For some reason, I have been concentrating a lot on British Airways Avios lately. I love Avios for short-haul flights (I used them just last month to go from Cincinnati to Washington DC), but I have not yet gone to Europe where most of their flights are located.
First I found that you can go just about anywhere in Europe (anywhere under 2000 miles flown) for only $27.50 in taxes, fees and airport charges. And then while I was researching that, I saw that you could actually fly to other destinations in the UK for NO additional Avios (free connecting flight!)
Another thing that I noticed while doing this research is that British Airways seems to allow stopovers, even on one-way flights
What’s a stopover?
In case you’re not familiar, a stopover is generally considered to be a stop longer than 4 hours domestically, or 24 hours internationally. If it’s within that length of time, it’s just considered a layover. This is what lets us do some of the tricks like the Caribbean Hopper, which takes advantage of the fact that most flights connecting 2 Caribbean islands connect through Panama City only once a day. So you can oftentimes get 20-23 hours in Panama City without it counting as a stopover. Different award tickets have different rules about how many stopovers you are allowed on the award, though generally it’s very rare to get a stopover on a one-way ticket.
Stopovers on British Airways
When you think about it, getting stopovers on British Airways one-ways makes sense, because since each leg prices individually (unlike an airline like ANA which prices on the total mileage for the ticket), you can kind of think of Avios tickets as a series of connecting one-way.
To book the stopover, just book a regular Avios ticket – if it’s not a direct flight, you’ll get greeted with the following screen
That’s it! You can see that even the free intra-UK flights are eligible for stopovers! Pick your dates, then pick your flights like normal
From North America
The same trick works from North America, though because the flights generally all go through London, it will mean that you have to pay the high airport fees / fuel surcharges going through London. You do get to spend as long as you want in London though.
Let’s take another look at the example that I posted the other day.
- BOS-JFK-TXL– 20,000 American AAdvantage miles on airberlin (we’re currently in off-peak season with American) + $5.60
- TXL-LHR-BHD (Belfast) – 4,500 Avios + $27.50. You can’t fly to Dublin for free because Ireland is not in the UK :-). So you would need to make your own way from Belfast to Dublin, and also you are allowed a stopover in London as long as you want
- DUB-BOS – 12,500 Avios + $73 – flying on British Airways partner Aer Lingus
You get as long as you want in Berlin.
Then you can take advantage of the British Airways free stopovers to spend as much time in London as you want (paying on $27.50 to transit!)
You get as long as you want in Belfast (the destination for your Reward Flight Saver flight)
Then as long as you want in Dublin, before taking your return flight back to North America
This is just one example – you can do this in pretty much any cities in Europe (you’ll just have to adjust your return flight accordingly, though in off-peak season on American, you can fly anywhere from North America to Europe for only 20,000 miles)
What would your favorite cities to transit?
This site is part of an affiliate sales network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites, such as thepointsguy.com. This may impact how and where links appear on this site. Responses are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Some or all of the card offers that appear on the website are from advertisers and that compensation may impact on how and where card products appear on the site. Any opinions expressed in this post are my own, and have not been reviewed, approved, or endorsed by my advertising partners and I do not include all card companies, or all available card offers. Terms apply to American Express benefits and offers and other offers and benefits listed on this page. Enrollment may be required for select American Express benefits and offers. Visit americanexpress.com to learn more. Other links on this page may also pay me a commission - as always, thanks for your support if you use them
User Generated Content Disclosure: Points With a Crew encourages constructive discussions, comments, and questions. Responses are not provided by or commissioned by any bank advertisers. These responses have not been reviewed, approved, or endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the responsibility of the bank advertiser to respond to comments.
Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
I’m not pricing out anything on the BA site with a stop-over in London that does not incur taxes and fees. I don’t see how you priced it out at 27.50. I’m pricing it out at 4500 miles and $189. What am I doing wrong?
2 thoughts. One is to ask where you’re pricing it from? The other is that one of the stipulations of the Reward Flight Saver flights, you need to have “earned” at least 1 Avios in the last 12 months. It appears that transfers from Chase do count, but if you haven’t done that in the last year and haven’t earned any Avios in another way, that could be the problem.
I’m based in the USA but my search mimicked yours exactly. I have not earned/burned an avios in over a year.
How about a transfer from AMEX MR?
I would imagine that an AMEX transfer would count based on my experience (the only Avios I’ve “earned” has been from a Chase transfer)
Amex MR transfer worked. Thanks! I learned something new today!
Hi,
I got the stopover screen when I did a flight search from LHR to Sydney. Stop over is in Singapore. Do you know if I can do a Singapore to Osaka with stopover?
As Cathay flies into from Singapore, to HKG and then onto Osaka was hoping I could get another stopover in Hong Kong.
Tried on BA website but didnt prompt!
British Airways prices all their flights as one-ways – so at a worst case you can just book the flights separately. Were you trying to do Singapore-Osaka? What was it pricing as?