RTW for dummies

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germanflyer

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Jun 20, 2007
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Hi everyone,

i am planning to use the oneworld explorer to fly to europe and USA this year. I couldn't find sufficient information on how many points and credits i can get through this trip.
It would be great to get a good status with my qantas frequent flyer account;-)
What do i need to do to maximize the status credits i get on the following route:
Melbourne-LA-Chicago-New York-London-Rome-Frankfurt-??-Melbourne
Not yet sure where i go from Frankfurt as i have 4-5 days left to get back to melbourne (any suggestions?)
And how many status credits would i get for this kind of itenieray?

Thanks for helping me,
Mirco
 
Welcome micro - just a couple of questions - what class of travel are you planning? How up for unusual routings are you (for context I am doing jfk-dfw-lax-jfk-nrt-hkg-syd rather than JFK-lax-syd)? Are the locations fixed so far for your (i.e. can you play a little with routings already)? And finally you do realise that more complex routings mean more fuel surcharges and taxes?

Cheers

S

EDIT - something you could look at could be:

mel-hkg-lax-ord-dfw-lax-jfk-bgi-lgw,lhr-fco-hel-fra-hkg-sin-nrt-hkg-syd-adl-per-syd

That would I think earn:

Code:
From	to	eco	bus	First
mel	hkg	60	120	 180 
hkg	lax	90	180	 270 
lax	ord	40	80	 120 
ord	dfw	30	60	 90 
dfw	lax	40	80	 120 
lax	jfk	50	100	 150 
jfk	bgi	40	80	 120 
bgi	lgw	60	120	 180 
lgw	lhr	30	60	 90 
lhr	fco	30	60	 90 
fco	hel	40	80	 120 
hel	fra	30	60	 90 
fra	hkg	70	140	 210 
hkg	sin	40	80	 120 
sin	nrt	50	100	 150 
nrt	hkg	40	80	 120 
hkg	syd	60	120	 180 
syd	adl	30	60	 90 
adl	per	20	40	 60 
per	syd	40	80	 120 
Totals	SCS	890	1780	2670
 
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You might want to try mileagemonkey as a start:
MileageMonkey 0.95012

There are some errors but it's generally a good guide.

Generally you're allowed 4 segments per continent, 6 in North America. You're allowed to purchase an additional 2 segments per continent, except in your continent of origin. The total number of segments, free or purchased, must not exceed 20. Stopovers are limited to 2 in continent of origin but unlimited for all other continents. And you can only leave and enter country of origin once (but your itinerary can go via MEL).

You are allowed to backtrack as much as you like and that's generally an advantage of the ONE where SC-accrual is concerned, subject to restrictions on your choice of flights such as 1 transcon in NA and Australia, and no more than 2 flights between the UK and various places in Europe and the Middle East.

Assuming the cities you've already listed are the ones you actually have to stop at, you still have lots of segments to play around with for SCs. For your NA segments, try Sydney-New York-LA-Chicago-(random West Coast BA/AA gateway)-London. If purchasing a business RTW (DONE) you'll be booked and accruing F SCs for the 2 class domestic NA flights, with the exception of NYC-LA which has a business cabin.

For Europe, the Middle East is included for the purpose of your ONE. Unfortunately you can't do Rome-FRA directly as I don't think it's a oneworld route.

And finally, the minimum you'll be charged for commencing from Australia/NZ is for a 4 continents itinerary. So you're entitled to some segments in Asia or Africa, which you'll need to get through on the way home from Europe; the longish ones include NRT-DPS-NRT, NRT-DEL-NRT or HKG-KHI-HKG.
 
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Thanks for your answer so far, there are a couple of limitations i have to admit
Okay i start in
Melbourne friday night Day 1
need to be in Chicago sunday night Day 3
can leave chicago friday night Day7
need to be in Frankfurt thursday night Day 13
can leave Frankfurt monday night Day Day 18
need to be in Melbourne sunday night Day 21

Is there a tool i can use for this kind of calculation?
Oh and i will fly economy (cheap cough european that i am ;-))

How much do these fuel surcharges and taxes come to?

Cheers,
Mirco

P.S. Sorry for being so uninformed, but i am just discovering the world of frequent flyers ;-)
 
You could do this:

mel-hkg-lax-ord-dfw-lax-jfk-bgi-lgw,lhr-amm-fco-hel-fra-hkg-sin-nrt-hkg-syd-per-adl-syd

To crank it up a little :) And still have one more flight in the US or Oz :)
 
germanflyer said:
Is there a tool i can use for this kind of calculation?
Oh and i will fly economy (cheap cough european that i am ;-))

How much do these fuel surcharges and taxes come to?

Cheers,
Mirco

P.S. Sorry for being so uninformed, but i am just discovering the world of frequent flyers ;-)

As QF009 points out you can use mileage monkey to validate the route. There are two other tools I use:

Oneworld flights planner - this is an application you can download from the oneworld - Home site that gives you the timetables. You can then make sure your routing gets you where you need to be when you need to be there.

experflyer.com (pay for usage tool) or SeatCounter - The Booking Class Availability Machine (free tool) - I use these to then go through the planned flights ot make sure that there are available seats on my desired flights (in your case that would be L fare basis).

I cant help on the taxes side I am afraid.
 
If on a very specific schedule, take into consideration the fact that some flights may not be daily, AMM-FCO comes to mind.

