RTW Expiry and best route

[sirjeff]

G'day Later this year my wife and I would like to take our retirement trip on QF points. The first question is how long can one take to complete a RTW booking? The next question is what route would be best. We will be flying economy. We wish to visit Krabi in Thailand, Split in Croatia, Barcelona, then Boulder, Dallas and Central America. If we can score another stop before we get back to our originating port BNE that would be a bonus. I am happy to fly into major ports and take discount flights to my stops. Last question. How many points per head?

 

[k3nnis]

140000 for Y or 280000 for J.

 

[Mwenenzi]

Look here for QF RTW award http://www.australianfrequentflyer....ogram/oneworld-award-140k-280k-420k-8228.html

Tickets can only be booked up to 355 days ahead on Qantas & 330 days on AA.
For South America you may be better to buy a USA-South America return. But Qantas does fly from Chile [SCL] to Sydney

 

[casanovawa]

You usually have a year to complete the itinerary....

And so where in Central America were you thinking of??? Any particular airlines you like or prefer??

 

[casanovawa]

Quickest of looks would maybe be:

BNE-KUL-BKK on MH (stop) find your way to Krabi and back
BKK-HKG-AUH-TXL-NUE-SPU (stop) CX and AB - direct flights on OW to Split seem to only go from Neuremberg, Moscow, Madrid or Leipzig/Halle, if you didn't want to include as part of the OW award but were happy to fly from HKG to FCO or MXP and get separate cheapy internal euro flights using croatian airlines or something you could save yourself some connections and segments?? (You might be able to go HKG-Moscow-Split which might be quicker but not sure about needing transit visas if your Australian or not??)
SPU-MAD-BCN (stop) on IB
BCN-LHR-DEN (stop) on BA perhaps and then make own way to Boulder and then a land leg to DFW or cheap US airline
DFW-(Central American location) (stop) flying AA
(Central American location)-DFW-BNE AA and then QF

Substituting MEX as your central american location that itinerary amounts to 30,696 miles (so under the 35,000 mile limit), has 5 stops which is the limit (if you just arrived at SPU and departed from BCN and left as an open jaw leg making your own way you could have another stop somewhere and a couple more segments) and comes in at 15 segments including the open jaw between DEN and DFW so you sould have one more segment before the max of 16... But as i said you could free up a lot segments not trying to include Split in the OW itinerary...

Anyway just one way of doing and some food for thought... Depending on when you are flying QR might even have come into OW by then for a few other options...

 

[AIRwin]

BNE-KUL-BKK on MH (stop) find your way to Krabi and back

Other options for the sectors in Asia:
BNE-SIN on QF
SIN-KBV (Krabi) on TR (Tiger Airways)
KBV-SIN on TR
SIN-HKG on CX

or

BNE-SIN on QF
SIN-KBV (Krabi) on TR (Tiger Airways)
Make your way from Krabi to coughet (HKT)
HKT-AUH on AB

 

[casanovawa]

When you start looking at the OW route map alone there are so many ways you can slice it, and then yeah adding in other outside airlines just adds more possibilities...

 

[sirjeff]

Thanks everyone. That gives me the basic answers to my questions. I will now just have to sort out the alphabet soup answer from casanovawa. I have no favourite airline. Just trying to get the best bang for my buck. MEX sounds good for my Central America stop. I can get around from there. Flying out of Chile sounds interesting. Looking at doing it in Y unless business picks up. Leaving about October/November but we are flexible.

 

[Skyring]

I will now just have to sort out the alphabet soup answer from casanovawa.

Best get used to it if you hang around here!

I've had three of these things in Y over the years. The hard part is finding seats to the right places and on days that work for you. Be prepared to make a lot of dummy bookings and to travel via odd places to get where you want to go. I've never tried a Business RTW award, but I imagine it would be even more difficult to find seats, especially if travelling with a partner.

From memory my first one was:
Canberra to Melbourne on Qantas
Melbourne to Hong Kong on Cathay Pacific
Hong Kong to Frankfurt on Cathay Pacific
Frankfurt to London City on BA
Birmingham to Edinburgh to Heathrow on BA
Heathrow to New York on American Airlines
New York to Tokyo on American
Tokyo to Sydney to Canberra on Qantas

London/Birmingham was really the only place I got out of the airline system, though I did have eight hours or so swanning around Manhattan with a mate before I began falling asleep in the middle of sentences. They took me back to Kennedy, I got on the plane and spent most of the 14 hour flight asleep without leaving my seat.

 

[casanovawa]

Its bascially Brisbane-Kuala Lumpur-Bangkok (stop and make own way to Krabi and back) -Hong Kong-Abu Dhabi-Berlin-Nueremberg-Split (stop) -Madrid-Barcelona (stop) -London-Denver (stop and make own way to Boulder and then down to Dallas) Dallas-Mexico City (stop, or a range of other C.A, locations) - Dallas-Brisbane...

A simpler option might just be to fly from Hong Kong to Rome (FCO) or Milan (MXP) and get a cheapy internal euro fare to Split and then resume the OW award from there to MAD and then BCN (Madrid and Barcelona)...

I did think about from MEX going down to South America, maybe you could stop near Machu Picchu and see it if you wanted to, but i thought it might stretch your mileage out beyond the 35,000 mile limit going down to South America and then from SCL-SYD-BNE... Great Circle Mapper can be a really useful site for playing with different routings as to how many miles they add up to...

And you learn to start knowing the more common airport codes pretty quick..

 

[AIRwin]

I've had three of these things in Y over the years.

Thanks for sharing your itinerary! I called mine AIRwin's WHirLwinD trip around the world (you can probably guess my name by now, if not answer is below) with the following routing (back when EI was still in OW):
Singapore to Hong Kong on Cathay Pacific
Hong Kong to New York on Cathay Pacific
New York to Washington DC on American Airlines
Washington DC to San Jose on American Airlines via St Louis and Santa Ana
San Francisco to Los Angeles on American Airlines
Los Angeles to Dublin on Aer Lingus
Dublin to London Heathrow on British Airways
London Heathrow to Athens on British Airways
Athens to Madrid on Iberia
Madrid to Helsinki on Finnair via Stockholm
Helsinki to Bangkok on Finnair
Bangkok to Singapore on Cathay Pacific

I didn't set out to "backtrack" within a particular continent (eg Hong Kong to NYC instead of LAX and then making my way eastwards) but I'm glad I did as it earned me more miles and SC. I started as a QF Bronze and ended up a Silver!

- iRwiN

 

[lovetravellingoz]

You usually have a year to complete the itinerary....

While true, in practice you will have less as you can only book a bit less than a year our to your LAST flight. So with spreading it out, but wanting to I dare say have so advance booking period that will give you less than a year unless you can basically book now, and fly toorrow!

At least you should have flexibilty though on when you can fly.

 

[sirjeff]

Thanks again.