Yukonprince

I am just about ready to book another three weeks or so RTW in F for mid September after my great RTW trip in May last year. Luckily I am retired and have lots of flexibility with dates. I have found availability for one F award seat in the past to be pretty good especially mid week.

I am flying from Fredericton and would like my two stopovers to be London and Amsterdam - about a week each - and my final destination is Bangkok for a week or so.

Last year I flew F on Lufthansa and Asiana - both great. I would not mind trying Singapore (if possible - I hear F awards are not the easiest to get) and maybe Swiss as well for Airlines - but open to hear other suggestions (Thai?) and possible itineraries/routings as well.

Any preference on going east to west or west to east? My Europe stopovers can be before or after Bangkok.

Thanks!

Golden Toque

I would definitely try to get an F award on LX on the A333... not sure where it is flying now, as I haven't been tracking it, but the JFK to ZRH flight was a little short, if you can find something longer I would definitely try for that!

Hard and soft products were both great!

And it goes without saying... any F flights out of FRA on LH make the visit to the FCT a must.

Also ex-BKK on TG gives you a spa treatment in the lounge before departure!

d.

ChrisA330

Turkish has F on some of their leased 77W which come from Jet Airways. Apparently it's a great product. I don't know however what routes they are flying these aircraft on.

Merlin666

I was inspired by your RTW posting and did one myself last month (LX, LH, SQ, UA). The LX ORD-ZRH was definitely the best of the flights I had on that trip, with most comfortable bed, and highy personalized service on the ground as well as in the air - they were truly trying to make me feel like a VIP at any time. I was VERY disappointed by SQ on the SIN-PEK segment: the seat was uncomfortable, AVOD pathetic, food worse than AC J, and poor service although I was the only one in the F cabin. I think only SQ suites may provide that legendary experience, and they are not available on reward. I am keeping my fingers crossed that I can keep up my level of collecting miles so I can do the next RTW in about 2 years, wanting to try OZ and TG.

cloudcuckooland

I'm definitely wanting to do somthing similar to the OP's reward, and would like to include the Turkish YYZ-IST F flight in there. Anyone know how this flight is?

Golden Toque

The plane is nice... the suites very spacious... but unless you really want to go to IST... I wouldn't do it!

The Caviar is good, but all other food was marginal.

But worst of all... the service! It was horrible. I'd stick to LH instead of TK... Although there seats aren't anything special... the food and service is much better!

ChrisA330

The YYZ-IST nonstop does not have F service. Only the 77W offer F AFAIK. The YYZ route is operated with the A332.

pilotboy1985YYC

Hi There!
I recently booked a RTW F starting in Halifax and stopping in Rome, Singapore and Bangkok plus a 24hr stop in New York City to catch a broadway show.

I would suggest connecting through Montreal and using LH F service from YUL-MUC. then you can connect from MUC-LHR or AMS.
Also Swiss is meant to start flying the new A330 into Montreal sometime in September but nothing has been loaded yet and no offical date has been given.

I would NOT suggest going from LHR-BKK on Thai because they keep switching their 747's from the new seats to the old seats a lot. I read on their board that someone who flew LHR-BKK 5 times had the old 747 swapped out 3 times.

When it's time to go to BKK I would suggest flying to ZRH and then going ZRH-BKK on Thai first class. It's on their newer A340-600.
When I planned my trip I could not get any F on SQ so I doubt that will happen. I did manage to grab a J seat on SQ.
For my route I had no problem finding lots of F available. I'll post my route below incase it helps.

YHZ-YUL AC J
YUL-MUC LH F -> It appears there is ton of F available any day of the week
MUC-FCO LH J -> Stop for almost a week

FCO-FRA LH J
FRA-SIN LH F -> Again, lot's of availability in F. Seems easy to grab. Stop in SIN for about a week

SIN-BKK SQ J -> Getting SQ J was difficult on this route, but lots of TG J available. No F offered on this short flight. Stop in BKK for about 4 days.

BKK-ZRH TG F -> This route seemed pretty easy to get F on.
ZRH-JFK LX F -> This wasn't an easy route to get F. Stop in JFK overnight

LGA-YYZ AC J
YYZ-YHZ AC J


The routes I picked was easy to get F, and as I check now there is lots of availability on these routes in September as well.

cam_macleod

I love these threads, because my husband and I will be booking a 140k RTW soon ourselves, and I love the benefit of everyone else's experiences!

Just to piggyback on Yukonprince's question... we're looking at HKG, AKL, and KRK (in any order) - any dos or don'ts that anyone can share?

Thanks in advance as always!

Merlin666

Not sure if this question may be worth a separate thread: does it matter if we travel eastbound or westbound on RTW?

I traveled East on my RTW and ended up on several overnite flights in F:

ORD-ZRH (LX)
FRA-SIN (LH)
SIN-PEK (SQ)
NRT-HNL (UA)
HNL-DEN (UA)

I had the impression that being on the overnites gave me good opportunity to compare seat comfort for sleeping, and provided a collection of pajamas, but I am not sure if it allowed a full sampling of the foods offered. So - what are the pros and cons for eastward vs. westward RTWs?

Shareholder

I'd try to get Turkish LHR-IST in F but not sure if they fly F to BKK or any other Asian stop. TG while not a great inflight product -- I did their new F and found it more like an enhanced C seat than a true F, but it is the same F seat you will find as the "old" LX, which I also did on my trip last month -- the F lounge facilities at BKK are quite nice: private room, food/drink brought to you, massage option, ego-laden golf cart ride from security/passport control through the regular C lounge over to the F lounge. ANA is supposed to be opening a new F lounge at NRT, if you plan to return over the Pacific and drop AMS.

Jgish

I haven't flown it, but there are multiple quotes in the TK forum that this is highly variable. People have had phenomenal experiences, but equal number of horrific ones.

cloudcuckooland

Thanks for the heads-up. From what Golden Toque wrote above as well, maybe TK is not such a hot proposition after all. I would love to visit Istanbul one day, but perhaps LH is the way to go TATL, probably doing the YYZ-FRA leg. Just reading this thread is giving me the travel bug --and I do not even have enough miles for both of us yet!

Yukonprince

Although the LH FCT is pretty nice - especially the food and limo ride - I found the ANA F lounge in ICN pretty good too. It had a men's toilet with about 20 or so (it seemed) buttons around it. Remembering early childhood jokes I was afraid to touch any of them. There is a picture of it in my RTW trip report.

If anyone has not seen my trip report and would like to see it just pm me your email address and I'll forward it on to you.

Yukonprince

Thanks, great suggestions. I forgot about the F on LH out of YUL.

I too may consider changing London for Singapore.