Can I stay In The Layover City?

If you don’t fly into EDI, the rest of your roundtrip is canceled meaning you’re not going home on that ticket and you’ll have to buy a new ticket to Maine or Oregon depending upon which Portland is your airport.

You have to be careful with that. Airlines typically don’t allow for that. If you care about miles, you will likely not get the miles you were to earn. Now, if you booked a one way ticket to Edinburgh with a stop over in Amsterdam and a separate one way ticket from Amsterdam back home to Portland, you should be okay. But if you book a round trip open jaw flight Portland-Edinburgh via AMS with return AMS-Portland, I believe the airline will or may cancel the rest of your trip if you purposefully miss your AMS to Edinburgh flight. Obviously, don’t check any bags on your flight to “Edinburgh” if you chance this.

There are good r/t fares to Amsterdam. Why muddy the waters?

Because the flights PDX to AMS are $1500, way more than I want to pay. Scotts Cheap Flights don't have any deals in May as of today. If you know of where I can find the best flight deals I'd love to know, thanks!

If you can get a cheap ticket and good connection for Edinburgh to Amsterdam return you can buy the good deal Portland-Edinburgh and still go to Amsterdam. Just fly to Edinburgh then hop on a plane to Amsterdam, and do the reverse going home. We are doing something similar for our upcoming trip to Spain.

We got a great deal for business class from Australia to London return (28 hour trip each way so business class is very desirable). We have just added on economy flights on a separate ticket for London to Madrid return. Saved ourselves around $3000-.

Icelandair $970 RT in May on two random dates I put in.
You can't stop in Amsterdam without the rest of your ticket being cancelled.

you can only do it on a one way ticket

I don't think you get the routing.

You are buying a ticket from Portland to Edinburgh. The flights happen to include a change of planes in Amsterdam.

If you miss the Amsterdam to Edinburgh flight, without notifying the airline to an acceptable reason, they will cancel the remainder of your ticket. Wanting to stay in Amsterdam is not an acceptable reason. Show up for your return and you will find it canceled.

Flights change. As I wrote before, you have purchased a flight from Portland to Edinburgh. The airline is responsible for getting you to Edinburgh. They are not required to route you through Amsterdam. They can change your flight and route you through another city if there is a problem with your initial flight. Search the forum and you will see lots of forum members talk about how the airline changed their routing.

As others have said, this is not a good idea.

Thank you all!

Because Scott’s cheap flights doesn’t have something you like doesn’t mean there’s not something out there. It’s a very selective service. I suggest Google flights and start looking for things that work for you. You don’t have to pay Scott to find cheap flights for you.

Forget the website you were looking at. Go to Google Flights to see all the available combinations. They are not a third party trying to sell you tickets but will show you all your buying options.

Those of us who are experienced at this recommend always buying directly from the airline.

Thanks Frank!

And passport control?

This has been discussed here countless times.

When you buy a ticket from Portland to Edinburgh, you (and the airline) are agreeing to a legally-binding contract. You expect them to hold up their end of the deal, they expect you to do the same.

The airlines view what you are proposing to do as fraud - yes, fraud - and a violation of your contract terms. They take active steps to discourage and dissuade people from doing this (because they claim it causes them to lose money). As noted above, first thing they do: if you're a "no-show" for the last leg, they cancel any additional reservations including return tickets.

If you do this once, maybe a few times (always on a one-way ticket), you probably won't get caught. Do it often enough, and they will probably catch you. How bad would that really be? Airlines can and do retaliate against those they regard as serial offenders by confiscating that customer's frequent flyer miles (if they have any) and banning them from their programs in the future. That may or may not seem worrisome or bother you. They're certainly not going to drag you off the plane or sue you. You're not going on their "favorite customers" list.