US Airways Dividend Miles - Best use of 200k US Miles? RTW, seperate bookings?

Hey guys,

I have 200k US miles in my account right now, and was planning on booking a RTW fare with it. However I made the mistake of thinking for the last few months while researching that I could book 10 segments and 10 stopovers (doh), then realized I would only be able to include 5 stopovers. Now I'm kicking myself in the head for transferring hotel points to US instead of UA considering there are no One Way bookings on US.


I was initially trying to go to these destinations:
-Peru
-Patagonia (EZE as I have paid $140 Visa)
-South Africa
-Egypt
-Germany (buying Europass)
-Iceland
-Kathmandu
-Some stop in either North or South Asia
-New Zealand & Australia with a sidetrip to Pohnpei and Hawaii on the way home.

I also have 80k in my AA account, and 75k in my UA account, with soon to be 100k AMEX MR points. I planned on using these for side trips for some of the destinations above.

Am I better off dumping the 200k into a RTW award, or booking individual R/T tickets with US miles and returning to the states for short breaks while trying to take advantage of Off Peak Award dates through US/AA?

Any and all help is appreciated with experiences for itineraries that you've booked for any of the destinations above including stopovers and open jaws, and I have done quite a bit of searching.


Here is the rules I was able to have a US agent email to me:

"Star Round the World Award

-DM Round The World bookings allow our Dividend Miles member to use miles to travel on all DM partner carriers for a specialized itinerary which follow all award redemption requirements with some additional conditions.

-DM Blackout dates apply.
-Maximum stay - 331 days.

-Stopovers must be confirmed and ticketed prior to origination.
-Open segments not permitted
-Awards are not valid with code share flights.

Chart
Booking Code X Miles Required 200,000 Stopovers MAX 5.
Coach

I
Business
300,000
Max 5

O
First
400,000
Max 5

Routing rules are:
· Must be valid routings from board to destination/stopover point
· All travel must be in one geographical direction
· No backtracking from a IATA Area to another
· Surface sectors permitted unlimited provided all other itineraries/stopover/routing rules are applied.
· Side trips must be a separate award PNR and ticket
· The award Origin and Final Destination must be in the same country
Stopover rules are:
· Minimum 3 stopovers - can be anywhere
· Maximum 5 stopovers - can be anywhere
· No more than 2 stopovers in any one award region
The following itineraries are permitted:
· 1 Pacific crossing
· 1 Atlantic crossing
· Open surface sectors permitted - unlimited
· Maximum 10 segments"

I'm curious about your info because http://www.staralliance.com/en/fares/round-world-fare/round-the-world-fare-tc/ says that only the 200k/special economy award is limited to 5 stopovers and the others should be 15?

But the other option is to make some of your destinations 24 hr stopovers if routing allows because they don't count towards the total.

If you can make off-peak dates work, you may be able to knock out a chunk of your wish list with multiple RTs instead of doing the RTW ticket.

I believe you can route via Europe on an award ticket to Asia, so you could visit Germany as well as North Asia for 60K US miles. (This would have to be a partner award as US doesn't seem to fly to Asia.) South Asia (which includes Nepal) would be 80K, and again you could likely stopover in Europe.

The US off-peak awards to South America or Europe cost the same (35K) whether coming from the continental U.S. or from Hawaii. So if you can get yourself to Hawaii (either with miles from another program or buying a one-way ticket), you could then fly from Hawaii to South America, then on the way back "stop over" in your home city (or another US city) and throw away the final segment from the continental U.S. back to Hawaii. This would not allow you to visit either Peru or EZE, though, as you'd have to fly US and their only South American destinations are in Brazil. (Idea: transfer some of your Amex points to BA Avios and redeem them for short-haul LAN flights within South America.) Note also that technically throwaway ticketing is against the airlines' rules, so use care.

US may allow you to route to South Africa via Egypt (70K partner award).

So if you did the above you could do:
1) USA>Europe (stopover)>Asia>USA (60K for N. Asia, 80K for S. Asia)
2) then get yourself to Hawaii
3) then Hawaii>Brazil>USA (throw away final segment back to Hawaii) (35K for off-peak US award)
4) then USA>Egypt (stopover)>S. Africa>USA (if agent allows routing) (70K for partner award)

This would allow you to visit more than 5 places for fewer than 200K miles (185K if you go to South Asia, 165K if you go to North Asia).

Australia/NZ is going to be tougher, but you have enough AA miles for a RT from US to there. You could do that as a separate trip. Not sure if they'd allow a Hawaii stopover, but if so you could do that instead of fooling with the throwaway ticket and having to get yourself there.

Hey guys,

I was initially trying to go to these destinations:
-Peru
-Patagonia (EZE as I have paid $140 Visa)
-South Africa
-Egypt
-Germany (buying Europass)
-Iceland
-Kathmandu
-Some stop in either North or South Asia
-New Zealand & Australia with a sidetrip to Pohnpei and Hawaii on the way home.

I also have 80k in my AA account, and 75k in my UA account, with soon to be 100k AMEX MR points. I planned on using these for side trips for some of the destinations above.

Am I better off dumping the 200k into a RTW award, or booking individual R/T tickets with US miles and returning to the states for short breaks while trying to take advantage of Off Peak Award dates through US/AA?


I think you can use two US round trip awards, plus one other. Since it looks like you'll take coach, availability should be decent. Just some thoughts:
* You can book USA-Europe-South Africa fairly easily for 70K. Using Lufthansa would get you USA-Germany-South Africa. You might be able to book Egyptair through Cairo, JFK-CAI-JNB.
* US Air lets you route to Australia/New Zealand through Asia for 80K. Does SQ (Singapore) have coach availability? Or Thai through BKK? Take the stopover in SIN or BKK and you can arrange something to Kathmandu. On the US Air chart, SIN-KTM is 25K round trip in coach or 30K in business. Also, I'd fly from Singapore to Pohnpei. SIN-PNI is 30K coach, 50K business on United. You can get a lot of good Business Class flying for that 50K.
* Getting to South America is cheaper not on US. The AA award from Hawaii to South America is fairly cheap off-peak. You might be able to use the stopover and timing rules to get Hawaii - USA (stopover) - EZE one way for 20K. EZE-LIM is 10K Avios (transferred from Amex). Then AA from LIM back to the US is 17.5K. If you can't go Hawaii to South America, you could take Hawaii-USA-Europe for sure.

So I used 175K of your US, 37.5K AA, 30K - 50K UA, and 10K Amex. You still need some intra-Europe tripping, but you've got plenty for that.