, which means flying from A to B but back from B to C. This usually works best, in my experience, to reduce fares: I have combined Bournemouth and Gatwick, Luton and East Midlands and even Heathrow and Liverpool. But it is not so great if you like to park at the airport.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Subscribe to Independent Premium to bookmark this article

Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Premium subscription today.

New to The Independent?

Or if you would prefer:

Want an ad-free experience?

Hi {{indy.fullName}}

• My Independent Premium
• Account details
• Help centre

• Credit cards
• View all credit cards
• Banking guide
• Loans guide
• Insurance guide
• Personal finance
• View all personal finance
• Small business
• Small business guide
• View all taxes

You’re our first priority. Every time.

We believe everyone should be able to make financial decisions with confidence. And while our site doesn’t feature every company or financial product available on the market, we’re proud that the guidance we offer, the information we provide and the tools we create are objective, independent, straightforward — and free.

So how do we make money? Our partners compensate us. This may influence which products we review and write about (and where those products appear on the site), but it in no way affects our recommendations or advice, which are grounded in thousands of hours of research. Our partners cannot pay us to guarantee favorable reviews of their products or services. Here is a list of our partners .

What Are Layover, Stopover and Open-Jaw Flights?

Many or all of the products featured here are from our partners who compensate us. This influences which products we write about and where and how the product appears on a page. However, this does not influence our evaluations. Our opinions are our own. Here is a list of our partners and here's how we make money .

Table of Contents

What is a layover?

Stopover meaning in airlines, open-jaw flights: how they work.

Many times in the world of air travel you might hear the words “layover,” “stopover” and “open-jaw” flight but not be quite sure what they mean.

The main difference between a stopover and layover is length of time. Stopover rules vary by airline, but are essentially longer layovers — at least 24 hours in length. Layovers, meanwhile, are connections less than a day in length depending on if you’re flying domestically or internationally.

Open-jaw flights are a whole different beast. Follow this quick guide and we’ll help you arrive at an understanding of stopover, layover and open-jaw flights.

A layover is the technical term for what you might think of as a simple connecting flight. For example, earlier this year, I flew from Cincinnati to Boston on American Airlines. Because there are no direct flights between Cincinnati and Boston on American, I had to make a connection. There were several options for my connection, mostly in American hub airports like New York LaGuardia, Washington National or Philadelphia. I chose one in Washington (DCA).

In this case, I had only a 31-minute layover, which made me a bit nervous. Layovers this short are great when everything goes right, since you walk right off of one flight and on to the next, but they don’t have a lot of room for error. Thankfully, my first flight arrived about 15 minutes early, so I had plenty of time to make it to my next flight.

» Learn more: 5 tips for long airport layovers

Another note about layovers: While they usually involve changing gates and planes, that is not always the case. Southwest, for example, will often have layovers that involve no plane change.

In a case like this, you would arrive in Kansas City and wait for all the departing passengers to deplane. Then you could move to a better seat (this IS Southwest after all) and await the passengers going from Kansas City to Los Angeles.

At its simplest, a stopover is simply a longer layover. Most airlines define a layover as any connection of less than 4 hours on a domestic flight or less than 24 hours on an international flight. Rules about when stopovers are allowed varies by airline, and it will often depend on whether the ticket is an award ticket or a paid ticket.

Here are two examples of stopovers I have personally taken:

Using Alaska Airlines miles to fly Emirates, I booked a ticket from Singapore to Dubai (2-day stopover) to New York City.

On a paid ticket, I flew Newark to Lisbon (3-day stopover) before continuing on to Barcelona.

Most airlines that offered free stopovers on award tickets have eliminated that perk. There are a few (but dwindling) number of airlines that offer stopovers on award tickets:

Singapore Airlines offers two complimentary stopovers on a round-trip ticket using KrisFlyer miles.

Alaska Airlines even offers a free stopover on ONE-WAY award tickets (see my Dubai example above).

United Airlines doesn’t allow stopovers per se, but it does have a similar program called the Excursionist Perk .

