Commie

I finally made my bookings, not quite a mini-rtw, but the spirit is there.
Here is what I just booked for 2:

Yyz-syd ac j (stop 3 weeks)
Syd -icn Asiana j (stop 2 days)
Icn-hkg Thai J ( stop 5 days)
Hkg-Yvr ac j
Yvr-yyz ac j

My departure is in dec 2017 and return Jan 2018.
Right now the surcharge is a bit high, about 500 a person.

I'll Keep an eye on if Air China rewards reappear on Aeroplan and I'll change it out from the Asiana air to reduce the surcharge a bit.
I want to lock in the syd flights now.

hearna

Your flying AC YYZ-SYD and HKG-YYZ (because thats how the yq will be calculated) as well as SYD-ICN on a YQ carrier... 500 is not that bad... im assuming all fees in your at 700? The Asiana portion will be fairly small... maybe 100$? A change fee will goble it all up!

Commie

All fee's in, it came to $580 a person including the 35 dollars aeroplan fee for calling in to book this. I think the majority of the surcharge are with Asiana and Thai, since I am SE with AC. When I was playing around with different routings, going through PEK with CA instead ICN, the surcharge was only around $350 a person.

I guess relatively the 580 fees ain't too bad, considering how far I am flying, and if I had to pay for the tickets, it would be well over 10K for this.

WKnight

Neither is my booking, posted just above yours....but I agree, it's in the spirit.

Change fees are now $100 per direction (inbound / outbound), so if you're monitoring for Air China space the difference in taxes/fees (plus better convenience) will need to be weighed against this. Good luck and thanks for sharing. Looks great!

IamI

Forgot to update an old one. Managed to get 4J direct from SIN to IST so we avoided the hop to KUL, then decided to skip the chaos in IST last summer and just did a quick visit to the lounge so the kids could play slot cars. Also avoided an overnight stay in NYC and US customs and the others got their first upper deck in a 744 (got the last 4 seats 2 days before the flight).
Unfortunately a 4 hour layover in IST was too short to use the showers ... at least there's no wait at the MLL in FRA.

YOW-EWR UA ERJ 4Y - 7 1/2 hour layover
EWR-CDG UA 764 4J STOP
CDG-BKK TG 380 4J - 12 hours to enjoy BKK and get a free massage
BKK-RGN TG 330 4J STOP
RGN-SIN SQ 333 4J - 18 hour overnight layover - Turn around for 1 PAX
SIN-DPS SQ 333 3Y - Turn around for 3 PAX
DPS-SIN SQ 333 3J
SIN-IST TK 333 4J
IST-FRA TK 333 4J
FRA-YYZ LH 4J 744
YYZ-YOWAC 4Y 763

BTW, apologies but I only just got the database with all the mini-RTWs up and running again after accidentally trashing in months ago.

briantoronto

All in J except the last hop on AC.

YYZ-TPE BR
TPE-BKK TG (stop)
BKK-MEL TG (turn)
MEL-SIN SQ
SIN-IST TK
IST-AMS TK (stop)
AMS-ZRH LX
ZRH-YUL LX
YUL-YTZ AC Y

$542 ($298 of which is scam) + $30 booking fee. 160K points. I am OK with that given I only overnights down to MEL available and I don't want the slope-y SQ ticket.

Funny thing was the agent had this booked for two people, and I only needed one ticket!

Oh, and they picked up on the first ring (955am ET 26 July)

Commie

Decisions Decisions...
Just checked and some Air China flights showed up on AP site.
Now I can switch to this:
YYZ-SYD AC J
SYD-PEK CA Y
PEK-HKG CA J
HKG-ICN Asiana J
ICN-YYZ AC J

Pro's of the new route:
- the dates and timing of going through PEK fits better for my plans
- get to fly AC's 789 direct fro ICN home to YYZ, don't have to connect through HK
- a savings in surcharge/taxes of about $200 per ticket

Con's:
- the SYD-PEK is in Y
- Change fee's of $100/ticket per direction? does that mean $200 person? This would eat all the savings in surcharge
- miss out on the A380 on Asiana

Tough choice, what should I do?

drvannostren

I'm not sure what you have currently but...

I had a very similar situation recently and it's a tough choice. If you're only gonna save $200 then burn it immediately, right there I probably wouldn't do it.

SYD-PEK is 11:00 according to flighttimecalculator. You're paying the full freight for J, for a flight that long, I'm not taking Y. Any chance you can find SYD-BKK-PEK or something in J?

I got myself on OZ 380 J. I thought it more important to get 380 than 350. Seems to me the 350s will be well represented going forward, whereas the 380s will be dying out. I don't fly EK (though I'd like to try them at some point) and Star Alliance doesn't have many 380s when you remove LH due to the YQ and SQ not giving out long haul J/F space. So I took it now with OZ ICN-LAX.

