RTW One World Explorer advice

[DontGetMeStarted]

Morning...My husband and I will have enough QF points 600,000 to travel Bus Class using the One World Explorer but I really need your advice on getting the best value from this booking planned for 2010 - flexible with dates but pref April, May June for 3 months using long service leave. Can anyone advise or assist with an itinerary from Melbourne that should include if possible but not essential Beijing and Shanghai -then to Europe would really love to go to Paris and possibly travel around France and other European cities (are we allowed to fly using OWE or should we train/drive for this portion. Have prev been to Rome and Venice so more interested in seeing other areas of Italy and possibly Prague/Vienna/Croatia /Spain and from there to London and then UK to USA or Canada. We have been to NY a few times but would love to see Boston/Washington and not sure whether the Canadian portion should be from the West Coast. and then fly back from LAX .as I said all very much in the planning stages but any advice to kick us off would be great as I said we are flexible with departures but would like to see as much as possible. Thank you

 

[serfty]

For a start it's termed a"Qantas Frequent Flyer "oneworld Award". A "One World Explorer" is an airfare that cost sfrom $11,000 per PAX when departing from Australia.

Here's the actual rules:

14.5 Qantas & Partner Classic Awards - oneworld Award booking conditions

14.5.1 A oneworld Award is a Classic Award Itinerary that includes travel on at least two oneworld Alliance Airlines other than Qantas and does not include any travel on any airline that is not a oneworld Alliance Airline.

14.5.2 Classic Awards using the oneworld Classic Award table must be no more than a distance of 56,315 kilometres (35,000 miles). Longer journeys must be broken into separate Itineraries.

14.5.3 A one way oneworld Award Itinerary will be charged as a return Itinerary. oneworld Award Itineraries finishing in a port other than the port of origin must include the distance to return directly to the port of origin when calculating the number of Points required to redeem the Flight Award and the maximum distance for the Itinerary.

14.5.4 The following Stopover conditions apply:
(a) up to five free Stopovers are permitted;
(b) additional Stopovers are not permitted;
(c) only one Stopover is permitted in any one city in the Itinerary; and
(d) only two Transfers may be taken at any one city in the Itinerary.

14.5.5 Surface Segments are permitted as part of oneworld Award Itineraries, but the distance between the disembarkation point and the next embarkation point will be included in the Award Point zone calculation for that Itinerary.

14.5.6 Where mixed-class travel is booked, the whole Itinerary will be calculated using the Points level for the highest class booked.

 

[tuapekastar]

Morning...My husband and I will have enough QF points 600,000 to travel Bus Class using the One World Explorer but I really need your advice on getting the best value from this booking planned for 2010 - flexible with dates but pref April, May June for 3 months using long service leave. Can anyone advise or assist with an itinerary from Melbourne that should include if possible but not essential Beijing and Shanghai -then to Europe would really love to go to Paris and possibly travel around France and other European cities (are we allowed to fly using OWE or should we train/drive for this portion. Have prev been to Rome and Venice so more interested in seeing other areas of Italy and possibly Prague/Vienna/Croatia /Spain and from there to London and then UK to USA or Canada. We have been to NY a few times but would love to see Boston/Washington and not sure whether the Canadian portion should be from the West Coast. and then fly back from LAX .as I said all very much in the planning stages but any advice to kick us off would be great as I said we are flexible with departures but would like to see as much as possible. Thank you

Sounds like a good trip! With awards, availability may play a part in determining itinerary.

Just very quickly (just a first rough draft), plugged this into Mileage Monkey:

mel-hkg-pek-hkg-pvg-hkg-cdg-mad-lhr-yyz-jfk-bos-jfk-yvr-dfw-lax-mel

...which covered off a lot of what you want. There are of course city pairs that OW do not connect between (eg. iad-yyz) which can restrict you a bit.