Even if the airline whose miles you are using does not allow stopovers on award flights, you can still get a lot of value from including a layover of up to 23 hours 59 minutes. As an example, on the same Singapore trip I mentioned earlier, I used American Airlines AAdvantage miles to book the outbound portion of the trip, which included a 20-hour layover in Hong Kong at no additional charge.

While that wasn’t enough time to see much of Hong Kong, it was at least enough to take a brief city tour, have some street food and get a taste of the city before returning to the airport and boarding the connecting flight to Singapore.

» Learn more: The best airlines for free stopovers

An open-jaw flight is two or more flights in an itinerary with an “open” segment in the middle. The open “V” shape formed by the outbound and return lines of travel is similar to the profile of an open mouth or jaw. A simple example would be a round-trip itinerary as follows:

New York to Paris.

Frankfurt to New York.

You start and end your itinerary in New York, but your European itinerary has an open-jaw between Paris and Frankfurt. This itinerary does not cover your travel between those two European cities. Of course you will have to physically get yourself from Paris to Frankfurt, but you are on your own for that transportation. It could be by car, train, a separately booked flight or any other mode of travel.

Open-jaw itineraries don’t have to start and end in the same location and aren’t limited to only 2 flights. Here is another example of an open-jaw itinerary:

Chicago to London.

London to Stockholm.

Copenhagen to Los Angeles.

In this itinerary you have an open-jaw between your origin and return (Chicago to Los Angeles) as well as an open-jaw on your destination (Stockholm to Copenhagen). In both of those cases you would need to arrange your own transportation between the two cities. You also have a connection (either a layover or stopover) in London.

How to maximize your rewards

You want a travel credit card that prioritizes what’s important to you. Here are our picks for the best travel credit cards of 2024 , including those best for:

Flexibility, point transfers and a large bonus: Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card

No annual fee: Bank of America® Travel Rewards credit card

Flat-rate travel rewards: Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card

Bonus travel rewards and high-end perks: Chase Sapphire Reserve®

Luxury perks: The Platinum Card® from American Express

Business travelers: Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card

on Chase's website

1x-5x 5x on travel purchased through Chase Travel℠, 3x on dining, select streaming services and online groceries, 2x on all other travel purchases, 1x on all other purchases.

60,000 Earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening. That's $750 when you redeem through Chase Travel℠.

1.5%-6.5% Enjoy 6.5% cash back on travel purchased through Chase Travel; 4.5% cash back on drugstore purchases and dining at restaurants, including takeout and eligible delivery service, and 3% on all other purchases (on up to $20,000 spent in the first year). After your first year or $20,000 spent, enjoy 5% cash back on travel purchased through Chase Travel, 3% cash back on drugstore purchases and dining at restaurants, including takeout and eligible delivery service, and unlimited 1.5% cash back on all other purchases.

$300 Earn an additional 1.5% cash back on everything you buy (on up to $20,000 spent in the first year) - worth up to $300 cash back!

on Capital One's website

2x-5x Earn unlimited 2X miles on every purchase, every day. Earn 5X miles on hotels and rental cars booked through Capital One Travel, where you'll get Capital One's best prices on thousands of trip options.

75,000 Enjoy a one-time bonus of 75,000 miles once you spend $4,000 on purchases within 3 months from account opening, equal to $750 in travel.

The best programs for maximizing stopovers and open jaws on award tickets

Editor's Note

Understanding the complexities of stopovers and open jaws on award tickets can be overwhelming, but they can be a great way to visit two or more destinations for the price of one.

Some airline programs have lenient routing rules that you can leverage to create a tour of Europe or Asia and sometimes even a mini-round-the-world itinerary. Today, we'll explore the stopover and open-jaw rules of some of the most popular airlines to help you make the most informed decision on how you could transfer your points and subsequently maximize your rewards.

Let's dive in.

What are stopovers and open jaws?

If you're unfamiliar with stopovers and open jaws, start here .

