Extended Stopover
 

I have heard that some airlines like JAL promote extended stopovers out of Narita for Tokyo for a period of a couple of days.

I am wanting to stop and see my son on the way to BKK and would have a stopover on one flight. How is this done as to avoid additional expenses
for booking another flight on to BKK if possible.

Thanks for any help.

handtalker Welcome to FT

Some airfares allow enroute stopovers. XXX-NRT-BKK. Depends on the individual fare conditions. There is a lot of possible fare variations in price & conditions, The more you pay the more flexibility. Best to talk to a JL sales agent by phone or a real living breathing travel agent in a travel shop (not an on line travel agent).

I agree with the above advice. However, you might be able to get a general idea of what to expect on JAL's site. Click "More" to the right of the origin/destination city fields in the first flight booking page, then "For other itineraries" under the origin/destination fields of the next page, and finally "Search multi-city/stopover itinerary" at the top of the next page on the right. Try various durations for your Tokyo stop and see how the fares you find compare with going directly to BKK. If nothing else, you'll be better informed about the options when you talk to agents and will be able to compare what they find with what you know you can do yourself.

I think you are best advised to call a real travel agent.

No need for a real TA. Just hop on google.com/flights and play around with dates. UA/NH and AA/JL offer these pretty frequently and you can book the whole thing from Google flights. This type of thing is fairly routine for those two airlines so Google Flights is more than capable of handling it. Here is one such example with random dates and using NYC as your starting point and pricing out at ~$1150 with the stopover:



From there you can easily click through to the AA/JL website or UA/NH website (if you choose UA/NH) or to an OTA (in this case it's linking into Expedia). Just pay attention to which Tokyo airport you are flying in and out of on your layover (NRT vs. HND) -- shouldn't matter as much on your flight home from BKK (just make sure you are connecting via the same airport and don't have to switch).

Pricing between AA/JL and UA/NH is virtually the same on the major city pairs. Unless status is relevant, I would personally advise you go with JL if flying Y which is still 9 abreast on the 777 and 8 abreast on the 787 vs. NH which has moved to 10 abreast on their 77W and 9 abreast on the 787. Likewise, AA and UA are 10 abreast in Y and well it's AA and UA.