*A RTW average earn rate

[Pufoasa]

Good morning and happy hump day

Here is an early question to get you going

Does anyone know, or is there a way to calculate what a *A RTW in J would earn on average, in both points and SCs?

We have enough points for 1 award ticket in J (will be transferring most of my 400K VA points to Krisflyer), so trying to decide if for the second one we would be better off paying cash and getting the points and SCs, or if buying miles for ~6000US and having the second flight as a reward as well might be the better way to go. We haven't yet finalised the itinerary, still playing with options, but it is likely to add up to just over 25k miles. We haven't yet decided if we'll fly East or West.

If it helps, what we have in mind is BNE/SYD/MEL - HKG, HKG - PEK, PEK - Europe, (might include another 1-2 legs within EU), EU - NY (JFK or other), NY - ORD, ORD - YVR /SEA, YVR/SEA - SFO, SFO - RAR, RAR - BNE/SYD/MEL.
OR, if we fly the other way around, we could skip SEA/SFO and fly to BOG instead, as inspired by JohnM's fantastic trip report on his latest RTW, and on the way back we could stop in SIN and go to Sentosa for a couple of days of R&R and to re-acclimatise.

I hope this gives you enough details, but if not, please let me know.

Thank you all for your help and advice!

Have a great day,
Pufoasa

 

[Mattg]

Good morning, and great to see you're planning an exciting RTW trip!

The answer to this will really depend on many factors, including the actual routing and the program that you credit the flights to. For a Business class Star Alliance RTW ticket, you will be earning in "D" class.

Which Star Alliance program would you be crediting to? I guess the obvious choice would be KrisFlyer, so perhaps use them as a starting point. FWIW I believe it would be possible to earn enough points for the equivalent of Star Alliance Gold (the highest Star Alliance tier) based on that routing. You'd also earn a fairly significant amount of points. But you might want to look and flying a little bit indirect to max that out and ensure you get over the line.

Just be aware that the award booking is much more restrictive than the Star Alliance RTW option. The RTW ticket is very flexible, while the award booking relies on you finding award availability and also allows fewer stopovers. Still doable for your routing but I guess my concern for you is that you won't get the most value out of the paid ticket if you are restricted to travelling together, and one of you is on an award booking.

By the way, for a cheaper RTW option consider the Swiss RTW ticket (only bookable through a travel agent) : http://www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au/community/your-questions/swiss-rtw-j-qf-flights-61498.html

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Good morning and happy hump day

LOL...I must admit I had to google the meaning of that term!!! My mind was elsewhere......

 

[lovetravellingoz]

so trying to decide if for the second one we would be better off paying cash and getting the points and SCs, or if buying miles for ~6000US and having the second flight as a reward as well might be the better way to go.

Unless gaining status is important to you, and will be of value to you (ie how often will you fly and how often in Y), I would suggest just seeing what the best J deal on offer is such as the one Mattg mentioned. (Mind you this will still earn points and perhaps status credits) It may be best to buy 2 tickets now (whether by points or by discountLX/RTW tickets) and redeeming for a later trip for 2 once you have enough points for 2.

 

[Mattg]

Unless gaining status is important to you, and will be of value to you, I would suggest just seeing what the best J deal on offer is. It may be best to buy 2 tickets now (whether by points or by discountLX/RTW tickets) and redeeming for a later trip for 2 once you have enough points for 2.

If you do a few legs on Singapore Airlines (as a paid RTW) you could also try to use those points to upgrade to First on the SQ sectors.

 

[Pufoasa]

Unless gaining status is important to you, and will be of value to you (ie how often will you fly and how often in Y), I would suggest just seeing what the best J deal on offer is such as the one Mattg mentioned. (Mind you this will still earn points and perhaps status credits) It may be best to buy 2 tickets now (whether by points or by discountLX/RTW tickets) and redeeming for a later trip for 2 once you have enough points for 2.