If doing MEL-HKG-LAX, FRA-HKG-SIN-NRT-HKG-SYD will have to be transits without stopovers. :shock:

Taxes/fuel surcharges - depends on issuing carrier. Add approximately 7-8% of the base fare if issued via AA. Much more if issued via QF/BA. CX will probably come up somewhere in between.
 
Another question:

If i am flying with the RTW ticket to i get the status credits for Discount Economy or Full economy?

Damn...i cant download the mileagemonkey as its blocked by the company websecurity *argh*

I will try to get some other way, as it seems to be a handy tool.
 
QF009 said:
If doing MEL-HKG-LAX, FRA-HKG-SIN-NRT-HKG-SYD will have to be transits without stopovers. :shock:

You say that like its a bad thing ;) I would probably take the first HKG out of that itinerary so that the luggage doesnt get too confused though.

I agree with AMM-FCO - I just couldnt get DXB to work in the schedule which is a shame as it's a nice little earner ;)
 
germanflyer said:
If i am flying with the RTW ticket to i get the status credits for Discount Economy or Full economy?

Sorry my mistake - L is discount economy - so only half the SCs - ouch
 
QF009 said:
If doing MEL-HKG-LAX, FRA-HKG-SIN-NRT-HKG-SYD will have to be transits without stopovers. :shock:
Mhhh what exactly does that mean? When is it a transit and when a stopover?
 
simongr said:
You say that like its a bad thing ;) I would probably take the first HKG out of that itinerary so that the luggage doesnt get too confused though.

Try doing it in WHY....
 
From a status persepectove it might be better to do a challenge then for AAdvantage.
 
germanflyer said:
Mhhh what exactly does that mean? When is it a transit and when a stopover?
Oops sorry. Stopover = stop of 24 hours or more. Transit = less than 24 hours.

So if you have friends living in every one of those cities, you could effectively stay 23 hrs 55 mins in each and have a long catch up even though you can't actually stopover. You don't pay airport tax for transit stops either. :) (Unless it's somewhere which doesn't incorporate the airport tax into the ticket - you might get dinged when trying to get back airside.)
 
simongr said:
From a status persepectove it might be better to do a challenge then for AAdvantage.
;-) and another couple of words i have never heard before.
AAdvantage?!?! and what do you mean by challenge
 
Sorry - AAdvantage is the American Airlines (AA) frequent flyer program. You can still fly qantas and other oneworld members but instead of crediting flights to Qantas (QF) you credit them to AA. There are +/- to the program. However they have a challenge where you can accelerated your way to status - by earning 10,000 qpoints (their equivalent of status credits) in a three month period. there is more to it than that though :)
 
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germanflyer said:
;-) and another couple of words i have never heard before.
AAdvantage?!?! and what do you mean by challenge
AAdvantage = Frequent Flyer Program of AA
Challenge = AA's backdoor to oneworld elite status

The holy grail: You will need to earn 10 000 Qpoints in 3 months or 90 days (depends on the mood of the AAgent you speak to) on AA flight numbers to gain Platinum status by Challenge. Qpoints are based on mileage earned and generally accrue at a 1:1 ratio for L class on AA flight numbers. This includes codeshares operated by other airlines. AA PLAT = oneworld sapphire status = niceties like lounge access and priority boarding on all oneworld airlines. Oh and 100% bonus miles on AAdvantage across all oneworld partners, except a rare few.

You will also need to fly AA between the US and UK as AAdvantage members do not earn miles on BA for those flights. In economy, this is not such a bad thing IMO - I personally find AA economy seats more comfy than BA cattle truck.
 
germanflyer said:
How much do these fuel surcharges and taxes come to?
With the sort of routing mentioned here and ticketing using Qantas then taxes and surcharges would be around $900.

Just as an example taxes and surcharges were $935.12 on my routing of SYD-MEL-LAX-IAD-STL-ORD-LHR-ATH-LHR-FRA-HEL-ZRH-HEL-BRU-LHR-HKG-SYD.
 
simongr said:
You could do this:

mel-hkg-lax-ord-dfw-lax-jfk-bgi-lgw,lhr-amm-fco-hel-fra-hkg-sin-nrt-hkg-syd-per-adl-syd
Simon, although there have been reports of people managing to have such an itinerary ticketed, it is in fact invalid. The rule permitting two "visits" to Asia states that one must be a transit without stopover between Europe and SWP. Your suggested itinerary has the "transit without stopover" between SWP and NA.

If you route between SWP and NA via Asia, even if a transit without stopover, that counts as your Asia visit. So you cannot do that and then do the HKG-SIN-NRT-HKG between Europe and SWP.

So if you want to do those Asia stops, they have to be taken between SWP and NA and not between Europe and SWP.
 
NM said:
If you route between SWP and NA via Asia, even if a transit without stopover, that counts as your Asia visit. So you cannot do that and then do the HKG-SIN-NRT-HKG between Europe and SWP.
Hence I indicated that the latter Asian legs have to be transits without stopovers which is doable because the OP has no specific need to stopover anywhere in Asia. Surely that fits with the rules - I don't see anything that limits the number of transits without stopovers between Europe and SWP for the 2nd intercon entry/exit into/out of Asia, unless there is a reason for the lack of plurality in the star file ('transit' not 'transits').

Doing such an itin in WHY is another story however....:-|
 
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