How do I book stopovers?
 

Every time I fly from Europe to the US, I wish I had more time at my layover airports. My final destination is MSP, so sometimes my port of entry is either Atlanta (ATL) or Chicago (ORD). One of the times I flew through Chicago I had a layover of about 4.5 hours, but after going through CBP and rechecking my bag I was left with 3.5 hours so that wasn't enough to even just go downtown, walk around the block and get back in time, lol.

I can't figure out how I can have a stopover of 24 hours more than my actual layover? Like getting on the exact same flight the next day and instead of having 4.5 hours have 28.5 hours or a different flight but still enough time to go to town and look at stuff and fly the next mornign. Is that even possible? I don't see any such options when trying to book on delta.com.

How do you guys do it? I feel like I have lost a lot of opportunities to look at cities I have never been to.

I use the multi city booking tool on DL. For example, if you want to spend a night in Atlanta in route to MSP, you would book EU-ATL for one segment and the following segment would be ATL-MSP for the next day. Your final segment (assuming no stopovers on the way home) would be MSP-EU and you will be presented with connection options.

Note: I have only done this with domestic trips, so not sure if there are rules that prevent this on international itineraries. Someone else will have to chime in.

Note that anything beyond 24 hours (on an international itinerary) will count as a stopover rather than a connection. This isn't allowed on some cheap fares and might result in an additional charge of perhaps $100 on some othe fares. Worst case would probably be that the ticket prices as three one way segments. So if you see higher prices, just pick flights that keep the connection under 24 hours, even if it's overnight.

If you have trouble doing this on delta.dumb, call.

I saw that Multi-city option but I wasn't sure if it is considered to be on the same itinierary or if the flights would all be independent, meaning I would have to go through the process of taking my bags with me every time. I tried a test search and it seems to work on the same itinierary though and my bags will be kept at the airport until the next day I guess as long as my next flight is within less than 24 hours. Thanks a lot!

I don't think this is true necessarily. For overnights along the way in Europe, for example at AMS, I'm usually able to either retrieve the bag or check it through, although this requires paying attention at check in.

However, officially I believe there's now a rule that for less than four hours, the bag is checked through, for 4-8 hours, it's your option, and over 8 hours one must retrieve and then recheck the bag within four hours of departure.

An additional complication is that you pick up the bag to walk it through customs when you enter the USA. If they're paying attention when you try to recheck the bag, DL could refuse to accept it even if it's been tagged to be checked through. However, YMMV and I'm not sure the bag handling employees would notice.

BTW, using multicity to book should result in a single ticket (unless there are too many segments) and a single itinerary.

Yep that could be. It seems like I can book partly in T and partly in K though. Thanks for your input!

Having T and K fares on different segments in the same direction means that you ahve a broken fare, which usually isn't good. Try using advanced search by fare class K or higher and see whether you get a lower price. In fact, experiment starting at U or higher through Y or higher to see the best price or call and ask the agent to avoid giving you a broken fare.

Oh ok, so for more than 8 hours I might have to claim it and take it with me instead of giving it to the guys who grab it of your hands as you walk towards them to put it on the next flight after going through customs. Fair enough

Oh so it's better to have the same fare throughout the whole flight? Why is it not good, does it affect the miles you get negatively? I noticed that I got super low mileage ten days ago when I came back from MSP. Like 2.200 miles all the way from MSP - CDG - ATH

At least with DL tickets, the number of RDMs you get depends on the amount of money paid for a fare, multiplied by your Medallion level. For example, a gold medallion with a $1,000 RT international ticket would get ~4,000 RDMs each way, irrespective of fare class or distance flown. It's actually even less since they don't count taxes, fees and charges.

FWIW, I intentionally booked a long, 15 hour day connection in LAX when flying BNE-LAX-JFK. At BNE, the VA agent was able to check the bag all the way through to JFK and my bags arrived with me on my redeye flight to JFK.

Some, but definitely not all, US airports have a place to store luggage overnight if the airline won't recheck it.

Often it's cheaper. Two different fare classes means that you are buying two separate tickets that are put together on the same PNR. It can be much cheaper to buy just one ticket, even if doing so means that you must use a somewhat higher fare class for at least part of the trip.

There is no consistency to pricing. So, rather than looking at what sometimes happens, go ahead and price the itinerary you want and then compare the stopover to the connection price. If the difference is acceptable, you've got yourself a deal. If not, don't book it.

OP is primarily looking at spending an overnight but less than 24 hours at an international gateway, so these are (long) connections rather than stopovers. When delta.dumb breaks a fare, one should always investigate furthere because IME the odds are that there's a lower through fare for the same flights.