Which brings me to the most enjoyable part of any trip: the planning. I was optimising for several factors, and in the words of Sherlock Holmes, it was quite the three pipe problem. I needed an itinerary that:

• met the oneworld Explorer rules, particularly the limits on the number of permitted flights and stopovers in each continent;
• earned over 80,000 Avios to qualify for Finnair Plus Platinum. Practically, this meant maximising flying on American Airlines, British Airways and Iberia, given their 250% distance multiplier for booking class D (versus 150% for most other oneworld airlines). I discounted the opportunity to swap Avios for tier points, which would be helpful if really trying to optimise £/TP but wasn’t necessary here;
• maximised the number of new countries visited, particularly those that are more expensive to reach on point-to-point tickets (the Maldives and the Caribbean, for instance). This was Mrs tomppa29’s key requirement;
• and was feasible within a normal amount of annual leave. 30 days in my case, with apologies to our American friends.

I took out a premium subscription to ExpertFlyer to enable me check pricing and flight availability. I looked at the usual starting points for oneworld Explorer tickets, and found the following pricing for a DONE3 three continent ticket:

• Islamabad, £3,556
• Tokyo, £3,891
• Oslo, £3,963
• Colombo, £4,685
• London, £5,471

(ExpertFlyer wouldn’t price ex-Cairo, and I included London solely for comparison). Islamabad was competitive but awkward to position to, given limited oneworld service and the visa requirement. I was extremely tempted by Tokyo and would love to start a RTW from there in the future, but the positioning costs outweighed the saving. Whatever remains, however improbable, etc., and so Oslo it was.

I then began constructing an ex-Oslo itinerary. With only two stopovers allowed in my continent of origin, we were effectively limited to one intra-Europe/Middle East trip (with a stopover at destination) plus London, followed by a second trip across the Atlantic and a third across the Pacific, before finally returning to Oslo.

The result is a three-part trip:

• Trip One: Position to Oslo, then fly to Bahrain via Doha for a few days; return direct to London with BA. This took advantage of the expansive definition of “Europe” within the fare rules to include a country we had not previously visited (Bahrain), and involves Qatar Airways which is always a pleasure - particularly when it includes an intra-Gulf leg that books into first class.
• Trip Two: Fly from London to Miami with BA, and then from Miami to Grenada and back, from Miami to Nassau in the Bahamas, and from Nassau to Washington DC with American Airlines. We then return from Washington DC to London on a separate booking. This trip brings in two new countries (Grenada and the Bahamas), and takes advantage of American Airlines’ comprehensive Caribbean network. We would ideally have flown direct from London to Grenada, but availability was limited as this trip will take place over Christmas. Might we come to regret an itinerary that involves us having to enter the US at least three times, twice through the famously slow Miami airport? Perhaps.
• Trip Three: Return to Washington DC to resume the RTW ticket, and fly to Dallas for an overnight stopover before flying onwards American Airlines to Seoul - a flight of a mere 14 hours. After a few days in Seoul we’ll continue on to the Maldives with Malaysia Airlines, via an overnight stopover in Kuala Lumpur. After five days, most of which I hope to spend looking at fish and forgetting the extravagant cost of a seaplane flight, we then fly with SriLankan to Singapore via Colombo. A last few days in our old stomping ground of Singapore, eating all of the food, and then back to Oslo via London with BA. Then a final return to London, and we will have qualified for Finnair Plus Platinum whilst ironically wanting to spend some time not inside an aircraft.