Add a Stopover with Aeroplan Award Ticket

Would you like to explore an extra city on the way to your final destination? Adding a stopover to an award ticket makes that possible. You get a bonus destination without having to buy a separate ticket. It’s a great way to get more out of your trip and save some money in the process. It can also help break up long travel days.

Air Canada Aeroplan makes it easy (and cheap!) to add a stopover to an award booking. In this post, I’ll go over why you might want to book a stopover and show you exactly how to do it.

Why Book a Stopover

Stopovers have a ton of advantages. There really is something for everyone!

Enjoy an Extra Destination

Adding a stopover is an inexpensive way to get more out of your trip. When you add a stopover with Aeroplan, you can enjoy an additional destination without paying much more. It’s almost like getting two trips for the price of one.

This a great way to maximize the value you’re getting out of your miles.

Break up the Journey

When you’re flying a long distance, a stopover is a nice way to break up the trip and make the long travel time more bearable. Especially if you’re starting at a smaller airport and traveling a long distance. Chances are you’ll need a minimum of 1-2 layovers to reach your final destination which can make for a really long day.

A stopover can turn one ultra-long journey into two shorter ones.

And you don’t have to spend a long time at the stopover destination if you don’t want to. A quick overnight stop where you get off the plane and sleep at an airport hotel before continuing can make a long journey more manageable. Even more so if you’re traveling with children or have a hard time sleeping on planes.

Simplify Trip Planning

With a stopover, you can create a complicated itinerary all on one ticket. This can make planning much simpler because you don’t have to piece together a bunch of separate tickets.

Say you want to visit Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan on one trip. You could book a one-way flight from the US to Korea, a one-way flight from Korea to Taiwan, another one-way from Taiwan to Japan, and finally a one-way flight from Japan home. If you’re keeping track, that’s four separate tickets.

By using the stopover feature with Aeroplan, you can book this entire trip on one itinerary, and probably for a much lower price too!

How Much Does a Stopover Cost with Aeroplan?

To add a stopover, you’ll pay 5,000 additional miles. It doesn’t matter how long your stopover is or where it is. The cost in miles is always 5,000 to add it.

Taxes and fees might change depending on the city, country, and airport you’re traveling through.

For your original award ticket, the price will be based on Air Canada’s award chart. Air Canada uses distance based pricing, so the farther you go the more miles it will cost. Taxes and fees vary depending on the airline you’re flying and the destination.

But regardless of what your original award ticket costs, adding a stopover always costs 5,000 additional miles.

Example Flights

Here are a couple of examples so you can see how the pricing works. When you add a stopover, the award flight price increases by 5,000 points. You won’t see a separate charge for it.

Chicago to Vienna with a Stopover in Brussels

This flight from Chicago to Vienna costs 40,000 miles and CA $78 in taxes and fees.

With a stopover in Brussels, the price for this flight goes up by 5,000 miles to 45,000. The taxes and fees increase to CA $161.

New York to Johannesburg with a stopover in Addis Ababa

This flight from New York to Johannesburg costs 70,000 mils and CA $82 in taxes and fees.

When you add a stopover in Addis Ababa, the flight cost goes up by 5,000 miles to 75,000 miles. The taxes and fees go up to CA $125.

Stopover Rules

Aeroplan has a few rules for how stopovers can be used. Thankfully these are pretty straightforward.

Outside US and Canada

Stopovers must be outside the US and Canada. That includes Hawaii and Alaska. The rest of the world is fair game. You can start or end in the US or Canada, but the actual stopover city cannot be in the US or Canada.

Backtracking

Travel has to be in one direction, backtracking is not allowed. This means you could go from Boston to Delhi with a stopover in Athens (traveling east) but you would NOT be able to go from Boston to Athens with a stopover in Delhi.

You usually won’t have an issue backtracking a small distance. As you’ll see in the example below, you could go from Boston (BOS) to Rome (FCO) and still add a stopover in Athens (ATH), even though Athens is farther east than Rome.

Length

A stopover can be as short as one day, or as long as 45 days. This gives you a lot of flexibility in how to use it.

You can add a stopover to break up your journey and spend a comfortable night at an airport hotel, see a city for a just few days, or make it the main part of your trip.

Anything under 24 hours is considered a layover and not a stopover. Layovers don’t cost any additional points.

How to Add a Stopover when Booking an Award Ticket with Aeroplan

Adding a stopover to an award ticket with Aeroplan can be done online or over the phone.

To book a stopover online, visit www.aircanada.com and go to “Book”. In the drop down menu choose “Multicity/Stopover.” Check the box where it say “Book with Aeroplan points.”

Enter your departure and final arrival cities along with your preferred dates. Click “Add stopover for flight 1” to add your stopover city and choose the length of the stopover.

You can add a return flight to the booking if you like, or book a one-way ticket.