The reason I was leaning towards getting at least one paid ticket, was to build some miles to redeem later. Your suggestion to get 2 paid tickets actually got me thinking. We have the cash for it now, and who knows if we will or not in the future, so it would be good to have those points up our sleeve. We normally fly in Y... which is why I thought building status for lounge access might be good?

I am hoping to credit the trips to Krisflyer, as I/we tend to fly back to Europe on SQ most times and I am gold VA, so if push comes to shove, I can always transfer the points across.

If you do a few legs on Singapore Airlines (as a paid RTW) you could also try to use those points to upgrade to First on the SQ sectors.

Thanks for the suggestion Matt. How many points would an upgrade to first burn pp? If it is worth it and if we could get that on least one long leg, it would be fantastic.

 

[JohnM]

OT, but for comparison, on a DONE5 using all 16 sectors, I typically earn about 1600 QF SC and just shy of 100K FF points.

 

[Pufoasa]

Thank you JohnM. We are definitely looking at using all 16 sectors.
We have no One World points and no status. Should we decide to pay cash for both tickets, would you recommend the One World RTW or the *A one?

 

[Mattg]

Thanks for the suggestion Matt. How many points would an upgrade to first burn pp? If it is worth it and if we could get that on least one long leg, it would be fantastic.

Here is the chart: http://www.singaporeair.com/pdf/ppsclub_krisflyer/charts/SQMI_OneWayUpgradeCharts.pdf

For a SYD-SIN flight, for example, an upgrade from Business to First would cost 50,000 SQ miles (assuming you can get a "Saver" upgrade). Rates vary for other routes.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

We normally fly in Y... which is why I thought building status for lounge access might be good?

I am hoping to credit the trips to Krisflyer, as I/we tend to fly back to Europe on SQ most times and I am gold VA, so if push comes to shove, I can always transfer the points across.

.

Each of our flying patterns is different and so that is why it always pays to work out what is best for your own circumstances.

After discovering this forum and others like Flyertalk I greatly increased my ability to aquire FF points with myself status is not important these days as I only occassionaly fly paid domestic in OZ (flights are normally only short anyway) and internationaly I virtually only ever redeem long-haul J/F flights (perish the thought of having to buy a ticket!!) and so I do not need status to access the lounges or priority boarding.

For over a decade now apart from one trip to New York 6 years ago and Jetstar "Starclass " to Bali on launch for almost nothing, paid international flights have only been some short hops within Europe. Until recently that was for a family of 5. My daughters are now older and so trips are mainly for 2 these days.

However others for example fly a lot in Y for work and so status is valuable to them. Back when I was flying a lot for my previous employment over a decade ago it was important to me as well. Ironically today I aquire far. far, more points now than back when I had accesss to a substantial work budget.

"Knowledge" is crucial, but the willingness to act and pounce on the various offers that come along is equally, if not more important.

Apart from aquiring more points today I now know how to use and exploit them much better. (Ie Do not restrict oneself to just one FF Program or only Australian FF Programs, and think "Alliance" and/or "Partner Awards" and nor just "Airline Award"ec etc ) So I am better at both "urn" and "burn" and hence get a lot more bang for my buck and time.

 

[JohnM]

Thank you JohnM. We are definitely looking at using all 16 sectors.
We have no One World points and no status. Should we decide to pay cash for both tickets, would you recommend the One World RTW or the *A one?

I can't comment on the relative merits of a OneWorld Global Explorer compared with its *A equivalent as I've always stuck with OneWorld. I've always bought D (ie. Business) class (except for A (First) once) for the 13 of them I've done in the last 12 years.

All I can say is that a DONEx (where x is 4,5 or 6 continental zones) would, particularly with a little judicious selection of sectors particularly in the US (where their is no D so you get put in F ) assure you of QF WP (OneWorld Emerald) status by the end of the trip. Of course, that is only useful if you plan to continue to do a lot of travelling in the future and the benefits that status brings is meaningful to you.

