Hello!
I'm trying to better understand the excursionist perk with relation to a RTW trip I am planning and am hoping I might be able to get some ideas! I've heard of it before but am only now getting into the detailed research on it.
Generally, I'll have an itinerary that goes like this:
SIN->HNL->Europe->USA (wedding)->N. Africa->S. Africa->N. S. America->Central/South S. America
In terms of a bit more detail, it's like this:- SIN->HNL
- HNL->Europe
- Europe->Europe (travel within Europe for 2-3 months using a variety of buses/trains/flights)
- Europe->SAN (USA)
- SAN->SFO
- SFO->RAK
- RAK->CAI
- CAI->JNB
- JNB->CPT
- CPT->LIM
- Travel in Central/Southern S. America for 2-3 months
- GRU->SIN
- SIN->Japan for 1-2 months
- Japan->SIN
Within the above, I can identify a couple areas where I might be able to take advantage of the excursionist perk with some modifications to my itinerary:- Europe->SAN->SFO->Return to Europe instead of RAK and I get the SAN->SFO flight free
Integrate my Europe and N. Africa portions so that I can do Europe->RAK->CAI->Europe Someone rightfully pointed out that I incorrectly tried to bundle RAK and CAI together when they're in two separate zones. Argh- I could get 1 award ticket with SIN->Japan (start of trip, as part of item 1), and then Japan->SIN (item 14), and then choose anywhere between to add a free 1-way flight. For this option, though, I would end up having to spend about 27.5k United miles to get from Japan->HNL as part of my item 1 which might just end up canceling out the cost of whatever 1-way ticket I can get for free (or even negatively outweighing it considering there won't be as many 27.5k 1-way trip tickets I can get?)
If anyone has any ideas on ways to modify the above trip to better optimize the excursionist perk, I'd greatly appreciate it! I'll have about 8-9 months for the above, so I have some flexibility to make some changes. Thank you in advance!
Miles-wise, I have:- UR: 96k
- United: 78k
- Asiana: 50k
- Delta: 80k
- AA: 75k