At a high level, a stopover is a long stop in a city en route to your final destination where you leave the airport. That differs from a layover, which is generally a short connection during which you stay in the airport. The definition of a stopover vs. a layover can vary depending on the route, but for international award tickets, it's usually any connection lasting at least 24 hours.

Meanwhile, an open jaw means flying into one city and then departing out of another to fly home. For example, if you want to fly from Orlando International Airport (MCO) to Dublin Airport (DUB) and then return from Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport (CDG) to Orlando, that is an open jaw.

You could book each leg as a separate one-way ticket, but it may result in extra fees if you need to change your plans. In almost all open jaws, you're responsible for your own transportation between arrival and departure airports (Dublin and Paris in the above example). You could buy a one-way ticket on a low-cost airline or use a different mode of transportation, like a train or bus, to fill the open jaw.

Related: What are stopovers and open jaws on award tickets?

Can't you create open jaws with multiple one-way tickets?

Generally, yes. Most airline programs allow you to book one-way awards. You can create your own open jaw if your desired airline does not allow open jaws. Using the previous example would mean booking a one-way ticket from Orlando to Dublin and then another one-way ticket from Paris to Orlando.

But here are some reasons you might not want to do that.

You could be turning down a 'free' flight

As you'll see, some programs allow stopovers, enabling you to use a city as a stopover before continuing to your destination.

So you could use Dublin as a multi-day stopover before continuing to Paris. The flight from Dublin to Paris could be available for little to no extra points. One example is the United MileagePlus excursionist perk , where the inter-region flight on most long-haul round-trip or multi-city itineraries is no extra miles — you'd only need to pay the taxes and fees from Dublin to Paris.

Changes can get messy

Although the major U.S. airlines no longer charge redeposit and change fees on most award tickets, having two one-way tickets often means double the fees and double the headache when changes occur.

Some programs are also known for long hold times , so if you have a ticket booked with two programs, more effort will be required.

You may pay more in surcharges

Some carriers add on surcharges when you begin your trip in certain regions. For example, Delta SkyMiles generally adds a "carrier-imposed international surcharge" when you start an award itinerary in Europe. On a round-trip, economy-class ticket from New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) to Brussels Airport (BRU), you'll need to pay just $66 in taxes and fees (plus the required number of miles). However, booking a one-way ticket that starts in Brussels tacks on 120 euros (around $130) per person.

An infant-in-arms could be a lot more expensive

If you're traveling with an infant-in-arms (also known as a lap child), some carriers require you to pay 10% of the adult fare on international flights. One-way tickets are often exorbitantly expensive , so booking a ticket as a round-trip or multi-city could save you money when it comes to this fee.

Related: 25 airlines that allow families to pool miles

The best programs for stopovers and open jaws

The U.S. legacy carriers once offered generous routing rules for award tickets, but that's no longer true. Remember that airlines can modify their award routing rules without warning.

Here's a list of the best programs for stopovers and open jaws in your travel plans.

Air Canada Aeroplan

We've written a lot about the Aeroplan stopover .

For 5,000 points, you can add a stopover to any one-way ticket, and you can add up to two stopovers to a round-trip ticket (for 5,000 points apiece). You can also have an open jaw on your ticket, but only between one-way flights and not between connecting cities or stopovers.

In addition to Air Canada metal, you can use the Aeroplan stopover on Star Alliance partners like United, Lufthansa and ANA. The Aeroplan stopover also works with non-alliance partners like Emirates, Gulf Air, Oman Air and Vistara. Between all of Aeroplan's partners, you can book plenty of creative flights.

Here are some of our favorite Aeroplan stopovers in business class:

• Stopover in Oman : Amman's Queen Alia International Airport (AMM) to Muscat International Airport (MCT) to Dubai International Airport (DXB) for 25,000 points.
• Stopover in Japan : Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) to Tokyo's Narita International Airport (NRT) to Singapore Changi Airport (SIN) for 90,000 points.
• Stopover in Switzerland : Miami to Zurich Airport (ZRH) to Naples International Airport (NAP) for 75,000 points.
• Stopover in Turkey : Washington's Dulles International Airport (IAD) to Istanbul Airport (IST) to Bali's Ngurah Rai International Airport (DPS) for 92,500 points.

