About to book an open-jaw BOS - CAI, CDG - BOS on Orbitz, and the cheapest option has a 20-hour stopover in London (Arrive LHR 7.30 PM Wed, depart LHR 4 PM Thurs) on the outbound flight. I'm a British citizen, so no issues with visa, etc.

My question is, is there anything special/unusual I should know about a connecting flight with a 20-hour stopover? Am I free to just breeze out of Heathrow as soon as I've cleared immigration & customs, and arrive back in good time to check in for the Cairo flight? And will the airline accept baggage in Boston checked through to Cairo, or will I have to claim it in London and keep it between flights? Both flights are on British Airways. Thanks for any information/advice!

We just came through Heathrow, with about a 4-hour stopover, so it wasn't long enough to do anything else. But I do remember seeing something in the airport info saying that you should allow at least 6 hours if you wanted to go in to London from the airport and make a connecting flight. So presumably, it's okay to do that.

I guess you should ask British Air about checking the bag through, but if the whole ticket is booked through them on one reservation, I should think that would be okay.

On the baggage question it is probably best to ask BA, although I doubt there'd be an issue, since there's only one CAI flight a day.

Otherwise, sure, out you go, back the next afternoon. Note your BOS flight arrives at T4, your CAI flight leaves T2.

TWENTY hours????? How much is the next more expensive option?

Some people might see the 20-hour stopover as a benefit, rather than a liability.

Gardyloo:

BA flying from T2? True that every month, BA have a "how can we REALLY mess customers about?" award, and do sometimes give it to the lunatic who wants flights to, say, Miami, switched to T2 for just two months.

But the whole point of that campaign is that BA has to change back, just as some regular passengers have got used to the new arrangement. And they've never done it with Cairo flights.

BA flights to and from Boston and Cairo use T4.

And yes, Kasja, you can breeze out of the airport. It'd be intriguing to imagine how you think anyone might stop you. Even the Blair's genius in inventing pointless bureaucracy couldn't dream up queues at LHR where people had to prove they weren't on a connecting flight before being allowed in.

Could it?