Two Destinations, One Ticket

A stopover is not a layover. A layover is the few hours you spend in an airport because the schedule made you. A stopover is a deliberate stop of a day or more in the airline's home city, on the way to where you were going anyway, and a handful of airlines will let you take one without charging you more for the flight.

Done well, it turns one trip into two. Here are seven programmes worth knowing, what each actually gives you, and the thing nobody mentions: how little the detour costs.

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Why the Detour Costs You Almost Nothing

The reason these programmes exist is geography. Every one of these hubs already sits close to the straight line between the places its passengers are travelling between, so breaking the journey there adds almost no distance.

We measured it. For each programme below, here is the direct great-circle distance against the distance flown through the hub.

Not one of them adds more than 10%. And Copa's hub is the extreme case: Panama City sits so precisely on the line from Toronto to Lima that stopping there for a fortnight costs you eight kilometres. The airline is not doing you a favour it cannot afford. It is filling a seat on a flight you were always going to be near, and selling its own city to you while you are there.

Three Different Things Called a Stopover

The programmes get lumped together and they should not be. There are three kinds, and which one you are dealing with changes what you should do.

• A free extra destination. You add days in the hub city at no extra airfare. Icelandair, TAP and Copa work this way, and so does a Singapore Airlines award ticket. This is the one worth planning a trip around.
• A free hotel on a long connection. You were transiting anyway; the airline covers the night. Turkish and Ethiopian do this. You are not getting extra days, you are getting the ones you already had, in a bed instead of a terminal.
• A subsidised stay. You pay, but a fraction of the real price, because the tourist board is covering the difference. Qatar is the clearest example.

The first kind is free time. The second is free lodging. The third is a discount. All three are worth having, but only the first changes your itinerary.

Icelandair: Up to Seven Days in Iceland

The original, and still the cleanest. Flying between North America and Europe, you can stop in Iceland for up to seven nights at no extra airfare, in either direction. Reykjavik is not a detour from a transatlantic crossing so much as a rest stop on it.

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Solid line: the routing through the hub. Dashed line: the direct great circle.

Search flights New York → ReykjavikSearch flights JFK → KEF

New York to London direct is 5,540 km. Through Keflavik it is 6,058 km. The week in Iceland costs you 519 km of flying, which is under an hour in the air.

TAP Air Portugal: Up to Ten Days in Lisbon or Porto

TAP allows a stopover of up to ten days in either Lisbon or Porto on the way through, again at no extra airfare. It is the most generous of the free programmes on duration, and it comes with a 25% discount on domestic flights within Portugal and discounts from partner hotels, restaurants and museums.

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Solid line: the routing through the hub. Dashed line: the direct great circle.

Search flights Newark → LisbonSearch flights EWR → LIS

Lisbon is the westernmost major hub on the European mainland, which makes it a natural first landfall from the Americas. Newark to Rome via Lisbon adds 382 km to a 6,890 km trip.

Copa: Up to Fifteen Days in Panama

Copa is the only airline flying Toronto to Panama City nonstop, and it extended its Panama Stopover from seven days to fifteen, which makes it the longest free stop of any programme here. Anything from 24 hours to a fortnight, outbound or on the way home, with no fee beyond the original fare.

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Solid line: the routing through the hub. Dashed line: the direct great circle.

Search flights Toronto → Panama CitySearch flights YYZ → PTY

This is the map that makes the point. Panama City sits on the isthmus that every flight between North and South America has to pass, and the two lines on that map are eight kilometres apart. If you are flying between the Americas on Copa, there is close to no geometric reason not to stop.

Singapore Airlines: Changi, and the Award Ticket Loophole

Singapore's paid stopover packages bundle hotels and tours, and premium cabins get more. The interesting one is quieter: on a KrisFlyer award ticket the permitted stopover runs to thirty days, which is less a stopover than a second holiday attached to the first.

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Solid line: the routing through the hub. Dashed line: the direct great circle.

Search flights London → SingaporeSearch flights LHR → SIN

London to Sydney is 17,021 km however you fly it. Through Singapore it is 17,177 km. On a journey that long, the stop costs 0.9% in distance, and Changi was named the world's best airport by Skytrax again in 2026, for the fourteenth time, so it is not a bad place to be stuck.

Turkish Airlines: A Free Hotel in Istanbul

Turkish runs two schemes and they are mutually exclusive, which trips people up. Touristanbul is a free guided tour of the city for passengers with a connection of 6 to 24 hours. The stopover accommodation scheme is different: an international-to-international connection through Istanbul of at least 20 hours, up to 7 days, earns a complimentary hotel. You can use one or the other on a given trip, not both.

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Solid line: the routing through the hub. Dashed line: the direct great circle.