Just keep in mind that stopovers are not allowed for trips entirely within North America, including the United States, Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean and Central America.

You can book Aeroplan stopovers using the multi-city search function on aircanada.com .

Related: Complete guide to Aeroplan's stopover and routing rules

Air France-KLM Flying Blue

Flying Blue is one of the most recent programs to start offering stopovers . Best of all, Flying Blue stopovers don't require any extra miles.

You can add a stopover for up to one year on Flying Blue award tickets that are wholly operated by Air France and/or KLM. For most travelers, that means you can stop in Paris or Amsterdam Airport Schiphol (AMS) for a few days before continuing to your final destination.

To book Flying Blue stopovers, you'll need to call Flying Blue at 1 (800) 375-8723.

Related: The ultimate guide to earning and redeeming with Air France-KLM Flying Blue

Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan

Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan offers attractive premium cabin award rates , particularly for travel to Asia. It also provides generous rules for stopovers and open jaws.

You can have one stopover per one-way flight and use an open jaw for international award tickets. However, when using the Alaska stopover , you can only use one partner airline per award ticket, plus Alaska. To avoid this restriction, you can book two one-way tickets on round-trip itineraries and use different partners on the outbound and inbound flights.

Generally, Alaska stopovers are only allowed on long-haul international flights in the hub of your partner airline. For Cathay Pacific, this would be Hong Kong International Airport (HKG). Meanwhile, Japan Airlines would allow stopovers in either Tokyo airport — Narita International Airport (NRT) or Haneda Airport (HND).

Here are some of our favorite Mileage Plan stopovers in business class:

• Stopover in Finland : LAX to Helsinki Airport (HEL) to Rome Fiumicino Leonardo da Vinci Airport (FCO) for 70,000 miles.
• Stopover in England : Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) to Heathrow Airport (LHR) to Edinburgh Airport (EDI) for 65,000 miles.
• Stopover in Fiji : LAX to Nadi International Airport (NAN) to Sydney Airport (SYD) for 55,000 miles.

You can book Alaska Airlines stopovers using the multi-city search on alaskaair.com .

Related: 6 things to know about the Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan program

ANA Mileage Club

ANA Mileage Club has a stopover program that works much like Alaska's by allowing one stopover and one open jaw, but it only works on round-trip award tickets. Luckily, ANA has some of the lowest award rates out there.

You're allowed one stopover on ANA tickets, except for itineraries wholly in Japan. Likewise, you're only allowed a stopover on ANA flights if your itinerary originates outside Japan. Stopovers can either be on your ticket's outbound or inbound leg, and you're allowed an open jaw on both the inbound and outbound leg.

When you opt for an open jaw at your destination, the cities you choose must belong to the same "Area" designated by ANA. ANA divides the world into three areas, so as long as you finish your ticket in the same general area, this shouldn't be a problem.

To book an ANA stopover or open jaw, sign in to your Mileage Club account, select "book a flight," then "award reservation" and then "multiple cities/mixed classes." You can enter your city pairs and desired travel dates here.

Call ANA Mileage Club at 1 (800) 235-9262 if you face issues or are trying to book a partner that doesn't appear online — like Philippine Airlines.

Related: Everything you need to know about ANA Mileage Club

Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer

Despite devaluations to its KrisFlyer program , Singapore Airlines continues to offer exceptional premium-class products. On Singapore Airlines-operated award tickets, KrisFlyer members can book stopovers and open jaws on award tickets. One-way Advantage awards allow for one stopover, while round-trip Advantage awards permit two. Saver awards only allow one stopover on a round-trip ticket and none on a one-way ticket.

In all of these cases, there's no charge to add stopovers to an award ticket booked through Singapore KrisFlyer.