You can certainly fly where you want in Europe (subject to the rules - 4 segemnts maximum - you can purchase etra, but trip total cannot be more than 16), but you would probably be able to get yourself somehwere (eg Paris) then train it to Italy, Czech etc., then back to Paris to resume the flights).

And of course, as it's an award flight, no consideration required whether to maximise miles/Status Credits.

I would hop into mileage monkey and start playing with the OWE validator, and go to www.oneworld.com and become familiar with the rules, and download their OWE planning tools...may take some mucking around to come up with whatever suits you, but can be fun doing it too...good luck!

 

[straitman]

Noreen,

The One World web site is also quite useful in planning and validating an itinerary.

oneworld - Plan and Book your Itinerary

 

[MelUser]

I would have thought availability will be a nightmare on QF flights!

Does anyone know what this would book into on 2 class AA aircraft - are you put into first "A" as per paid business or is one relegated to the back of the plane?

 

[Dave Noble]

I would have thought availability will be a nightmare on QF flights!

Does anyone know what this would book into on 2 class AA aircraft - are you put into first "A" as per paid business or is one relegated to the back of the plane?

If using a business award, then domestic US flights will book in Economy

One of the negatives of a QF award over an AA award

Dave

 

[medhead]

You should be able to train it a bit around europe. I'd certainly recommend training it within about 3 to 5 hours of train travel time. Benefits are getting to enjoy the scenery on the way and not getting out to airports.

I have done a Paris to Madrid train trip (with a stop over in Bordeaux). I might not do that again. It only required one change in train at the border and the spainish train (in first) was very good. But it was a long trip, arriving in madrid at about 10:30 pm. The last few hours are at night and no scenery can be seen. We left spain in the south from Barcelona and that had quiet limited options for train connections to france

Paris - Rome would be a good trip, but again long. I want to do that, but haven't yet. I have done Rome/Verona to Munich/Austria. Great trip through the Benner pass. Amazing scenery. There is one daytime train per day.

If you do trains in Europe the Night trains do sound good and the service is good. Yes, they do save money on a hotel. But a word of caution. The trip can take longer - they all seem to be timetabled to arrive between about 7am and 10am, the latest they leave is about 10pm. On night train Munich to Budapest we got to vienna by about 7 am ~9 hours to do a 6 hour daytime trip. We sat somewhere on the way for a long time in the middle of the night, no power as the carriage was not attached to a train.

There didn't seem to be any usable showers on night trains. So you check out from you hotel in the morning spend the rest of the day storing luggage and one last look at the town. Get on the night train, get into the new town at maybe 7 or 8 am and then have to wait until 10 or 11 am before getting into a hotel room and a shower. bearable but not enjoyable.

 

[borsa]

I would suggest looking at the routes flown by Malev, Iberia, Finnair and British Airways to see at which cities they interconnect in Europe, in order to provide an interesting itinerary. If two cities you want to visit are not on OW routes you can always include a surface sector.

As for returning via the USA I would try to avoid using American Airlines. The service was very sloppy on the flight I took last year (Zurich - Fort Worth/Dallas - Vancouver} and all the stewardesses looked like blonde versions of Joan Sutherland.

 

[JohnK]

mel-hkg-pek-hkg-pvg-hkg-cdg-mad-lhr-yyz-jfk-bos-jfk-yvr-dfw-lax-mel

...which covered off a lot of what you want. There are of course city pairs that OW do not connect between (eg. iad-yyz) which can restrict you a bit.

You can certainly fly where you want in Europe (subject to the rules - 4 segemnts maximum - you can purchase etra, but trip total cannot be more than 16), but you would probably be able to get yourself somehwere (eg Paris) then train it to Italy, Czech etc., then back to Paris to resume the flights).

And of course, as it's an award flight, no consideration required whether to maximise miles/Status Credits.

Don't forget that there is a limit of 5 stopovers and a maximum of 35,000 miles, which is OK for the suggested routing, on the QF Oneworld RTW Award but one of the HKG transits would have to be a stopover reducing the total stopovers for the award.