Star Alliance - Advice on *Alliance RTW F or C Award Ticket

Am thinking about using my United miles for a *Alliance RTW F or C ticket and need some advice on getting started.

Am very flexible on West-East or East-West and when to travel. Thinking about next September.

Would like to fly to cities where United does not fly, both to maximize locations that I don't get to visit on United metal and figure if I am using an award ticket and not getting United miles, I should fly non-United planes.

Also want to focus more on top-level airlines/flights, such as SQ 380.

Any opinions on whether booking in F or C is the better value per miles used?

Any specific flights to recommend? I will be starting from IAD, I assume.

Once I get some initial idea of my itin, any further thoughs on fleshing it out? Call 1k desk, or are there better resources?

Any idea on how much I will have to pay for taxes and other charges? I know "it depends" but is there a rough estimate. $250? $1000? $100 per segment?

Any thoughts greatly appreciated.

Also want to focus more on top-level airlines/flights, such as SQ 380.
Don't count on getting any award seats in the 380. SQ simply does not make them available to anyone.

I am not too familiar with the UA program but i found the RTW on other programs not attractive.
If you combine one round trip US-Asia via the pacific and one Asia-US via Europe you spend only a few extra miles but end up with two RTWs.

Yes, I have also posted about this several times. The RTW reward is not worth it.

If you get one USA-Europe round trip reward, one Europe-Asia round trip reward,
and one Asia-USA round trip reward, you effectively have 2 round-the world trips
( one in each direction) for only about 10% more miles than the actual RTW reward.

Yes, I have also posted about this several times. The RTW reward is not worth it.

If you get one USA-Europe round trip reward, one Europe-Asia round trip reward,
and one Asia-USA round trip reward, you effectively have 2 round-the world trips
( one in each direction) for only about 10% more miles than the actual RTW reward.

I agree with this in that I would rather redeem, for example, one US-to-Asia award in F and one US-to-Europe award in C or F for about half of the miles of a RTW for two trips that could come close to RTW each.

However, of course, one only gets two stops (the destination plus a stop-over, or two points of the open jaw) with each award, so even with this scenario described by IluvSQ, you can visit a maximum of six cities, and will find it hard to divert to other regions.

So the only way that a RTW would be truly worthwhile is if you intended to make the maximum number of segments/stops and visit several different regions (e.g., Asia, Australia, Middle East, Europe, South America). Then it would be hard to get to a similar number of places using fewer miles on normal round-trip redemptions.

You guys all beat me to it since I fell asleep yesterday. Awful value on award RTWs, wonderful value on revenue RTWs. Go figure.

I think you only get 5 stops or something ridiculous like that. Just combine awards, or trade your miles with people in programs which allow one way awards.

Yes, I have also posted about this several times. The RTW reward is not worth it.

If you get one USA-Europe round trip reward, one Europe-Asia round trip reward,
and one Asia-USA round trip reward, you effectively have 2 round-the world trips
( one in each direction) for only about 10% more miles than the actual RTW reward.

Doing it this way also effectively gives you more stopovers, but I can't figure out how it would get more than one additional unless additional awards were added for short hops. The award RTW offered by UA only allows 4; with this option, you can do something like the following:

USA - Eur1 / Eur1 - Eur2 / Eur2 - USA
Eur2 - Asia1 / Asia1 - Asia2 / Asia2 - Eur2
Asia1 - Asia3 / Asia3 - USA / USA - Asia1

This gives you 5 distinct points of stopover, assuming you travel continuously. It also gives you flexibility if you book in F, for example, you can save miles be only getting a C award if one of the intercontinental legs only offers C.

Can someone clarify how you'd get 6, unless you're counting repeated cities as additional stopovers?

Personally, I think the RTW awards are bad values just because the 4 cities you could potentially visit on a RTW award represent nothing additional over 2 separate awards in either direction from your starting point, with an enroute stopover in each.

I agree with this in that I would rather redeem, for example, one US-to-Asia award in F and one US-to-Europe award in C or F for about half of the miles of a RTW for two trips that could come close to RTW each.

However, of course, one only gets two stops (the destination plus a stop-over, or two points of the open jaw) with each award, so even with this scenario described by IluvSQ, you can visit a maximum of six cities, and will find it hard to divert to other regions.

So the only way that a RTW would be truly worthwhile is if you intended to make the maximum number of segments/stops and visit several different regions (e.g., Asia, Australia, Middle East, Europe, South America). Then it would be hard to get to a similar number of places using fewer miles on normal round-trip redemptions.

No, the RTW reward is maximum of 5 stops, I believe. So it is even worse
than the 3 round trips I referred to.

No, the RTW reward is maximum of 5 stops, I believe. So it is even worse
than the 3 round trips I referred to.

Wow, thanks for the information. I had assumed that it would be the same as the revenue conditions.

This absolutely makes getting a RTW award a bad idea. Is there any beneft? E.g., might some segments (like SQ, OZ, or TG trans-Pac) that are difficult to redeem on a UA award be more likely to be available on a RTW award?? Is it more flexible to change once you have commenced travel?? Not that these would make it worthwhile, but I am just curious.

No, there is no benefit at all to the Frequent Flyer to this reward.
It is only out there so the airlines can redeem a few more miles than they
would otherwise from people who do not know better.

I've done it this Summer. Burning a lot of UA miles for the whole family. The trick of using two separate awards was not really working for my route because I wanted to visit multiple regions: Europe - Africa - Asia - Australia + Canada

Anyway:
- plan in advance with ANA tool (be ready to be flexible on dates & routes as usual)
- our plan was to fly 4 people in C but we ended in 2 C + 2 Y (not enough award C seats)
- our plan was SQ on 747 which was later morphed into A380 w/o problem (but as others said: no way to get a A380 award now)
- 5 stops and about 10 flights (none of them on UA)

Have fun

-éric