For U.S.-based flyers, the best use of the KrisFlyer stopover may be on fifth freedom Singapore Airlines flights, where you can stop for a few days in a city before terminating your journey in Singapore. Singapore Airlines operates these U.S. fifth freedom flights:

• LAX to Tokyo Narita.
• Houston's George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH) to Manchester Airport (MAN).
• JFK to Frankfurt Airport (FRA).

To book KrisFlyer stopovers, go to singaporeair.com and select "redeem flights." Enter your travel criteria with your origin and final destination — for example, LAX to SIN. You'll see a place to add a stopover on the next page.

Related: Deal: Book discounted Singapore Airlines awards with KrisFlyer Spontaneous Escapes

United MileagePlus

United MileagePlus doesn't explicitly permit stopovers or open jaws but offers the Excursionist Perk . You should refer to our guide on the Excursionist Perk if you're unfamiliar with it, but here's the basic principle:

The first route wholly within a single MileagePlus-defined region different from the region where your itinerary begins and ends is free.

You can use this to create several stopovers and/or open jaws, and there's room to get very creative here, given how few rules United has about the perk. However, the most common use would be something like this:

• Flight one: Newark to Frankfurt on United or Lufthansa.
• Flight two: Frankfurt to Brussels on Lufthansa or Brussels Airlines.
• Flight three: Brussels to Newark on United.

As you can see, the intra-Europe flight prices out at 0 miles (the taxes and fees are part of the overall award ticket, not an added cost for the stopover).

To book the MileagePlus Excursionist Perk, go to united.com , click "advanced search," "miles" and then "multi-city." Enter your travel details. The first sector wholly within a single MileagePlus-defined region different from the region where your itinerary begins and ends is no extra miles.

Related: How to get maximum value from the United MileagePlus program

Other programs that allow stopovers and open jaws

Asiana Club , Japan Airlines Mileage Bank and Cathay Pacific Asia Miles are three other programs that either allow open jaws or stopovers. That said, Asiana and Japan Airlines miles are difficult for U.S.-based travelers to earn, as the programs aren't transfer partners of the major credit card currencies . That said, you can transfer Marriott points to Asiana and Japan Airlines.

Asia Miles, on the other hand, is a transfer partner of American Express Membership Rewards , Bilt Rewards , Capital One and Citi ThankYou Rewards — though the program has a number of complexities that can make these challenging to book.

Meanwhile, British Airways calculates award tickets based on the distance of each leg. So if you book a flight from JFK to Vienna Airport (VIE) with a stop in London, it's the same number of miles as a flight from JFK to London (with a stopover in London) and then London to Vienna.

Lastly, Emirates Skywards generally allows one free stopover on round-trip saver tickets in business and economy class, but Skywards is known for outrageously high fuel surcharges .

Related: These airline and hotel programs offer free points when you sign up

How to maximize stopovers and open jaws

Now that you know how to make the most of stopovers and open jaws on award tickets, here are a few extra tips to consider while planning your next trip.

• Consider a connection of ~23.5 hours . When traveling internationally, you can generally connect within 24 hours of your arrival without it counting as a stopover. If you can schedule an overnight layover close to 24 hours, you can add another city to your itinerary without using up your stopover.
• Add a "free" side trip . If you plan to use your miles for a trip, consider adding a free side trip with a stopover and/or open jaw. For example, say you want to vacation in Canada but also have a wedding to attend in New York around the same time. Instead of booking two separate trips from your home airport, you can fly from your home to New York (stop for a wedding) and then continue to Montréal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport (YUL). After a week of vacation, you can return to your home airport from Montreal.
• Diversify your rewards . Diversification is the key to having more options when booking award tickets and filling in open jaws. Transferable point currencies are excellent for this. You can wait to transfer points until you know your redemption needs, giving you greater flexibility.

Related: How to plan a free stopover on your next trip abroad

Bottom line

Adding stopovers and open jaws to your award tickets is an excellent way to maximize your rewards and potentially visit another city without incurring additional award expenses.