Depending on the version of the website you’re on, the screen may look slightly different but the steps are the same.

In this example, I entered a trip from Boston to Berlin and added a stopover in Reykjavik, Iceland that is 4 days long.

This Works from Small Airports Too

You don’t have to book from a major city to add a stopover. You can start at your home airport and it won’t cost any more, even if you need a layover to get to your desired destination. Taxes and fees may change slightly depending on where your layover is and what airline you’re flying.

In the below example, this is a trip to Athens with a stopover in Rome. It’s the exact same price to start in Nashville (BNA) as it is to start in Washington DC (IAD). The Nashville flight includes a layover while the Washington flight is non-stop.

One thing to note is that availability tends to be better from larger airports. If you want to book from a smaller airport, it helps to be flexible with dates to get the best price.

Tips for Finding Availability

Finding availability is often easier when you search for one flight segment at a time.

For example, if you want to go to from New York to Barcelona with a stopover in Lisbon, search for the New York to Lisbon flight first, and then look for the Lisbon to Barcelona flight. Once you have a good idea of what days flights are available for both flight segments, you can put your itinerary together.

Search on a Star Alliance Partner Site

Since Air Canada is part of the Star Alliance, you can book a ticket through Aeroplan to fly onto other Star Alliance partner airlines and vice versa.

Aeroplan doesn’t have a calendar view so it can sometimes be hard to find availability for the exact dates and destinations you’re looking for on their site.

Using a Star Alliance partner site to search can make finding availability easier.

United.com is a good place to search for Star Alliance availability. The website is very user friendly and has an option for a 30 day calendar view. This helps you see available dates and prices at a glance.

Note that the pricing you see on United won’t necessarily match the pricing on Air Canada, but award availability should match.

Once you know what dates have award space available, you can go back to the Aeroplan website to confirm availability and actually book the flight.

Use an Award Search Tool to Search

Award search tools like Pointsyeah.com, Seatspy.com and seats.aero can help find availability as well. These sites generally work better when you’re looking at non-stop routes.

Note that United availability isn’t currently showing up on Seatspy but you can still see other Star Alliance Carriers.

How to Earn Aeroplan Points

The easiest way to earn a lot of Aeroplan points is to sign up for a new credit card with a welcome offer. You can choose an Aeroplan card or a card that earns flexible points that transfer to Aeroplan.

American Express Membership Rewards, Capital One Miles, Chase Ultimate Rewards® and Bilt Rewards all transfer to Air Canada Aeroplan at a 1:1 ratio.

Transfer bonuses are frequent which can help you accrue even more miles.

Marriott Bonvoy points transfer to Aeroplan at a 3:1 ratio. You get a 5,000 mile bonus for every 60,000 points you transfer. It doesn’t usually make sense to transfer Marriott points to Air Canada because the transfer rate is so low, but it is possible.

Here are some cards that earn flexible points that can be transferred to Aeroplan:

• Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
• Chase Sapphire Reserve® Card
• Capital One Venture X
• American Express® Gold Card
• The Platinum Card® from American Express

Check out the Best Cards page to see even more options and limited time offers.

 

Frequently Asked Questions about Adding a Stopover with Aeroplan

Can I book a stopover on a one-way ticket?

Yes! A round trip is not required to book a stopover. Booking one-way tickets is a great way to make the most out of your miles and stretch them even further.

To get home, you could book your return as another one-way ticket with Aeroplan or use a different program.

Can I add more than one stopover?

You can add one stopover for each direction of travel. For a roundtrip ticket, that means you can add a total of two stopovers. One on your outbound flight and one on your return flight.

A one-way ticket can have up to one stopover.

Can I add a stopover on an open jaw ticket?

If you’re not familiar with the term, an open jaw is when you fly into one city and out of another.

Yes. The same rules apply as above. You can book one stopover for each direction of travel. It’s important to note that the open jaw cannot occur at the stopover destination.

For example, if you want to fly from New York to Copenhagen with a stopover in Dublin, your flight to Copenhagen has to be from Dublin since Dublin is the stopover city.

From Copenhagen (since it’s the final destination) you could make your own way to a different city and book your return flight from there (with another stopover on the way back, if you like).

A complete open jaw itinerary with one stopover and a return flight might look something like this:

The first part of the journey might be New York to Copenhagen with a stopover in Dublin. So travel would be New York > Dublin > Copenhagen.

Then you can get yourself to Berlin and return home from there, flying Berlin to New York.

Can I add a stopover after my ticket is already booked?

Yes, you can. If you’ve already booked a ticket and later decide you want to add a stopover, this can be done by calling Air Canada Aeroplan.

Are You Ready to Book a Stopover with Aeroplan?

The stopover feature opens up so many possibilities! You can really maximize the value of an award ticket by adding a stopover to your booking.