If you were to do an LONEx (Economy), it is possible to pay extra to upgrade to PE on long sectors.

I'm not familiar with how *A does it, but OneWorld's 'Continental Zones' can mean a much greater geographic spread than one might imagine (eg. the European 'zone' includes such places as Morocco, Dubai, Doha, Jordan) and the N America 'zone' includes Central America and the Caribbean.

OneWorld has a very good planning and booking tool for xONEx's: https://www.oneworld.com/. You can dummy up all sorts of itineraries and save them on the OW site or on your local PC. Typically I have a slew of possible itineraries that I build and tweak, keeping each one in case I want to go back to it - eg. I have 2016A, B, C...... until I have made my final choice. It will error-trap any breach of the rules and once a valid itinerary is constructed it's easily priced and you can just back out from that point without committing.

Buying an xONEx from Australia (it defaults to QF as the selling carrier, naturally enough) is comparatively expensive but some people book them from places like Cape Town to get a less costly fare and position there on a cheap flight. I think that sort of thing would only be worth doing for a D or AONEx. Search the forum for threads on this.

Hope that is of some use.

 

[Pufoasa]

Thank you everyone for your time and very helpful comments, I really appreciate it!

I am still playing with the itinerary, and trying several combinations using the online booking tool. (It sounds like the *A and OW tools are very similar.) The one thing that confuses me is that when trying to get on an A380 flight out of SYD or MEL (paid ticket, not award), the segment gets downgraded to economy (comment says there are no seats available), but if I try to book a one way flight on that specific leg on the SQ website, there appears to be available seats...

 

[Mattg]

Thank you everyone for your time and very helpful comments, I really appreciate it!

I am still playing with the itinerary, and trying several combinations using the online booking tool. (It sounds like the *A and OW tools are very similar.) The one thing that confuses me is that when trying to get on an A380 flight out of SYD or MEL (paid ticket, not award), the segment gets downgraded to economy (comment says there are no seats available), but if I try to book a one way flight on that specific leg on the SQ website, there appears to be available seats...

This could be because there are no seats available in the fare class used for RTW tickets.

Also worth noting is that I think there is a surcharge for flying SQ on the A380 in Business or First on a *A RTW ticket. I'm not sure whether this has any effect on economy class tickets.

 

[JohnM]

Thank you everyone for your time and very helpful comments, I really appreciate it!

I am still playing with the itinerary, and trying several combinations using the online booking tool. (It sounds like the *A and OW tools are very similar.) The one thing that confuses me is that when trying to get on an A380 flight out of SYD or MEL (paid ticket, not award), the segment gets downgraded to economy (comment says there are no seats available), but if I try to book a one way flight on that specific leg on the SQ website, there appears to be available seats...

Do *A RTW in Bus book into D class, do you know? That is the RTW Bus class fare bucket for OWA.

The one-way on that leg that you are seeing is probably J (full Bus).

It's important to recognise that RTW fares book into a discounted fare bucket. Hence the limited availability and the need to book well ahead.

I can check availability in different fare buckets on EF if you give the details of origin, destination, date and airline.

 

[Pufoasa]

It did cross my mind that it might be a fare class issue, thank you for confirming.

From what I noticed when trying to price the ticket, some legs are in D, others in Z, and there is a surcharge for certain types of aircraft (there was another one apart from the A380, but I do not remember the type off the top of my head). I did not realise that even for paid RTW there would be limited availability, lesson learnt for next time!

I've also realised that since we are now paying for the tickets, we are no longer restricted to *A. I might have a look at the OW tool and try a few combinations, which would mean we would have status across the 2 alliances by the end of the trip, but our points would also be split, rather than having one big pile in one place...

 

[JohnM]

I've also realised that since we are now paying for the tickets, we are no longer restricted to *A. I might have a look at the OW tool and try a few combinations, which would mean we would have status across the 2 alliances by the end of the trip, but our points would also be split, rather than having one big pile in one place...