Search flights New York → IstanbulSearch flights JFK → IST

New York to Athens through Istanbul adds 649 km, or 8.2%, and the reason is a quirk of the geometry: Istanbul is barely further from New York than Athens is, just 94 km on a flight of nearly 8,000. You fly past your destination, stop for the night, and come back the 554 km.

Ethiopian Airlines: A Free Hotel in Addis Ababa

Ethiopian gives connecting passengers a hotel, meals and a transit visa on layovers of 8 to 24 hours, with no advance booking: the vouchers are handed over at check-in. The condition is that Ethiopian operates both the inbound and the outbound flight.

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Solid line: the routing through the hub. Dashed line: the direct great circle.

Search flights Washington → Addis AbabaSearch flights IAD → ADD

Addis Ababa has become the connecting point for a large share of travel into Africa, and the geometry is why: Washington to Nairobi via Addis adds 540 km to a 12,187 km trip, or 4.4%.

Qatar Airways: A Subsidised Stay in Doha

Qatar's programme is not free, and it is still the best value on this list. With a Doha transit of 12 to 96 hours, four-star hotels start around 14 US dollars a night and five-star around 24, because Qatar Tourism subsidises the rate to get you into the city. The same rooms cost many times that booked independently.

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Solid line: the routing through the hub. Dashed line: the direct great circle.

Search flights London → DohaSearch flights LHR → DOH

London to Bangkok via Doha is the biggest detour in this guide and it is still only 943 km, or 9.9%. The Gulf hubs are built on exactly this geometry, which is the same reason they came to dominate Europe to Asia traffic in the first place.

How to Actually Book One

• Book it as one ticket, not two. The whole benefit comes from the stop being part of a single fare. Two separate tickets means two fares, and no protection if the first runs late.
• Look for the multi-city box. Most of these are booked by choosing multi-city or a dedicated stopover tab and entering the hub as an intermediate stop, not by calling anyone.
• Check which direction. Several programmes allow the stop outbound or inbound, and a few only one. Outbound usually suits better, because you arrive rested at the real destination.
• The free hotel schemes need a minimum connection, so a tight connection disqualifies you. If you want the Istanbul or Addis hotel, pick the slower itinerary deliberately.
• Terms change. Durations, eligibility and prices in this guide were current when it was written, and every airline publishes the rules on its own stopover page. Check before you book.

If you are stitching together something bigger, our guides to round the world tickets and the budget around the world trip cover the fares that allow many stops rather than one. And if you want to see what a hub's geometry looks like taken to its logical end, the shortest route to every country on Earth is built from the same principle: the stops that cost nothing are the ones already on the line.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between a stopover and a layover?
Length and intent. A layover is a connection, usually under 24 hours, that the schedule forces on you. A stopover is a deliberate stop of a day or more that you add to the ticket, normally in the airline's hub city.

Which airlines offer a free stopover?
Icelandair (up to 7 days in Iceland), TAP Air Portugal (up to 10 days in Lisbon or Porto) and Copa (up to 15 days in Panama) add the stop at no extra airfare. Singapore Airlines allows a long stopover on KrisFlyer award tickets. Turkish and Ethiopian instead provide a free hotel on qualifying connections, and Qatar offers heavily subsidised hotels rather than free ones.

Does a stopover make the flight longer?
Barely. Across the seven programmes here, routing through the hub adds between 0.1% and 9.9% to the direct great-circle distance. Panama adds eight kilometres. The hubs sit near the line you were flying anyway.

Which stopover programme allows the longest stay?
Copa's Panama Stopover at up to 15 days, among the free programmes. A Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer award ticket permits longer still, up to 30 days.

Do I need a visa for a stopover?
Usually the same visa you would need to enter that country normally, so it depends on your passport. Some programmes help: Ethiopian issues a transit visa as part of the package. Check the destination's rules before booking, not after.

Is the free hotel really free?
On the Turkish and Ethiopian schemes, yes, for passengers whose connection meets the minimum length and whose flights are both operated by that airline. Qatar's is not free but is subsidised to a fraction of the normal rate.

Sources

Programme terms were taken from each airline and checked against recent reporting when this guide was written. Distances are our own calculation along the curve of the Earth between the airports named in each example.

• Icelandair: Icelandair's stopover page.
• TAP Air Portugal: the Portugal Stopover programme.
• Copa: The Points Guy on the extension to 15 days; Panama Stopover.
• Singapore Airlines: the Singapore Stopover page.
• Turkish Airlines: Touristanbul and the stopover accommodation rules.
• Ethiopian Airlines: One Mile at a Time on the transit hotel.
• Qatar Airways: the Qatar Stopover page and Wego on the subsidised rates.

Seven airlines will sell you a second destination for almost nothing, because the second destination was never really out of the way.