You can even leverage some program restrictions, such as Alaska Airlines, to have a stopover in the partner's hub city. Now, you have the skills to begin utilizing stopovers on your next award trip.

Additional reporting by Nick Ewen and Andrew Kunesh.

God Save The Points

Elevating your travel

Open Jaw Flights: The Trick To Your Best Vacation Ever

Share this:

• Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)
• Click to print (Opens in new window)

One of the simplest yet most effective travel tricks is the “open jaw”, where you fly into one city and out the other, connecting the dots with a simple one way journey in between. Here’s how to bring it into your travel skills arsenal…

What’s An Open Jaw?

Think of a typical round trip journey like drawing a closed mouth. It’s just a flat line from one place to another. Adding a second destination creates what looks like an open jaw, if you were viewing a face from the side.

Here’s the boring round trip…

And here’s the open jaw….

It’s a lot easier than going back and forth, right?

Europe is a great place to use as an example, as is Asia because flights in both places from one country to another can be as low as $5.99 one way, and there’s countless rail and driving options as well.

If you only get one or two shots at seeing Europe in your life, why settle for just one culture or city when you could see two or more with total ease and delight?

Good, we’re on the same page!

They key is all about how you book and search for your flights.

One of the many reasons Google Flights is a great tool for searching and booking flights is how easy it makes it to search for seemingly complicated things.

While it’s not guaranteed, it’s not uncommon for flights to and from nearby parts of the world to be similarly priced, so for the same price of a simple round trip, you may be able to spice things up.

How To Research An Open Jaw

Instead of booking New York to London round trip, you may be able to book an “open jaw” from New York to London, back from Rome, Lisbon or any other European city to New York for similar, if not the same money.

The added beauty of this is it allows you to keep moving forward, never backtracking to where you started. You’re in perpetual, forward motion with your travel.

To search for this type of “open jaw” trip, you’d select “multi city” rather than “round trip” on a flight search with your favorite booking site or airline, and enter something like NYC-LON for the first flight and PAR-NYC for the second. This example would mean flying into London and out of Paris.

You’ll worry about getting between the two cities on a separate ticket, or a different means of travel, like Eurostar. Europe just improved high speed services between major cities, by the way!

Here’s an example in Google Flights for a trip into Milan and out of Rome, to get you started.

In the example above, you could swap out those two cities for any other cities in the world. You could depart from wherever you are and head to Tokyo, flying back from Bangkok. The opportunities are endless.

If you want to get really tricky, you can always double open jaw as well, where you fly back to a different city, other than the one you originated from. This can be fun if you’ve got plans elsewhere and don’t want to waste time by flying “home” first. Take a peek…

It’s a great tool for premium economy, business class or first class flights too.

Finding great prices just takes a bit of trial and error! To ensure you’re getting a great price, search for a simple round trip to one city to get an idea of how expensive the trip should be, and then see if you can get a similar price when flying out of another.

Saving both time and money is what makes this such a simple yet effective way to travel. You don’t need to buy a separate round trip ticket to get back to the city you started exploring, nor do you need to plan a second trip to that part of the world, just to see another city or country. This can be fun for something as simple as flying into Paris and out of Nice, or as exotic as flying into Tokyo and out of Bali.

The world is quite literally your oyster…

The possibilities are endless, the search process is simple and there’s nothing more exciting than squeezing more greatness out of your precious vacation time. If you only get one or two chances a year to go somewhere, this is your ticket to feeling like you took double the vacations, or more. What’s not to love?

Gilbert Ott

Gilbert Ott is an ever curious traveler and one of the world's leading travel experts. His adventures take him all over the globe, often spanning over 200,000 miles a year and his travel exploits are regularly... More by Gilbert Ott

Join the Conversation

And open legs, the trick to have most fun when you get there.

Something that is “quite literally” my “oyster” would literally be an oyster.

