Long-haul flight stopovers

[stubiff]

First world problem, obv!

We are planning to go from the UK to New Zealand but want to avoid long flight legs, i.e. over 10 hours. E.g. Doha to NZ is 16 hours direct.

Thinking of UK to Doha (or that region), direct, quick stopover, then on to Singapore/Kuala Lumpur (or that region), direct.
Stopover there in airport hotel to sleep (say 8/10 hours).
Then direct leg to NZ.
So three direct legs in total, with hotel after the second, in Asia.
Would be Economy.

Anyone done this sort of thing before.
Thanks very much.

I’m interested in this. We are vaguely planning to go to either Australia or New Zealand (or possibly both). The furthest I’ve flown before was Thailand in two hops via Dubai, 8 hours then 8 hours with only a short stop in between. I can’t contemplate doing more than that without a proper stop over (or business class, which isn’t happening 🙁). Interested to see how others do this.

Flying to Sydney with only one 4 hour stop in Singapore was horrendous. I’d never do that again. I think your plan sounds great.

Singapore is a great city for a 24 hour rest. Lots to see and do. The airport also has a travellers hotel where you can rent rooms for even a short while ( a few hours) to get a shower and a rest

We flew Dublin - Dubai - Singapore - Melbourne Christmas 2024 with Emirates. We chose the longest layover in Dubai which was 20h 30m so we could have a night's sleep.

It was the same price as the flights with short layovers but if your layover is over something like 8 hours Emirates will put you up in their hotel in Dubai and it's free and includes all your meals and transfers. It's called Dubai Connect.

We landed at 00.45 Christmas Day and got a night's sleep, had breakfast then did a tour of Dubai before having lunch then relaxed by the pool until it was time to get ready to be transferred to the airport.

We had the option of flying direct to Melbourne for 14 hours or via Singapore which we chose so we could walk up and down the corridor during the almost 2 hours layover in Singapore as DH had his varicose veins done 5 weeks earlier.

On our return trip we spent 2 nights in Singapore then had around 6 hours layover in Dubai then on to Dublin.

Depends how long your stopovers are? I would want them at least 20hrs each for your plan. Then are you doing them on the return leg too as that is a fair few days out of your holiday. I'd rather power through an awful 24hrs and recover at my location than spend 2/3days in a compete timezone fog and get to my destination and still need to recover.

Have a look on skyskanner. You can look for multi-flight options and different routes. You'll likely need to go with different airlines for different legs. Think about where each airlines home hub is. Sometimes, you can get a free stopover included.
Cathay- Hong Kong
Singapore Air- Singapore
Malaysia Airlines- Kuala Lumpar
Etihad- Abu Dabi
Emirates- Dubai etc

Jetstart and AirAsia can have good deals and I don't think they come up on skyskanner.

Air NZ have a sky couch in economy. I don't know about pricing, but it might be another option if you are doing a longer leg.

www.airnewzealand.co.uk/economy-skycouch

You'll likely need to go with different airlines for different legs

Yes, agreed, and that might introduce some vulnerability if one of the flights or connections doesn't work as advertised..

Different airlines in the same group with connected booking right through would possibly be safer than a completely random choice of carriers.

DH and I had family in NZ. Our prefered stop over is East Asia. So Singapore, Kuala Lumpar and Hong Kong. That split the journey up into roughly equal parts of 12 + 12 hours. It's slightly longer now due to flight path changes of avoiding Russia. The alternative is Los Angeles which I have done once and do not recommend. We can't get out during LA stop over and have to sat in a very small terminal.

I did a 3-night stopover in Singapore on the way out from London to Australia.

Then on the way back, I flew back via Singapore but didn't leave the airport; I stayed overnight at the Aerotel airside hotel. Didn't need to go through passport control or pick up my checked luggage or anything. I took a change of clothes and toiletries in my hand luggage.

That one has private rooms and 'shared' bathrooms, but to be honest you walk into one and it's a whole, immaculately clean bathroom suite, so it doesn't feel shared at all. All I wanted to do was have a proper sleep between flights and the whole thing worked brilliantly.

If I'd had more time I might have flown back via a different city and stayed for a couple of nights, but I'd already been away for a month so didn't have time for that.

I think what you’re planning sounds totally reasonable, breaking up the super-long haul into three legs with a good sleep in the middle makes sense if you want to avoid any 16-hour blocks.
I’m Aussie based and I’m the opposite 😂 I’ve done Melb → UK, Melb → LA, Melb → Greece, Melb → South Africa and the longest I’ve sat in economy was Melb → Iceland. Honestly for me I’d rather just get there and sleep on the plane if I need to, one long flight is easier than multiple flights + stopovers for me.
SIL lives in perth thats a 4 hour flight from melb.
But if avoiding long legs is a priority for you, your plan sounds sensible. Definitely worth doing the airport hotel sleep if you can, you arrive much more human at the last leg.
Safe travels!

