Levent

Hello all,

I just joined this forum and hope you can help me with the following.

My partner and I are planning to make a RTW trip next February, in business class. From the research I did till now, I believe the Star Alliance is the better option.

Our planned routing is Bangkok - Tokyo - Seattle - overland to Las Vegas - St Louis (via Denver) - St Maarten (via Charlotte) - New York (via Washington) - Istanbul (via Frankfurt) - Dubai or Mumbai - Bangkok.

The mileage of this trip would be about 24,000.

My main question about this itinerary is as follows: does the flight from Las Vegas to St Louis, via Denver with United Airlines, count as one segment or two? The same question for STL-SXM and SXM-NYC. I read on the oneworld forum about segments and sectors and 24 hour stopover rules - does Star Alliance have similar rules?

Oneworld (i.e. American Airlines) have better options for the Las Vegas to St Louis and St Louis to St Maarten flights, but overall I like the options and airlines with the Star Alliance more. Another question: is it known when Turkish Airlines will join the Star Alliance?

Thanks in advace for your help!

RWY02KTM

Welcome to FT Levent,

Your travel seems to me like this

BKK-NRT-SEA-LAS-DEN-STL-CLT-SXM-IAD-NYC-FRA-IST-DXB-BKK

Trying to answer your main question - the LAS-DEN-STL segment will be counted as two segments. If you are concerned about stopover limits, a stop less then 24 hours will be counted as transit and not count towards your stopovers, but it'll still be 2 segments.

About TK joining *A, it can take long, I don't think it'll be before february. Others can answer that clearly. But from IST, there is a SQ flight to DXB, from where you can connect to TG to BKK.

also, even STAR1 allows upto 29000, so you can do a bit of routing around to get those extra miles by going IST-FRA-BKK if you want. :-)

henry999

The OP said that they wanted business class, which is not available on the StarLite.

cheers,

Henry

RWY02KTM

Yep, realized that after I posted. probably need to use the preview button more often.

thanks

wideman

If you want to increase the comfort of your long-haul trips, you would almost certainly want to use NH or SQ rather than UA or AC for the trans-Pacific portion. UA has the only NRT-SEA non-stop, but NH and SQ have flights from NRT to SFO and LAX, respectively, where you can catch UA flights to SEA.

Levent

Thanks for your help.

The airlines we'd use in my original itinerary would be:
BKK-NRT Singapore Airlines
NRT-SEA United Airlines
SEA-LAS overland (this counts as one segment, right?)
LAS-DEN-STL United Airlines
STL-CLT-SXM US Airways
SXM-IAD-NYC United Airlines
NYC-FRA Singapore Airlines
FRA-IST Lufthansa
IST-DXB-BKK or IST-DXB-SIN-BKK with SQ and TG

Yes, we will probably take NH instead of UA for the trans-pacific flight, and connect in LAX. I don't mind an extra flight and comfort on such a long flight is very important.

About the domestic travel in the USA: how many segments are allowed? So if I understand correctly, LAS-DEN-STL, STL-CLT-SXM and SXM-IAD-NYC would count as 6 segments, even if we don't make a stopover in the connecting locations?

St Maarten is a MUST on this trip. I am a fanatic aviation enthusiast so I must visit this spotters' heaven while I'm in that area.

Well, maybe we'll have to do more overland than flying in the US then...

Kiwi Flyer

Welcome to Flyer Talk Levent

I think you may be getting confused between OW RTW and *A RTWs.

The *A RTWs are all distance based. You can fly as much or as little as you like in a continent (subject to meeting rules on number of transfers, total number of flights for the whole itinerary, not exceeding total mileage cap, etc). Surface segments count in the distance but not in your count of flights. They are treated as a stopover at each end however.

OW Global RTW is also distance based.

OW Explorer RTW is continent based and has a restriction of maximum 6 north america flights (including no more than one trans-continental as defined in the rules).

Levent

Thanks for the explanation. You're right, I was mixing the two up. I never planned a RTW before! That's great news, as this means that my original itinerary should be no problem.
So for example flying from LAX to SEA, then overland from Seattle to Las Vegas and flying from LAS to DEN would be two flights, 1 stopover and mileage for three segments, correct?

In this case I'll just have to keep an eye on the max amount of 5 stopovers in the USA. One last question: is the above routing CLT-SXM-IAD-NYC ok? I mean, can we make this side-step to the Caribbean as part of the package?

Thanks again and happy flying!

Keith009

You have 29 000 miles - iso BKK-NRT, do BKK-SIN-NRT to get the spacebeds? [provided you don't have more than 24 sectors of course]

You just can't do a transatlantic or transpacific crossing more than once, nor can you cross between Europe and Asia/Africa more than once. So the 'sidestep' to the Carribean should be allowed. At least that's my reading of it. Feel free to correct me if I've got it all wrong.

wideman

Not quite. When you travel overland (usually called a surface sector), that counts as 2 stopovers -- 1 in each of the two cities that you travel between.

When you stay more than 24 hours in a city, that is considered a stopover. The *A RTW limits you to 5 stopovers in the U.S. From your initial itinerary, you appear to have only 4 stopovers in the US (Seattle, Las Vegas, St Louis, New York), so you're OK. However, you do have several connecting cities -- just be sure not to stay more than 24 hours in more than 1 of them.


Hoping that it's ok to correct you if you've got it just partially wrong: You can go back and forth between Europe and Africa as many times as you like, as they are both in the same area. (Same also applies to those parts of the Middle East that are considered by IATA to be part of the European area and not the Asia/So Pacific area.)

Levent

Thanks for the tip. Obviously there's a lot of fine-tuning to be done. But there is plenty of time for that, so any tips are appreciated!

Yep, plenty of miles so I'm now looking to add some flights. Maybe Washington-Toronto-New York, and something within Europe.

Some more questions...
1) In the rules it says 'round trips not permitted'. Does this mean a return flight, such as SFO-LAX-SFO?
2) I can't find anything specific about the direction of travel. I know you can't cross the same ocean twice, but what about doing the IST-DXB-SIN flight with SQ, then flying SIN-BOM with SQ and BOM-BKK with TG? Is that ok? (providing we have miles left, of course).

Can't wait to go!

grayland

I am wondering why Levent has opted to do the SEA-LAS portion overland? It is a long drive..and unless there is something in particular that you would want to see...it is much easier to fly between these points.

Levent

Well, I heard that the Pacific coastline has some beautiful scenery, and I love driving. We also want to visit the Mojave plane storage en route to Las Vegas.

I've never been to the US west coast so I want to see some more on the ground, despite that I love flying...

henry999

Not quite.

> SURFACE SECTORS

> The last point of arrival and the first point of departure
> together count as one stopover.

cheers,

Henry

Keith009

1) Not sure what 'round trips' mean but I assume that it has something to do with end-on-end constructions which are not allowed. SFO-LAX-SFO done on the RTW is perfectly legit.
2) You are allowed as many transfers as you like in the entire RTW, but up to a maximum of 3 per city. So you'd now have used up 1 transfer at SIN (IST-SIN-BOM), and assuming you also intend to do BKK-SIN-NRT you'd only have used up 2 SIN transfers. You can do 1 more SIN transfer if you want to. Someone might want to clarify whether stopovers are included in this limitation.

I hope you realise that SQ uses regional seats on the IST-SIN run. If you don't mind detouring for some comfort and have enough miles left, you can do IST LH FRA SQ SIN if you want to get the spacebeds. FRA-BKK on TG should also have the lie flat seats.