I’ve never really paid very much attention to Multi-Partner redemptions - i always assumed they were ridiculously expensive but now having looked at their potential as RTW trips, they really do price out favourably.
Take this sample itinerary: LHR-DEL-HKG-NRT-LAX-JFK-LHR. The accumulated distance of this trip is just shy of 20,000 miles, so using a Multi-Partner redemption it is possible to travel around the globe in business class using a combination of BA, CX, JL, and AA for 200k Avios. Pretty amazing considering LHR-SIN and back is 210k Avios on peak dates using a standard redemption.
I recalculated this itinerary by constructing one way standard redemptions. As you can see the overall cost increases to 282,500 Avios.
I also tried to see if i could reduce the overall cost by breaking the itinerary into shorter jumps - as we know the cost of redemptions escalates beyond Band 4. The best I could manage was 279,500 Avios for a ten sector LHR-MUC-DOH-DEL-HKG-NRT-HNL-LAX-JFK-MAD-LHR and that includes an enforced economy sector between HNL and LAX. Still, its a little bit cheaper than the less circuitous routing above.