I find this confusing. The main purpose in buying a RTW fare with either alliance is to get a very good price for a lot of travel, is it not? If you start splitting it into point-to-point itineraries, you'll negate the whole point and value of a RTW.

In what cabin are you aiming to book? Presumably not Business?

 

[Pufoasa]

Hi JohnM, I am sorry for the confusion, which is probably due to a) me being new at this, and b) the disconnect between what is in my head and how I put it in writing (in a language that is not my first, but my third).

I agree that

The main purpose in buying a RTW fare with either alliance is to get a very good price for a lot of travel

. I am hoping to book a Business class RTW with either *A or OW, whichever ends up being better value overall (and by value I don't necessarily mean best price, but best experience). So what I do is enter the 16 segments into the online booking tool, choose the individual flights from the options available for each destination, the tool validates the itinerary and provides the final price. I save this as option A, and then try another combination, and so on.

I was focused on booking *A because that's where I currently have gold status (+ 400k VFF points) and the associated perks. I was thinking that by sticking to *A, following this trip we would have enough points to next year hopefully redeem 2 award flights and we can keep enjoying the benefits of Gold/Platinum until then.
However, I realised that the Business RTW tickets will automatically come with lounge access, so in that regard it doesn't really matter which alliance I use for this particular trip.
If I book with *A, I will travel as a status pax and by the end of the trip I will be Platinum, with all the new points added to the existing pile. I could potentially use some points to upgrade from business to first on the long legs, should there be availability.
If I book with OW, I will travel as a no status pax, go from no status to Gold/Platinum (?) and acquire a number of points which will probably be enough to redeem 1 or 2 fligths (not RTW) on an alliance that we don't normally use.
I would just need to figure out which option is best.

This is what I was trying to say. I hope I managed to get it across more clearly this time, but if not, I apologise for wasting your time.

 

[JohnM]

Hi JohnM, I am sorry for the confusion, which is probably due to a) me being new at this, and b) the disconnect between what is in my head and how I put it in writing (in a language that is not my first, but my third).

I agree that . I am hoping to book a Business class RTW with either *A or OW, whichever ends up being better value overall (and by value I don't necessarily mean best price, but best experience). So what I do is enter the 16 segments into the online booking tool, choose the individual flights from the options available for each destination, the tool validates the itinerary and provides the final price. I save this as option A, and then try another combination, and so on.

I was focused on booking *A because that's where I currently have gold status (+ 400k VFF points) and the associated perks. I was thinking that by sticking to *A, following this trip we would have enough points to next year hopefully redeem 2 award flights and we can keep enjoying the benefits of Gold/Platinum until then.

However, I realised that the Business RTW tickets will automatically come with lounge access, so in that regard it doesn't really matter which alliance I use for this particular trip.
If I book with *A, I will travel as a status pax and by the end of the trip I will be Platinum, with all the new points added to the existing pile. I could potentially use some points to upgrade from business to first on the long legs, should there be availability.
If I book with OW, I will travel as a no status pax, go from no status to Gold/Platinum (?) and acquire a number of points which will probably be enough to redeem 1 or 2 fligths (not RTW) on an alliance that we don't normally use.
I would just need to figure out which option is best.

This is what I was trying to say. I hope I managed to get it across more clearly this time, but if not, I apologise for wasting your time.

No problem - and you are not wasting my time. I've been interested and intrigued in what you are wanting to do.

The most important thing is to do what yields the experience you are seeking. If *A can deliver, then I'd tend to stick with that. If you travel Business as a no status on OWA, sure you will get lounge access, but little chance of 'extras' like F UPG, FLounge access or possibly seat selection.

It's why I stick with OWA as an Emerald: it can deliver what I want, plus the 'extras' are nice.

Keep us posted on the final itinerary - and a TR please!