What is a stopover?

The twenty four hour threshold is what separates a stopover from a layover. Below it, the break is simply a connection included in your fare. Above it, the airline reprices the itinerary, and this is where the opportunity sits: a number of carriers have built stopover programmes that deliberately waive that repricing to encourage visitors to their hub country.

Icelandair pioneered the modern version, allowing passengers crossing the Atlantic to stop in Iceland for up to a week at no additional airfare. Others followed. Qatar Airways, Turkish Airlines, Emirates, Singapore Airlines and Finnair have all run stopover schemes at various points, frequently bundled with discounted hotel nights in the hub city.

For a premium traveler the arithmetic is unusually favourable. You are already paying for a business class ticket that routes through Doha, Istanbul or Reykjavik. Extending the connection from four hours to three days costs little or nothing in airfare, and turns a journey into a second trip. Very few other travel decisions offer that much for that little.

The conditions are worth reading before you count on it. Most programmes apply only to certain fare types, require the stopover to be booked as part of the original itinerary rather than added later, and cap the length at somewhere between five and seven days. Adding one after ticketing is usually either impossible or expensive.