Longest Layover You'll Book

[sexualhelon]

As a rule I don't like long layovers, but I also hate less than 1 hour layovers, end up rushing too much and if there is a delay your fucked. That said a 12 hour layover in a new city could be cool, to go check out a new city for a day. All just depends I suppose.

 If its to save money, a lot of times its cheaper/quicker to book 2 separate tickets. For example, I live in Charlotte NC, and I traveled to Manila several times. I figured out if I book a round trip to JFK, then round trip to Manila with Philippine airlines, I saved about $300 and an entire layover (CLT-JFK-MNL) where as with a round trip from CLT Id usually have an additional layover somewhere in asia. Depending where you live it may be easier/tougher to find good options.

^ I just did that. It depends where you're coming from but international flights from middle America are usually fucked. Flying domestically within the USA also feels like a monopoly of airlines that charge way too much. Their service is also just as budget if not more so than low cost airlines like Ryan Air. I don't suppose that's unique to the USA though, seems to be the case in a lot of countries with a large landmass. If the capital airports are international hubs then they have way better prices because they have to compete with all the global competition.

But, yeah, It was about $400 cheaper to fly from Berlin to NYC to Tennessee for me as opposed to going straight to Tennessee. It's two RT tickets but they're both direct and I got to choose exactly how long I got to hang out in NYC.

[Nickol]

Figured I'll see what the slap consensus is here.

What's the longest layover you'll book? 3, 5, 7 hours? And on that note what's the most connections? I think obviously you're accepting long layovers/more connections to save money so what's it worth to you?

I will book  the longest layover from 3 to 4 hours. I don't like to wait long.

[TheLurper]

But, yeah, It was about $400 cheaper to fly from Berlin to NYC to Tennessee for me as opposed to going straight to Tennessee. It's two RT tickets but they're both direct and I got to choose exactly how long I got to hang out in NYC.

This makes me think of a few flights that I've been on that were just too long and I was more than ready to get of the damn plane. I needed a layover just to have a break.

I think the longest flight I've done was from London to LAX. The flight takes a little over 11 hours and it was packed. I couldn't wait to get off that damn plane. I tried stretching out near the bathrooms and the flight attendants kept telling me to sit back down in my seat. I will never do that again.

[robby13]

Depends where it is. If my layover is somewhere like Vegas or Miami where the airport is right next to all the fun stuff, I’ll do something like 18 hrs so I can see the city. If the airport is in the middle of nowhere, then maybe like four hrs. I had a six hr layover in Madrid once that was absolutely miserable.

[oyolar]

Did a 10 hour layover in Narita recently and it wasn’t bad considering I didn’t go into the city. I had time, but it was overcast and rainy the whole day so it didn’t seem worthwhile.

Plus, the clouds and rain meant that my ~6 hour redeye from Ho Chi Minh City to Narita had turbulence for almost the entire flight (maybe two hours total of non-turbulence), which combined with my difficulty sleeping on airplanes in general meant that I barely slept at all.

So I rented a day room for 4 hours for what ended up being about US$39. I showered and then took a 2.5/3 hour nap where I was dead to the world and woke up groggy but revitalized with about 4 hours or so left, which just flew by.

Weirdly, my 5 hour layover in Narita on the flight to Vietnam actually ended up feeling like it took longer than the 10 hour one.