This thread looked like it might come the closest to what I need without starting a new thread so I'll post here and hopefully I'll get lucky with some good responses


so here is what I want to do:

I want to do a One World Explorer award for three people preferably in Business (yeah yeah I know it will be hard to do). I realize that this is a difficult task. I'm not even sure where I want to go other than get close to maximizing the 16 segments as possible while hitting Asia, South Pacific, Europe and maybe South America if I can squeeze it in a mileage threshold.

these would not be one trip, It would be 3 or four trips departing from the states over the course of a year. (order not a big deal and all RT) I.e., N/A to Asia and the south pacific, N/A - Europe, N/A - S/A.

I'm flexible where I go so that should help.

so here is my question:

I want to use some sort of application that will help me find these fare buckets, one that will hopefully send me alerts to when the buckets open, and give me the biggest possible routing to choose from.. for example lets say LAX - SYD

I'd like LAX - SYD but also for it to look, LAX-NRT-SYD, LAX-HKG-SYD, LAX-KUL-SYD ETC..

I've never used a booking tool like this and have no idea where to start. I was surprised to see so many options on the first page.

Of course I'm willing to pay for this but for some like award nexus, it appears you pay by the search which I really don't want to have to do.

I'm doing this now although my plan isn't to book anything till the spring. I want to subscribe to something now to play with it, getting the learning curve out of the way so that when the time comes I'm familiar with the booking tool

one last thing, I'm willing to reposition domestically and purchase short haul Y flights internationally to make this work.

second last thing, after reading some of the prior pages, I'm looking for a site such as KVS, EF, Awardnexus to help me do my own legwork and want assistance in picking the best site for this type of award; I'm not looking for someone else to do this for me.

thanks for your ideas