After all the years of lurking in trip report section of various fora in the internet, the time for me to step up to the plate has come! Now, this report won't start with an elaborate introduction or pictures as I am lagging behind with my work (this around the world is part of my work trip). But let me get the trip report thread started off by brief background and the ticketing process, which can potentially help others organizing similar trips.

I started the new year with a rather extensive travel plan for work that would take me to India (four cities in three and half weeks), Peru (Lima), Swiss (Geneva), and Thailand (Bangkok) in about 70 days. Because the travel has to occur in consecutive manner, I thought this was a great opportunity to utilize an Around The World (ATW) ticket. I have initially set up a CRTWSTAR2 (ex. ICN) and sent in a travel approval form to my company and was approved at the price of 8,300,000 KRW, inclusive of taxes. But working on a CRTWSTAR2 to accommodate the cities in order listed above did require a lot of brainstorming... not to mention, brainstorming (really agonizing) for maximizing miles.

When I was about the purchase CRTWSTAR2, I came across several threads in the FT's oneworld section about DONE3s DONE4s, 'routing check please,' 'maximum mileage out of xONEx' etc. Having read several of these, I quickly realize what a great deal xONEx ATW ticket was and realized that it would accommodate me well with my travel plan. Careful studying of the rules, and asking on FT... as well as a very helpful "mileage monkey" tool allowed me to construct a valid itinerary DONE4 in a very short time. There were two goals in constructing the itinerary:

1) visit all four destinations for work in order
2) maximize mileage (as xONEx is a continent based)
3) visit at least two new places that I have not been to in between work destinations.

So, here's what I have constructed (initially Bangkok was planned immediately following India, but was shifted back after Geneva) and ticketed initially):

* ICN-NRT (less than 24hrs - visit my friend) - DEL
* DEL-NRT-BKK (what an odd way to travel to Bangkok from DEL )
* BKK-SYD (short stopover to claim my sixth continent traveled)
* SYD-EZE-LIM
* LIM-SCL (weekend get away)
* SCL-LIM-EZE-LHR-DXB (visit a friend)
* DXB-LHR-GVA
* GVA-HEL
* HEL-ICN

The mileage was around 49800 miles flown.

And here's my recently modified routing (after having flown first two segments ICN-NRT-DEL, plans for Bangkok changed):

* DEL-NRT-SYD (3 days stopover)
* SYD-EZE-LIM
* LIM-SCL-IPC (Easter Island, baby! )
* IPC-SCL (short stopover)
* SCL-MAD-GVA
* GVA-LHR-DXB (visit a friend)
* DXB-LHR (short stopover for acamdemic purpose)
* LHR-HKG (buy a separate ticket to BKK - approved by work)
* HKG-ICN

This new routing was around 50300 miles... was to take me to world's most remote airport (IPC), first time to Middle East and net me One World Emerald status with LANPASS (6 business class segments with 90,000 km logged, counting 25% class of service bonus).

The ticket was 7,300,000 KRW in total (plus 125 USD I have paid to change the routing post ticketing). Compared to what I had initially with CRTWSTAR2 at 8,300,000 KRW, this ticket saved me 1,000,000 KRW (approx. 700 US) and will take me to several places I would have not been able to go on CRTWSTAR2. One big reason for such big saving is due to the fact that I issued this ticket with American Airlines. AA doesn't collect partner airline fuel surcharges and with no AA segments, I was lucky to be able to ticket this with AA. Otherwise, the cost would have been just about the same as CRTWSTAR2 ticketed with AC.

Now, in this trip, I will be flying BA's new club world at least twice, IB's business class, LA's business class on all LA routes (booked 763 flights), and QF's new service to EZE... not to mention JL's shell flat seats. Six Oneworld carriers, more than 60% of flights in completely flat business class seats, more than 50K butt in the seat (BIS) miles... for 7,300,000 KRW (approximately 5600 USD) is a complete bargain. I didn't purposely start in ICN due to the currency devaluation (others on FT flocked to ICN to get great pricing for these premium fares due to currency devaluation) because I am based in Korea... but it's still a bargain for me as the company pays in USD and I get paid in Euros.

At any rate, immediately following this long trip, I planned for an official vacation and this time, I am going to take my parents to Australia and New Zealand. It's a good thing that I will get a brief taste of Sydney at the end of this month. United's recent devaluation of Mileage Plus (now Mileage NONE) program motivated me to not only switch to Oneworld, but also dump all my miles before January 1st 2009.

So, I quickly booked three C awards to Australia and New Zealand on OZ and NZ from ICN (75K miles each), and one New Zealnd to India award in F for myself (after I finish traveling with my parents) measly 80K miles. My UA mileage balance is now at 10K odd miles, with 7 SWU upgrades waiting to be disposed in the next 12 monts. Perhaps it's time to gift to friends and relatives.

In concluding this introductory post, let me summarize my routes and flights:

ICN-NRT-DEL-NRT-SYD-EZE-LIM-SCL-IPC-SCL-MAD-GVA-LHR-DXB-LHR-HKG-ICN-(SYD-AKL-[SYD-SIN-BOM-SIN-MEL-AKL]-PVG-ICN).

Airlines flown: BA, JL, CX, LA, IB, QF, (SQ, NZ, OZ), TG (separate ticket for work)
Classes flown: F and C only (of course I will be flying a few internal India flights for work in Y)
Segments flown: 28 semgents (including HKG-BKK-HKG)
Cities visited (NEW): Geneva, Madrid, London, (Easter Island), (Santiago de Chile), Lima, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Shanghai, (Sydney), (Auckland), (Bombay), (Kolkata - separate ticket), Singapore, (Hyderabad), New Delhi, Chennai, a total of 18 cities around the globe.
Total cost in tickets (approximate): 6800 USD (including domestic India tickets and HKG-BKK RT in Y and taxes on UA award tickets) + 155K UA miles.
Total miles flown: 80761 (http://gc.kls2.com/cgi-bin/gc?PATH=I...OR=&MAP-STYLE=)

Will keep you updated with my flights (hopefully I will have pictures)