I'm booking a round trip international award ticket through United and am trying to add some 23 hour "layovers" in Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto on my way from Tokyo to New York. It's my understanding that United allows for as many layovers as you want as long as they're under 24 hours. But my question is, do these have to be only in international cities? I've heard that domestically, anything over 4 hours counts as a stopover and not a layover, but am not sure if this is the case with round-trip international awards.
If the trip is wholly within the USA then anything more than 4 hours (unless it is the next flight out) is a stopover. For USA/Canada the limit is 12 hours. For other international destinations the limit is 24 hours. Your itinerary should be fine (TYO-YVR, YVR-YTO, YTO-YUL, YUL-NYC) so long as you're in each of those cities for less than 24 hours. Odds are you will have to call to book but you can research inventory online prior to the call. I've had much success using this approach over the years. Most recently was ARN-TXL, TXL-MUC-LJU, LJU-SKP, SKP-IST. Lots of fun and only 12,500 miles.
Thanks. So then I can still add a 23 hour stop in Denver or Chicago in addition to these Canadian cites? And that's a pretty sweet itinerary. Doing this is great if you don't mind constantly being on the go. And I dig your blog, by the way.
You might have trouble doing NRT-YVR-DEN-YYZ-YUL-NYC. I'm not sure they'll let you hop in and out of the USA like that. Try and see if it works. Worst case is you come up with a new plan and call back another time.
I've had United tell me I can't do more than 4 hours if there is an available flight internationally, but as always with them, hang up and call again. I've done 18 hour-ish layovers at BKK and I have one planned for SIN next year. Good luck!