@NewYearVibes Surely you could stay around LA for a couple of days? Do you not have an Esta?

Id always use the same airline. It’s going to be easier if anything goes wrong. Friends have gone via Dubai and Singapore. One friend had relatives who used the LA route. Others I know have gone via Sydney.

Just done this for Christmas! We did a night flight out Heathrow to Singapore (13 hrs but slept most of it), less than 2 hrs layover, 7.5 hrs to Melbourne, again less than 2 hrs stopover and 3 hrs onto Wellington.
On the way back, we did stay in Singapore for 3 days, then 7.5 hrs to Dubai and about same again to Heathrow.

Thanks for the replies.
Main stopover would just be to sleep, so not looking for 20/24 hours.
Would ideally time it to arrive there in the middle of the night (UK time) so that the sleeping is half way between UK time and NZ time.

We have done the long legs before and there wasn't much sleeping going on. It was very draining.

Will look into the base locations as a free hotel sounds good!

Lots of airlines offer free or very cheap layovers for one or two nights, worth a look - we nearly did in Quater - it was £25.00 a night i think - but in the end we flew via Saudi as significantly cheaper

I already posted up thread, but another thing to look at is the tax for flying long haul from the UK. I recall seeing a travel show maybe last year saying you'd be better to get eurostar to France or fly to say Turkey, then do your longer haul part from there. I've included a link, but I'm out and can't check if this is the exact tax I'm thinking of. Worth comparing flying out from different countries though. A friend goes to Thailand often, and she flies to Finland on a cheaper carrier, then get Finn Air to Thailand and says its a cheaper route all round. I'm yet to check the prices myself though.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/changes-to-air-passenger-duty-rates-from-1-april-2025/air-passenger-duty-rates-from-1-april-2025-to-31-march-2026

@OhDear111 I prefer to go straight through and rest when I get to the other end. I take ages to recover from jet lag, so a couple of days is not going to be a rest for me.

@JDM625 That is a good point. In my case it would need to be Uk to Istanbul, then to KL. The latter leg is just over 10 hours.
Is a combination of the duty, as you say, and it being a cheaper airline. Not looked up Turkish Airlines but my wife’s first impression may be - who?!

Turkey was just an example of somewhere I think the TV programme mentioned- I wasn't saying travelling with Turkish airlines was a recommendation! I'm unsure if the additional duty if just flying from UK or just from any European country? You'd need to look into it further, but the additional smaller leg might just not be worth the palaver.

The very high passenger duty, especially on Long Haul sectors, is very much an ex-UK thing, not europe wide...

Turkish Airlines are regarded as OK, modern fleet, not seen much comment on their cisyomer service.

@notimagain The very high passenger duty, especially on Long Haul sectors, is very much an ex-UK thing, not europe wide...

Thank you for clarifying. DH thought the same, hence my earlier suggestion of getting eurostar to say Paris, and flying longer haul from there. Currently looking into it all myself.

Unless you have something particular to do at the stopover and intend to stop for a couple of days, fly direct to Australia/NZ. Get the pain over with quickly and book a nice hotel for a day or two on arrival for recovery.

@wheresthesnowgone and others,
Didn't really want it to turn into - straight there vs a sleep stopover.
The latter is kind of required, for our scenario, it's just the best way to do it.

Done the nice hotel after 24 hrs+ no sleep and woke up at 2 in the afternoon, so the nice hotel was a bit of a waste!
And for full disclosure, done Business straight there, which was very pleasant. But that was a special occasion and when prices were reasonable (for Business).
We'll be going over Xmas so can't afford £15k for 3 people, for that.

Logic is to get on the NZ time clock as soon as, and for me the most guaranteed-ish way of doing that is a (proper, hopefully) sleep in roughly the right time slot, or Business (not happening).
Not bothered about seeing the stopover place. Only exception to that would be an Aus city, but the Asia-NZ leg is shorter anyway, so not really 'required' for the above.

Short story - ideally take a plane during the 'day', as long as the leg isn't too long (for general comfort).

Just a note re starting your long haul leg/s outside the UK, it can save a fair bit of money and especially in business class, but just take into account if something goes wrong with your positioning flight (or train) you're on your own to sort out and need to factor in the risk of missing your flight - so you might need to travel to Europe the day prior or buy a flex ticket which then bites into the savings.

My tip for making long haul economy more bearable is to pay the extra and book an exit or bulkhead seat in advance.