Can 333,000 points take me Syd/SthAmerica/Europe/Africa/Syd

Firstly, I will assume your points are with Qantas and not another airline.

What class of travel and how many people travelling together?

When I arranged my family RTW holiday using QF FF points (planning started about 3 years ago, trip was May-Aug 2004) I started by looking at the award fare rules and how I could best fit in my desired destinations. Then I used the on-line availability tools to find flights with award seats available around the dates I wanted to travel. Then its time to call the airline and start making reservations.

Note that availability will be the biggest issue if you do not hold Gold or Platinum FF status and hence have access to greater availability.

OneWorld Award rules at a glance:

You can have up to five stopovers. A stopover can also be a "surface sector" where you arrive and depart from different places and perhaps drive, train or use other transport between these places. This is particularly useful in Europe where you can easily travel by Eurail Pass or in the US by rental car or even train.

A stopover is a break in the journey of more than 24 hours. So you can spend up to 24 hours in some places and still only be seen as a transit. This takes careful planning. We did this in DFW where we overnighted and met with friends for dinner before departing the next day in under 24 hours. We did the same in HKG on the way home and had a day of sightseeing before departing late the same night.

You must use 2 non-Qantas OneWorld airlines, but that will not be a problem for your itinerary as you will need to use LA trans-Pacific and BA, IB or LA to Europe, and BA to Africa.

Fees and charges will shock you. Be prepared for many hundreds of dollars per ticket.

Be prepared to spend a lot of time on the phone to the res agent looking for availability etc.

 

Re: Economy 1 seat roundworld Syd/SthAmerica/Europe/Africs/S

No, you cannot have more than 5 stopovers. You cannot "buy" more stopovers with points or cash. This is where the ground segments and <25 hour transits come into play.

The other option is to use some extra points and next several rewards. The RTW award with 5 stopovers will cost you 142,500 points for one seat in economy (up to 35,000 miles). So you have some points left over to make a few side trips during your RTW trip stopovers. But these would be independent and separate award tickets. Look for the most efficient places to purchase additional awards, such as Europe where the distances are generally low and you may be able to use for 10,000 point <600 mile awards.

Remember that the mileage for surface segments (ie the distance between an arrival point and the next departure point) is included in the award mileage calculations. For example, if you arrive into London from Sth America, and travel around the UK by car and perhaps EuroStar train to Paris, then fly out from Paris, the London-Paris part is seen as a single stopover and a "surface segment" where you are responsible for getting from London to Paris. In this case the distance between London and paris is included in the calculation.

 

Re: Economy 1 seat roundworld Syd/SthAmerica/Europe/Africs/S

a bit of both ... and also much to do with the hour sleep I lost last night attending to Mini NM#4 making my day feel like at least 25 hours 8) .

 

Re: Economy 1 seat roundworld Syd/SthAmerica/Europe/Africs/S

I have it on good authority that 1 + 1 + 1 = 2 for small values of 1

 

Re: Economy 1 seat roundworld Syd/SthAmerica/Europe/Africs/S

Yes it does .... 1 + 1 + 1 = 2 for large values of two .

 

Re: Economy 1 seat roundworld Syd/SthAmerica/Europe/Africs/S

I once queried an accountant friend (yes, I do know an accountant who has a friend) and asked him what is 1 + 1. His reply... "what would you like it to be".

 

You two gentlemen have had your fun taking another topic OffT, you really need to take these kind of discussions via PM. That would save the original poster and us... :roll:

Let's get back to discussion of the topic...