Last month Kelley and I flew from Stockholm Arlanda to London Heathrow as the first flight leg for our Stockholm to San Jose, California SJC round trip tickets. We return to London and Stockholm at Christmas. The tickets cost €511 ($558 USD) when I ticketed April 29, 2017.
Besides getting a relatively low fare for Christmas travel from California to Europe, we also had a good deal for travel from Europe to the USA in late June. As a bonus, we had 20 hours between flights after landing at London Heathrow. A hotel reward night booked at InterContinental London Park Lane awaited us.
The reward night at InterContinental Park Lane did not cost 60,000 points. I redeemed my annual free night given each year to IHG MasterCard members.
Underground Luxury in London
Kelley was able to pick up her checked luggage at Heathrow for our 20 hour overnight transit stay in London. Oyster cards in hand and holding enough credit to get us to London Hyde Park Corner and back the next day. £3.10 one way in off-peak hours for the 45 minute trip on the London Underground from LHR Terminal 5 to Hyde Park Corner by Buckingham Palace.
We were at InterContinental Park Lane within 90 minutes of the plane landing and drinking in the Park Lane bar by 7:30pm, gobbling down appetizers.
The next morning, after a quick walk through Hyde Park in warm summer rain showers and breakfast, we leisurely headed out of London via Hyde Park Corner Underground.
 
Memorial in Hyde Park for victims of 7/7/2005 London bombings terrorist attack.
Back at London Heathrow Saturday by noon and sitting in the British Airways Terraces lounge with 2.5 leisurely hours before boarding the flight to San Jose.
£6.20 ($8.00 USD) each round trip for 45 minutes into central London on a Friday evening 6:30pm and 45 minutes back to Heathrow at 11:00am Saturday morning.
In December, we stopover in London again on a 21 hour international transit layover. Or even quite a bit longer, if we happen to miss that last flight segment to Stockholm at Christmas.
How to find long city layovers on international tickets
San Francisco/San Jose to London searching Momondo.com
Airline tickets between many international destinations allow a transit layover at an intermediate airport for up to 24 hours. Often these layovers are available at no additional ticket cost to other available low fares for the route.
In this post I show how to search Momondo.com to find airline tickets with long layover times at intermediate airports for San Jose/San Francisco to London.
Step One: Use Google Flights to establish a base line for low fares and low fare dates for the route.
Google Flights: San Jose to London LHR Sun Oct 1 – Mon Oct 16
United Airlines $561.96 round trip is lowest fare.
Overnight in Zurich, Switzerland on the low $562 round trip ticket.
This ticket has an overnight layover in Zurich, Switzerland. That could be a real ticket bonus, however, this itinerary is arrival in Zurich at 10:45pm and departure the next morning at 9:30am.
I want a layover as close to 24 hours as I can manage. Otherwise, an overnight layover without time to hang out in the city is primarily a hotel expense for a short night at Zurich airport rather than an opportunity to spend a day in Zurich sightseeing and dining.
Finding Long Layover cities with Momondo.com
Momondo.com often provides itineraries not found with Google Flights. The fare search below is one of those times when Momondo.com does not return a lower fare than Google Flights for the Oct1 to Oct 16 date search.
Virgin Atlantic San Jose SJC – Los Angeles LAX – London LHR – Las Vegas LAS – San Jose SJC
$586 round trip Sun Oct 1 – Mon Oct 16
Momondo.com low fares show SkyTeam using a regional commuter plane to hook up to Virgin Atlantic flights from LAX and into Las Vegas.
Even better is a $606 Finnair codeshare for British Airways nonstop flights between San Jose and London on time efficient routes.
Now there are base line fares established with all three major alliances at $562 United/Star Alliance with an overnight in Zurich, a quick one stop Virgin Atlantic/SkyTeam fare $586 and the quickest nonstop with Oneworld at $606 flying British Airways nonstop on Finnair codeshare flights.
San Jose to London LHR base line fare = $600.
Now the Momondo.com search for layover cities begins.
1. Click Quickest Flights filter on Momondo.com for your search.
2. Scroll to bottom to see page numbers for flight search results.
3. There are 231 pages of flight results. Go to last Page 231 to find the longest flights.
Longest flights on Page 231 are priced from $671 to $778. The objective here is to find a ticket price closer to $600 that also has long layovers.
The last flight on page 231 has three overnight layovers with Denver 23hr, 40min on outbound flights and on the return flights 21 hours in Munich and 20 hours in Frankfurt. Great layover cities, but $200 more than lowest fares on this route. The objective is find tickets close to $600 round trip with long layovers.
Atlanta Overnight Layovers in both directions (21h 37m and 22hr 51m)
SJC-LHR $656 ticket Virgin Atlantic Oct 1-16
Page 227 shows a Virgin Atlantic ticket with overnight layovers in Atlanta in both directions. Might be a good fare if you want to combine visits with someone in Atlanta on your London trip.
Vancouver Overnight Layover in both directions SJC-LHR $626 (filter for Star Alliance page 36 of 37 tickets).
Vancouver YVR 23 hours overnight Oct 1-2 (Sun 7:38pm – Mon 6:40pm)
Vancouver YVR 17 hours overnight Oct 16-17 (Mon 3:40pm – Tue 8:55pm)
Houston 20 hours layover on United Airlines return
New York EWR 21 hours layover on United Airlines return
One advantage of San Francisco SFO is the opportunity to layover in New York JFK rather than Newark EWR.
San Francisco SFO – Dallas DFW (24 hour layover) – New York JFK – London LGW – New York JFK (23.5 hour layover) – SFO
$628 Sun Oct 1 – Mon Oct 16
These are a few examples of the strategy for finding tickets with long intermediate airport layovers. London is not a particularly good example, if you want international layovers in Europe. Most of the layover opportunities are in the USA. San Francisco would probably be a better route to find layovers in European cities with more European airlines flying from there.
San Jose – London LHR Oct 1-16
Brussels, Belgium 21h 35m layover
$636 Star Alliance
San Jose – London LHR Oct 1-16
Munich, Germany 19h 35m layover
$636 Star Alliance
San Jose – London LHR Oct 1-16
Edinburgh, Scotland 16h 10min layover
New York JFK 23 h 25m layover
$655 Oneworld
San Jose – London LHR Oct 1-16
Dublin, Ireland 19h 35min layover
Glasgow, Scotland 20h 15m layover
$648 Oneworld
Long layovers in London, Paris, Amsterdam, Madrid, Barcelona, Frankfurt and Munich on $500 San Jose SJC to Scandinavia tickets
One of the good deals currently available from San Francisco Bay Area airports are low fares around $500 round trip to Norway and Sweden with the alliance airlines. This kind of European destination offers many more opportunities to find long layovers in London, Paris, Amsterdam, Madrid, Barcelona, Frankfurt and Munich.
That will be my next example for finding low cost tickets with long layovers in international cities.
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