georgina80

I am trying to book a Los Angeles to Istanbul trip, however it's actually a bit more complicated than that. My travel companion and I want to do a 1-2 day stop over in Europe (likely Paris and London, but open to other places) on the way there and on the way home to the US.

After playing with the Google matrix a little, I am realizing this may be more complicated than I realized and that perhaps I need a pro to do this for me. The prices jump up SIGNIFICANTLY when I try to build in a stopover.

Is this a situation that warrants going through a travel agent? I take pride in always finding the best deals and booking my own flights... but this time, it looks like I won't be able to pull it off. Thoughts?

VivoPerLei

LAX-stopover city with IST-LAX return as one ticket
stopover city(s) to IST as separate one way ticket(s).

Sheikh Yerbooty

LAX-IST-LAX, then add IST-whereever-IST as separate tickets. TK is good value if you order a couple of months in advance, average around 200-300EUR for a return to almost anywhere on the European continent. The UK is a tad more expensive, but not much.

PS
London and Paris? How about going off the beaten track? Barcelona, Berlin, Brussels and Budapest could be options, and that's just the one's starting with B. The next letter in the alphabet suggests Copenhagen, Clermont-Ferrand and Cologne, and I would very much recommend the former. D suggests Dresden, Dublin and Dubrovnik, etc ad nausem. Plenty to see, even more so if you refrain from stopping at the usual tourist traps.

PPS
You won't see much with a 1-2 day stopover, won't even scratch the surface actually. But if the only thing you're looking for is putting a pin on a map, I suppose it fits the bill.

Peregrine415

As an alternative, have you priced LAX-ZZZ-LAX and ZZZ-IST-ZZZ Istanbul fares are less than $200 from Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels, Barcelona, etc.?

Or an open-jaw route like LAX-ZZZ/YYY-LAX and ZZZ-IST/IST-YYY?

CPRich

Have you tried a 1 way LAX-CDG, then a CDG-IST return with a stopover in IST? Last summer, we took advantage of Icelandair and Turkish's allowance of a 7 day stopover with no extra fee to do IAD-KEF-CDG-ATH-IST-IAD over a 12 day period for about $1300pp.

I just plugged CDG-IST-LAX with a stopover into kayak and came in at under $800.

I see LAX-CDG for under $600, and it also includes KEF, if you want to stop over there.

pinniped

How about booking LAX-XXX on TK with a stopover in IST? Were you intending to spend longer than 1 week in IST? If not, you can likely get this as one regular round-trip fare. Only minor drawback is that you'll likely have to transit IST both directions...wouldn't be as time-efficient as a triangle trip...but it has other benefits, such as preserving a common baggage allowance throughout the trip.

An open-jaw with an intra-Europe segment can work too: just pay attention to that other PNR's baggage allowance. We've done this in the past, packing each person to a bit under 20kg as opposed to the more-customary (for U.S.-based airlines) 50 pounds.

There are literally hundreds of destinations in Europe where a stopover could be a lot of fun, but if you really only intend to spend 2 days at the XXX city, I'd narrow the choices to places with easy travel to/from IST and easy ground transit to/from the XXX airport.

VivoPerLei

The good thing for the OP is that there practically isn't anywhere TK doesn't fly anymore. Beats me how they can support non-stop flights like IST-LUX or IST-CTA, but they seem to be doing it.

Agree that multiple tickets of some sort will be the way to go. I've had itineraries recently where each day was a separate one-way ticket.