I wonder if you good people on the Oneworld board could help me. I have a non-FTer friend who is only BAEC blue and wants to move up the ranks. I said I would help by asking a question here so he can watch and learn before he joins FT!

Since I told him about RTWs etc he has been hassling me for information

He has a budget of 4-5K UKP for a RTW which would purely be for leisure and so he doesn't have any obligatory destinations. He would do it over a month or so.

He needs the 4-5K UKP to include taxes and charges to the ticket and he's happy to use his large pot of VS Flying Club miles to get him anywhere he needs to be to start the itinerary.

I haven't done a RTW for a while now (not since the end of the 20 segment days) and also am not on top of the current best place to start etc... although it looks like South Africa?

He would like to maximise BA miles and TPs out of it and if possible, travel in F.

So my questions are:

Can he do an F(A)-class itinerary, or would a J(D)-class one yield more points / miles on that budget?

I have read about using AA to ticket to keep taxes and charges down, but is this possible ex-the cheaper start locations?

MANY THANKS!
HL