Originally Posted by
headinclouds
Welcome to FT. I would suggest starting from the UK instead of MRU since LONEx fares are usually the cheapest country. Not worth the hassle factor to begin from MRU (unless you want to go there) for an economy class ticket.
LHR-DOH,CAI-MAD-(x)SCL-IPC-SCL-AKL-SYD-CNS-NRT-HKG-PEK,DEL-HKG-JNB-VFA-JNB is only 15 FLIGHT segments giving you 5 more to use. Perhaps in Asia or Africa.
Thank you! I'm glad to be here. There's so much useful information here. I hope to contribute what I can. Your itenerary sounds like a good option. I didn't even notice how close the UK's basic prices are to MRU for economy. Wow. It appears that January through March is BASIC season for the UK which would work out great for me. Am I right? Can someone point me to this "star file" that I've read about (but can't seem to find) that says what the peak and basic seasons are for each country?
Out of curiousity, has anyone ever done the Asian surface segments I described in my first post? Did you enjoy it?
Lastly: New Zealand, Australia, and Sri Lanka all seem to be cheap starting points according to WearyBizTraveler's spreadsheet but no one seems to talk about them anymore. Have the currency exchange rates changed such that neither of these are good choices anymore?