Originally Posted by
pandaperth
Welcome to FT
TakeTwo
What do
you mean by "most bang for my buck"?
Knowing this will help us advise you better
London:
- usually entails flying BA and paying its extortionate fuel surcharges
- usually entails paying the extortionate British APD (Air Passenger Duty)
but both can be avoided - don't fly BA; fly from London to somewhere nearby (low APD) or just transit London (<24hrs = no APD)
Skipping Asia
- saves you a continent - if you do want to go to SWP (Australia and NZ)
- but you could fly JNB-HKG...Nth America, skipping SWP
- and this would allow you to break the RTW into two
- first part JNB-stops in Asia-Tokyo
- second part Tokyo-Nth America-Sth America-Europe-Africa
I presume you're ending in DKR to avoid flying BA on the last segment, but you'll need to weigh the positioning costs against the BA fuel surcharge
- is Japan-J'burg return cheaper than Japan-J'burg + Dakar-Japan
I suggest ...SCL-IPC-LIM instead of SCL-LIM - more miles and you get to see Easter Island
Thank you all for the replies.
By bang for the buck I guess I mean flying business class without paying an arm and a leg, and hitting as many places as I can. I'll be doing numerous side trips, the main ones being Rio, California, Turkey, and the rest of Scandinavia/Europe - but most of those are short/cheap flights away from stops on the RTW, or I might just drive.
Having lived in Japan for a long time for work I've already seen Asia many times over, so other than starting here and coming back at the end (maybe), skipping Asia is actually preferable - I'd rather spend my time on the rest of the world, most of which I haven't yet seen. I had mentioned skipping Asia because in my earlier attempts at the online tool I'd not yet figured out what order to do the continents and how to avoid it (e.g. the JNB-SYD direct flight). Figuring that out saved me the 1 continent.
I'm not sure why, but ending in Dakar saves about $400 a head compared to Joburg. And that's without a stopover in LHR, just transit. I plan on discarding the last segment anyway, so it doesn't really matter where it ends - only goal there is to reduce cost. Of all the African cities with direct flights, Dakar seems to be the cheapest to end in. Tokyo-JNB + Anywhere in EU - Tokyo (each one-way) is roughly the same as Tokyo-JNB roundtrip.
I will check out the Easter Island option
Thanks!