Up to you ultimately, but it seems like what you have now might be better.

Commie

I am currently on:
Yyz-syd ac j (stop 3 weeks)
Syd -icn Asiana j (stop 2 days)
Icn-hkg Thai J ( stop 5 days)
Hkg-Yvr ac j
Yvr-yyz ac j

and have the chance to switch to:
YYZ-SYD AC J (Stop)
SYD-PEK CA Y
PEK-HKG CA J (Stop)
HKG-ICN Asiana J (Stop)
ICN-YYZ AC J

The problem is I am trying to book this for travel for outbound the 2nd week of December, and return the 2nd week of January of 2018. So during the prime Xmas/NY holidays. The outbound direct from YYZ-SYD was no issue was able to get plenty of AC J options. The return was tough, only way with J was through ICN or HKG.
Thinking further, I think I'll stick with what I have...No sense in giving up a J flight for a Y that is over 10 hours in duration.

echino

Vancouver - Moscow - Seychelles - Taipei - Vancouver

YVR-YYZ AC 5J
23 hours connection day+night

YYZ-IAD UA 5Y
10 hours connection day

IAD-BRU UA 5J
BRU-DME SN 5J

Stopover, 3 passengers stop here, 2 passengers are continuing

VKO-IST TK 2J
IST-SEZ TK 2J

Destination

SEZ-IST TK 2J
22 hours connection
IST-TPE TK 2J

Stopover

TPE-YVR BR 2J

3 x (57,500 + CAD$168.86)
2 x (150,000 + CAD$271.86)

+CAD $31.50 phone booking fee per person.

And I like this part when I log in:
Aug 04, 2017 Congratulations. You have redeemed 150,000 miles
Hello echino, you have 0 Aeroplan Miles

1Newflyer

Interesting way to celebrate an empty account. You must have been really mad before the trip was booked when you saw 150000 points in the account. I was considering giving you an additional ~ 150 000 points but to eliminate your possible frustrations, I won't bother.

Chuvash

For those needing a creative way to fly from SYD to NA, I recently booked in P

SYD-BKK-HND-ICN-FRA-LHR-YYT 16.3K miles right bellow MPM+25
110K miles + ~C$ 400

Also works if you're flying to Europe and wanna save 20K miles and dump the last segment

SFO_Canuck

- Built specifically around our desire to spend time/see people in RGN, CMB, and BOM
- Aeroplan agent originally thought I was “trying to do too much”, but it validated and ticketed (she was so nice)
- Trying to get away with lower fees, but I think AI pushed them up
- The AI segments I’m not looking forward to, but at least they’re short
- Travel starts 28 DEC 2017
- My first stab at this; pretty pleased with balance of carriers/service levels/low fees!

JFK-PEK CA 744 J (Upper deck!)
PEK-SIN CA 789 J
SIN-RGN SQ 333 J (6 days)
RGN-BKK TG 330 J (10 hours; drinks & dinner)
BKK-CMB TG 330 J (8 days)
CMB-MAA AI 321 J
MAA-BOM AI 319 J (4 days)
BOM-IST TK 333 J
IST-JFK TK 333 J

155,000 AP + (C$180.90 + C$34.00 booking fee) C$214.90 total (x 2 pax)

28DEC17NYC CA X/BJS CA X/SIN SQ RGN R0.00TG X/BKK TG CMB
R0.00AI X/MAA AI BOM R0.00TK X/IST TK NYC R0.00CAD0.00 END
ROE1.00 XT8.20C72.80SG2.80OO5.00IN6.90YC7.30TR16.60YM4.70W O
0.60G862.40LK4.90XA8.70XY16.70CN7.00AY25.00MM1.30E 7

ntle

Booked our first mini RTW trip but not truly RTW for Dec and Jan, lots of thanks to all the contributors for the inspiration. We wanted to hit as many cities as possible. 220k + C$778 in fees pp

YVR-SFO UA 2Y - 22 hr layover
SFO-LAX UA 2Y
LAX-ICN OZ 2F - STOP
ICN-HKG AI 2J - 21 hr layover
HKG-BKK TG 2F - 15 hr layover
BKK-PER TG 2J - POT
PER-SIN SQ 2J - 22 hr layover
SIN-SGN SQ 2J - STOP
SGN-NRT NH 2J - 11 hr layover
NRT-LAX NH 2F
LAX-YVR AC 2J

sunwin

I have a question relating to a trip I am planning to Australia for someone. They will have enough (Amex) points to book a return flight from YYZ to Melbourne with a possible SO in japan in either bus/first class by early next year.

Question is if Aeroplan will be a better choice to transfer and redeem those or another carrier like United mileage plus or pehaps avios etc.?

MOD please delete if this does not belong here. Thanks!