Originally Posted by mpp

Here are my tips on booking a trip:

The rules are as they are posted here and elsewhere and they are very strict:

-One direction of travel (backtracking is allowed with connections only but distance is not a factor; they allowed HAN-CDG-DEL as a connection)
-6 maximum stopovers with no more than 3 on any one continent
-16 maximum segments, and overland segments count toward that total
-Any layover more than 24 hours is considered a stopover. This is the same for domestic and international stops.
-Overland segments must be in the same direction of travel of the overall trip
-Longitude of the airport is used to determine east/west direction between stopovers
-No maximum on total distance (unlike a RTW revenue ticket although these are more flexible in many ways)
-Just like other award travel, PM and DM get unlimited changes up until 72 hours before departure. I do not know what happens if I need to make changes after I depart.


In summer, the most difficult legs to find availability are the transatlantic and transpacific legs. So, I first found those and that determined the direction of my trip (I'm leaving from New York and traveling west with my first stop NRT). Then I filled in the middle stopovers.

In terms of finding availability, it definitely depends on what agent you get. If an agent seems like they just don't care, hang up and try again. There are some great ones and they appreciate the "Job Well Done" certs. For some agents I just don't understand what they are doing. At one point I could clearly see low availability for GRU-DTW on Delta.com, but the agent insisted it did not exist. I had to hang up and call back to get someone else and of course they saw it right away. Perhaps they were looking at the wrong month or year or something.

Hold times for the RTW desk can vary considerably from instantly picking up to waiting for 45 minutes or more on hold to get an agent. Weekends seem to be better than weekdays. The direct number on the first page of this thread does not get you to the RTW desk anymore but rather to customer service in SLC. They can patch you over to RTW but it's really no faster that calling the standard Skymiles numbers.

The RTW desk is open 7am-8pm eastern time for award travel (and till 11pm eastern time for revenue travel). The good news is that once you have the agent they will stay on the phone until you are satisfied. I once got one at 3 minutes til 8pm and she helped me for 3+ hours.

I could not find a single agent that could book any travel on AZ even when it showed availability on EF, so I just had to give up. This was for FCO-GIG or FCO-GRU.

Flyingblue will show you lots of "Classic" availability on KQ that just does not exist to Delta. Delta says those flights have been "cancelled" on their system. This was for BKK-NBO and CDG-NBO. This is also the case for CZ as it exists in EF but the agents can't seem to see it. I gave up.

My current itinerary stands at:

JFK-NRT-ICN(DL)-HAN(VN)
HAN-CDG(VN)-TNR(AF)
TNR-NBO(KQ)
NBO-AMS(KQ)-VCE(KL)
VCE-CDG-CMN(AF)
CMN-CDG-GRU(AF)
GRU-DTW-ATL-JFK(DL)

All in business class. 280,000 miles plus $599 in taxes.

That's 41,000 miles with one stop in Asia and South America, and three stops in Africa.

It's only 15 segments and 16 are allowed. I can get it down to 13 segment by going NRT-HAN direct in coach, and DTW-JFK direct in coach but for me part of the fun is the travel.

Leaving it short a few segments will also give me the flexibility to add in some overland segments (eg., GIG-GRU, VCE-FCO, etc.) if availability opens up. One thing to note is that overland segments must also be in the direction of travel (since I'm going on a westerly RTW trip, I cannot have FCO-VCE, or GRU-GIG as overland segments).

I appreciate any comments or suggestions on improving this trip.