Originally Posted by
Viajero
Edited to add: on second thoughts, I think that is not going to work as an All Partner Award; but, it brings the question of the choice of award, meaning that, if all else fails, maybe you should consider a oneworld award. There is the hassle of the second airline, but that can be worked out, and the cost in miles should be the same, maybe even 10K less.
Calamity!
So, I took your advice, and began looking into a OneWorld Award, which actually seemed to work very well (JFK-GRU (JL)//SCL-LIM (LA)-JFK (LP)). But then a very, very big problem occurred to me and the agent--with an award ticket, as distinct from a $$ ticket, all travel must be completed within one year of the date of issue. Presumably this rule applies regardless of whether it’s a OW award or an All-Partners Award. Here, our RTW trip would commence Jan. 2009, and would finish in Oct. 2009. Assuming I purchase both the DONE5 and the mileage ticket to/from South America today, there would be no problem with respect to the DONE5. But for the mileage ticket, I think I wouldn’t be able to extend my return date any time past April 17, 2009 (i.e., one year from today), at which time I would be half-way across the world and in the middle of my DONE ticket. Given that, I cannot see a way to use a mileage ticket to get me to and from South America, unless I’m willing to wait until Nov. 2008 to ticket, which may be a bit of a challenge from the standpoint of finding award availability for Jan. 2009. Any solution? Thanks.