My husband gets a sabbatical every 7 years, which is an additional 8 weeks of paid vacation. He is eligible for the first one next year and we'd like to go somewhere really special. We love to travel and did so quite a bit before we had our daughter, now 16 months old. Trying to decide where to go and when is overwhelming. There are many factors including trying to have as few stop-overs as possible because we'll be with a toddler, finding a toddler-friendly destination, having enough miles, and the weather at the destination and our status at the time of the trip.

Here are some stats:

His miles: ~300K
His status: none for 2012, likely none or maybe SM for 2013
My miles: ~275K
My status: GM for 2012, likely none or SM for 2013

We have already been to India, Australia, Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands, most of Southern Europe, England and Ireland. We are interested in the Baltics and Russia, SE Asia, an African Safari, New Zealand, the middle east, and a cruise that goes around the southern tip of SA with a brief visit to Antarctica (but not with a toddler). So basically, we want to eventually go everywhere! We are very tall and would not fly overseas without being in business class, so that's a must.

We need to bring our DD with us. She turns 2 on July 30th, 2012. The benefit to going on the trip before July would obviously be that we don't have to pay for her ticket. However, the low mileage seats are likely already gone.

The benefits to waiting until after 2 are we have plenty of time to plan ahead, and we can go somewhere during the school year, which will not be an option for future sabbaticals. However, we don't really have enough miles to get 3 business class tickets to most far away destinations.

Finally, we could postpone the trip to 2013, but then my status will be lower or non-existent. I'm not sure if this matters.

Any thoughts?