Travel Tip 136
How to visit an extra city or country with airline stopover programs.
Want two vacations with one plane ticket? That’s why you should look into airline stopover programs.
Some airlines allow long layovers between 24 hours and 10 days to spend time anywhere you’re flying through. These are usually at an airline’s hub city and subsidized by local government or tourism boards to encourage travelers to pause rather than just fly through. When planning international travel, regardless of where you’re going, check if you can fly one of these airlines. It might give you two vacations for the price of one.
Here are the best airlines stopover programs for 2026.
Copa Air
If you love tropical islands, fascinating engineering and Spanish architecture, check if you can fly Copa on your next trip. I flew Copa from Seattle to Colombia a few years ago and would have taken advantage of their stopover program if I had known about it. This is the only airline in the Americas that has a stopover program, and you can stay up to 7 days, plenty of time to enjoy the capital city, visit the canal and spend a couple days on a Caribbean island. If you want a second stopover on the return, you’ll have to pay an extra $250. Check out the Copa Air site for the stopover program details.
Turkish Airlines
The Istanbul stopover program is unique because it includes free hotels, for one to three nights, depending on your ticket. (If you fly business class, you get three nights). I love Istanbul’s food, history, archeology and nearby islands and beaches. If there’s any way you can fly Turkish on your next trip, I highly recommend taking as many days as possible in Istanbul. I lived there for a year and still didn’t get to see everything. Check out my Türkiye blogs for more ideas on what to do with a stopover in Istanbul and see how to apply for the stopover, plus the details for getting free hotels on this Turkish Airlines stopover page.
Iberia Airlines
If you can’t decide between Spain and France or Italy for your next Europe trip, look into Iberia’s stopover program. You can spend up to 9 nights in Madrid on your way to just about anywhere in Europe. The “Hola Madrid” program gets you discounts on hotels, restaurants and attractions throughout the city, but no big freebies. Check details for Hola Madrid on the stopover page.
TAP Air Portugal
You can spend up to ten days in Portugal with a TAP Airlines stopover. Portugal is in the news a lot as being less saturated with tourism than Spain’s Barcelona, though I still recommend booking TAP flights outside of the June-August busy season. When booking your flight, look for the “add stopover” button which lets you choose a stopover in either Lisbon or Porto. You can also pick if you want the stopover on the outbound or return flight. I spent only a week in Portugal on my last trip and highly recommend taking all ten days if you have the time. Here’s all the details on the TAP stopover program in Portugal.
Finnair
Summer trips to Europe can include up to five days in Helsinki for no extra cost if you book with Finnair. Just use the “multi-city” function when booking your flights on their website and you can schedule your stopover in Helsinki. The airline doesn’t subsidize hotels or meals but they have created stopover itineraries for 6-, 1-2 and 24-hour stays.
Icelandair
I lived in Seattle for five years before moving to Peru and somehow never visited the sister city Reykjavik. If you fly Icelandair you and add a stopover of 1-7 days on flights between North America to Europe. If, like Seattle, your departure city has direct flights to Reykjavik, this is a very easy way to check out geysers, glaciers and volcanoes all on the same trip. Here’s the Iceland stopover program in three easy steps.
Japan Airlines
You may not get free hotels in Japan, but the variety of cities that qualify for this stopover program makes it different from most countries. Choose between popular tourist destinations like Osaka, Kyoto, Nagano and Okinawa. Also check out the Japan Explorer Pass that gives you discounted domestic flights to more than 30 cities in Japan.
Ethiopian Airlines
If you’re considering a trip to eastern or southern Africa, check if there are flights on Ethiopian. They have one of the very few stopover programs in Africa and offer one night in a hotel in Addis Ababa. Especially if you’re planning the kind of trip that is out in nature the whole time, like a safari, you can see something totally different in Ethiopia’s capital. Plan a layover of 8-24 hours and ask for a hotel voucher from the airline before boarding or at the customer service desk once you arrive in Addis Ababa. You’ll also get free transfers to and from the hotel, unless they book you in the Skylight Hotel which is accessible from the airport’s international arrivals. This page has details on the Ethiopian Airlines stopover program.
Etihad Airways
If you book flights going through Abu Dhabi, a stopover gets you 1-2 nights free in a 3-star hotel, but hotels are not guaranteed, and you have to do the work of making the reservation. See the details of Etihad’s program here. After you book your flights, they’ll send you a voucher that you present when you check in at your hotel.
Note: I don’t get kickbacks or commissions from any of these airlines. This is not sponsored.
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