Thanks for both of these replies so far, though the dismissal by mwenenzi that apples and oranges cannot be compared seems not true. Of course, they can be compared, especially if - - as is true in my case - - I might not be that picky as to destinations.

I was crossing my fingers that you are still active in such matters, gardyloo - - and I wonder if I have my hopes up too much - - as far as taking a "re-positioning" trip as a "partial " RTW - - then waiting 6-9 months and then taking the remainder of the RTW (plus the return portion of the re-positioning travel destination back home).

I am not finding the savings to be that great, in part because the taxes seem to be MUCH higher in my first attempts to start from Jordan (OneWorld) or from Korea (Star Alliance) , compared to my first stab at a SkyTeam itinerary.

Here is some pertinent background:

I made an impulse Christmas purchase of ("simple") round trip tickets to Taiwan for my wife because she had mentioned that she would like to go there sometime. These were fairly expensive tickets ("full M" which are still not fully refundable). One reason for the impulse decision was that I was able to find seats for economy => biz upgrades at the rate of ("only") 25k Skymiles per passenger, each way (100k total for the two of us).

So, I stumbled across an ad for NatGeo RTW guided trips the other day which piqued my curiosity until I saw the price tag(s) - - $65 to 75k dollars per person. Now this is a true NON-comparable type of trip versus the do-it-yourself RTW. NatGeo flies a private jet and has experts as docents to some destinations that are hardly part of any ordinary itinerary.

But it made me curious: how much would it cost to fly all the way around instead of heading back across the Pacific after our visit to Taiwan? It WILL cost us $350 per passenger to cancel our Taiwan trip (purchase price was about $4600 and 50k Skymiles per passenger) - - but the least expensive tier for Skyteam RTW is "only" $9600 in business class.

It got me to try to piece together an itinerary. SkyTeam is reported to be "coming up" in the word of RTW flying, having been a distant third to OW and SA, in part due to its alliance with China Airlines, Vietnam Airlines and a few others.

Still, I am not impressed - - partly because I actually AM somewhat picky about Asia destinations. My wife and I have not traveled across the Pacific (Tokyo, KL and Australia) but we are NOT really interested in much or any of the following:

not really interested in (returning to) Japan
barely interested in Korea
not very interested in Bangkok
not very interested in South Pacific/Oceania, though maybe NZ (but it is SO far away from Asia)

We are still interested in Taiwan and we would like to go from there to Hong Kong. But how to get further west from there? SkyTeam is particularly weak on South Asia and even the Middle East (which is considered "Europe" for the nost part).

I would choose from any two (or three?) of these, but connecting the dots is not easy:

Delhi, Mumbai, Colombo, Abu Dhabi or Amman

As yu can see, we are hardly trying to do ANY north-south zigging and zagging, so keeping our mileage total under control is no sweat.

I would consider one or two "Europe" destinations, with Athens and Amsterdam at the top of the list, but maybe Moscow or Casablanca.

But I am probably more interested in keeping as much as this on NON-STOP flights as possible, even to the point of sacrificing destinations or adding in some cities that are "good hubs".

My first crack at a Skyteam itinerary looks like this:

SDF (Louisville, our home airport) => MSP => SEA => HKG
HKG => TPE (Taipei)
TPE => DEL (Delhi)
DEL => SVO (23 hr stopover. Moscow) => IST (Istanbul)
IST => FCO (Rome) => CAS (Casablanca)
CAS => CDG (Paris) => ATL => SDF

I let this itinerary expire (they allow 72 hrs), and to my surprise, the e-mail they sent me does not put the taxes in writing, but I recall that they were under $300 per passenger.

Reading about the lower cost of trying to start in another country, I tried origination from Amman on OneWorld and from Seoul on Star Alliance. While the base fare dropped down to about $7200 (per passenger) in both cases, the taxes were right about $1000 per passenger. Thus a savings of "only" about $1800 per passenger. Not really enough to pay for the re-positioning trip - - but more importantly, I don't want to go to Jordan TWICE and I barely have any interest in going to Korea ONCE, let alone twice.

So, I may try some of the "lesser" alliances, but at this point, I am chagrined that this is relatively more difficult than I expected - - even without trying to find the savings strategy of originating in another country.

Any other suggestions? Even if not actual itinerary or alliance proposals, then website planning tools, would still be greatly appreciated.

I will say that I found the OneWorld planner easy to go back and try umpteen different A=> B => C => D => E => F possibilities. By constrast, the Skyteam RTW planner can't even find SDF => TPE at all - - it seems like it should be so easy: China Airlines has one nonstop LAX => TPE seven days a week, and a second nonstop flight six days a week. Putting LAX in as a city was a solution with limited usefulness - - it did result in retrievel of the CI nonstop choices, LAX => TPE, but the planner lists only ONE routing for SDF (via MSP at 07:00) to LAX. There are actually oodles of other routings.

I am not giving up yet!

I will contact you pm, Indelaware.

Best,

Rex (once upon a time almost a daily contributor on Fodors.com Europe forum)