Booking a Stopover

I will be traveling from the US to Bangkok in August and am connecting in Tokyo. Does anyone know if I can extend my layover in Tokyo for free or for a small fee? The price to book a multi-city flight or two separate tickets is too high for this to be practical. We%26#39;d love to stay in Tokyo for a day though.

A travel agent we talked with early in the process believed she could book this for $40, but our current travel agent does not know how. Since we%26#39;re not going with the travel agent that suggested this, I don%26#39;t really want to contact her to ask how this is done! Please let me kow if anyone has any advise. Thanks in advance.

Booking a Stopover

Whether or not you can stopover and if there is a fee to do so depends on the fare rules. There are many, many different fares for the same flight, same class of service, and they all have different rules about length of stay, stopover, change fees and cancellation fees.

If the agent you are using cannot tell you if a stopover is allowed or not, then they are lazy, inexperienced, untrained, and/or stupid. It%26#39;s not a complicated question, and the answer is easily found in the fare rules. You can look yourself online with the airline, or call the airline, or change travel agents.

Booking a Stopover

That comes across as kind of harsh...not meant to be harsh, but is meant to convey that your agent is not doing his/her job for whatever reason.

fish2- I will go ahead and do research on this myself. However, the flight I found via cheaptickets.com is with two different carriers- Delta out of the states to Tokyo and then Thai Airways from Tokyo to Bangkok. On the return flight its Japan Air and Delta. I%26#39;d do the stopover on the way over though. Do you know if I would research Delta or Thai Airways policy?

I put in a call to expedia and they told me they did not do stopover flights and that I would need to go through the airline directly. The problem is that I%26#39;m using multiple carriers via cheaptickets or expedia, so I%26#39;m not sure who I would call. A search on Delta%26#39;s website, for example, does not turn up the same flight.

Any suggestions of who to call or which airline policy to research if I%26#39;m using multiple carriers?

I feel you Katie. I was going to do the exact same thing and sort of looked into it... but decided to check again later because I was too lazy to dig too far. Then tonight I had a revelation that I wanted to go to Hanoi instead of Tokyo which eliminates the stop over thing because because no flight to Thailand goes through Hanoi. I checked on a %26#39;multiple destination%26#39; flight on expedia and it was about $300 more US dollars. So maybe since Tokyo is more of a hub then Hanoi it would be cheaper for you? Maybe not worth it... but maybe?

Combining airlines sometimes works for stopovers when the airlines are partners, but when they are not, it won%26#39;t be possible. It seems like your itinerary is pieced together bit by bit, combining fares and airlines within the rules, but within those rules stopovers don%26#39;t apply because a stopover implies you will continue with the same airline.

You could do a multiple destination search. That would combine low fare parts like you have found for round trip already.

You also might try ANA or Thai Air, then NWA, United, American. They can all get you to Tokyo and to Bangkok without changing airlines. Try using the airline websites, orbitz, and expedia, etc, and see what gets you the best results.

Thai and ANA are partners, so you could piece together JFK - NRT nonstop on ANA, continue to BKK a few days later on either ANA or Thai, and return home BKK - JFK non-stop, or vice versa. Just add on Durham and you%26#39;ve got very covenient flights that are comfortable with minimal stops..saves time. They might cost a bit more than the other US carriers, but they are much nicer in terms of schedule, seats, entertainment, food, service...just all around much nicer imo.

Hey Fish- Did you say that you prefer the Asian based airlines to the American ones? If so, I could see that. Never flown on an Asian carrier but will if you think it%26#39;s better quality.

I much prefer the Asian carriers. Over the years that we have lived in Japan, we%26#39;ve been loyal to NWA for its generous mileage program...but recently switched to ANA because the flights and schedule are just so much better in terms of comfort, service and schedule. We%26#39;ve also had very good flights on Thai Air and Cathay Pacific. We%26#39;ve had the unfortunate experience of some horribly staffed flights on NWA and United, with very poor service, inedible food, and very poor entertainment, which matters when you sit there for upwards of 12 hours.

But, NWA%26#39;s planes from SEA - NRT are new Airbuses, have good AVOD systems and are pretty comfortable even in economy. Just the occasional surly crew taints that route.

odp.net charakterset