While I agree on the fun of it, 99% of the times I have searched for a Multi-City journey it’s come out to be much more expensive than a round trip. Even though the Airline flies to all sectors in my Itinerary daily.

Fun to try it once in a while..

For reward travel open jaw can actually be cheaper. As in 2019 when we flew into Madrid on cheap Iberia tickets, and flew out of Dublin on low-fee Aer Lingus tickets. As a bonus we got to road trip both the Iberian peninsula and Ireland. Win, win.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Leave a comment

Travel better, for less.

Stay up to date on everything travel, with our handy newsletter

The New Age of Travel Booking: Travel Advisors, Influencers & AI

Despite stiff competition from OTAs, influencers and now AI platforms, according to PhocusWire, the traditional agency market is holding its own, valued at over USD $450 billion globally.

However, as digital platforms become ever more sophisticated, what role will the traditional play? A number of publications examine the impact these innovations will have on booking channels over 2024.

Christine Wang, managing director of the Lufthansa Innovation Hub GmbH, told Travel Weekly, "While generative AI has transformative potential in a variety of travel use cases, it will likely take some years before there is widespread verticalization of the technology in travel. In 2024, we mostly anticipate refinement of its hitherto most impactful implementations in travel, such as itinerary planning for large OTAs, AI travel assistants (e.g. Swifty) and hospitality customer support."

Embracing AI

According to a blog post by Dmitri Koteshov, a senior business and tech editor, AI is considered the most transformative innovation in the tourism sector.

CNHI News reports that the AI market in the travel and hospitality industry is projected to exceed USD$1.2 billion by 2026, with an annual growth rate of approximately 10%, as reported by market research from IndustryARC.

As influencers are blurring the line between content creation and travel agencies, advisors are also tapping into digital platforms to connect with a broader audience.

AI offers personalized travel recommendations by analyzing a traveller's history and preferences. It allows agents to predict emerging travel trends, ensures the best pricing in real-time, and enhances post-booking customer service by providing timely reminders and suggestions. 

"Artificial learning platforms are doing a lot of the hard grunt work of finding things out," Zane Kerby, president and CEO of the American Society of Travel Advisors, told CHNI. "It's finding these things and presenting options to the advisor much more quickly than we have been able to do in the past."

Additionally, when combined with Virtual Reality, AI offers travellers a preview experience, letting them virtually explore destinations before booking.

AI as a virtual travel agent or concierge

Prior to a trip, consumers can seek personalized recommendations from AI regarding sightseeing, dining, accommodation, and budget optimization. The AI generates itineraries based on aggregated data from common travel searches. However, individual travel goals vary, and AI lacks the expertise a destination expert with personal experience possesses.

But AI-planned travel can produce misleading information.

"When you really look under the hood and you start probing at it, you realize there's mistakes, there's misinformation and most of all, it lacks a soul," Cameron Hewitt, director of content and editorial at Rick Steves' Europe, says. "It lacks that personal travel touch. "

Colin Smyth, vice president and general manager at Flywire told Travel Weekly , " Based on a recent survey we did of global travel providers across Australia, Italy, Japan and South Africa, we uncovered that travellers are increasingly foregoing conventional, 'off the shelf' vacations in favor of personalized trips that deliver unique experiences, often off the beaten track--so called 'experiential travel."

"While ChatGPT and other AI tools can certainly provide a base or supplement an itinerary, it has a long way to go to fully replace human-planned trips. A big part of my job is knowing members personally and treating them as I would friends or family. If I know a family member has a bad knee, I'll choose a journey with less walking. If a member loves art, I'll suggest a trip around a gallery opening date or special exhibit,"  Inspirato SVP Destination Experience, Ashlee Collins, told Forbes. 

Collins says, "My prediction with AI in the travel space is that, even if the technology improves and travellers become more trusting of it, we'll start to lose the human connection and excitement that can come with planning a trip. I love my job because I get to create memories for our members and build custom itineraries with my own recommendations included from my own experiences."

Share this:

• Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)

You may also like

Talk Back! Post a comment: Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.