I have a proposed convoluted route to get me to Kuala Lumpur for a conference in the middle of August this year and I was wondering if the collective wisdom here on FT could give me any suggestions or changes/improvements or things that I may have missed:

A) 13/08 - LHR-KBP BA882. Dep: 08:20, Arr: 13:35. Economy: 10TPs
--- 10 hr layover ---
B) 13/08 - KBP-DOH QR298. Dep 23:40, Arr 05:05(+1). Business: 140TPs
--- 21 hr layover - take advantage of Qatar Plus offer of a hotel to visit friends in Doha ---
C) 15/08 - DOH-CAN QR874. Dep 02:05, Arr: 15:30. Business: 140TPs
--- 23 hr layover - spend the night in Guangzhou on 24 hour free transit visa ---
D) 16/08 - CAN-KUL MH377. Dep 14:35, Arr 18:40. Economy: 5TPs
--- 1 week of conference and 1 week of visiting family in SIN & KCH (fly using Avios?) ---
E) 02/09 - SIN-KUL-CAN MH602 MH376. Dep 06:40, layover 1hr 20min, Arr 13:15. Economy: 5+5=10TPs
--- 12 hr layover (not sure what to do with this!) ---
F) 03/09 - CAN-DOH-KBP QR875 QR295. Dep 01:35, layover 1hr 40min, Arr 12:20. Business: 140+140=280TPs
--- 1hr 45min layover ---
G) 03/09 - KPB-LHR BA883. Dep 14:25 Arr 16:05. Economy 10TPs

This consists of three tickets:

Ticket 1: Flights A & G - £170 (economy plus)
Ticket 2: Flights B, C & F - £1230 (to be booked by company TA -- hope can still do Qatar Plus deal with that, from reading on the Qatar forum, it seems that I can)
Ticket 3: Flights D & E - £228 (found on ITA, forcing not to price in Q bucket (=0TPs))

Total cost: £1628, Total TPs: 595, £/TP: 2.74.
[Although with Ticket 2 booked by my company, in theory, I am getting a £/TP of 0.67 on my own money.]

This is going to be the first proper TP optimised routing that I have ever done, and I am looking to get the most out of it, and hope that I can!

Thanks in advance for any comments!

As a MAN based flyer myself I have found that maximising TP's Eastbound usually means flying on MAN-DOH-XXX on QR. Not only convenient but a great experience with multiple ex MAN departures. There is a suggestion that a QR sale is about to happen on or around 17 January (far from certain) so it might be worth holding off if you can to see if something comes along.

Apart from the general craziness of the route to KUL - but I guess (hope) you're not in a hurry - the last connection seems dodgy ... I guess you'll have luggage for the length of the journey and while Kiev is a fairly efficient airport a 1h45 ( or even 2h5 per the actual times you've written ) isn't really going to be comfortable to arrive ( immigration can be a bit slow ) do the baggage drop ( 60 min cut off?, I've only ever done Hand Baggage from Kiev ) .. even a short delay from Doha and you're stuck .. consider either booking the Air Ukraine ( they're okay ) to Gatwick in the evening instead or doing an open jaw on the Qatar Airways ticket coming back to somewhere with better connection options on the return.

Thank you for that, I underestimated that connection on purpose as I realised it was rather tight and wasn't sure of the best thing to do here. I had completely ignored the option of an open jaw (not sure why) but I have just realised that I can actually fly back on the following instead:

E) 02/09 - SIN-DOH-ARN QR947 QR169. Dep 21:20, layover 1hr 55min, Arr 07:15. Business: 140+140=280TPs
--- 6hr layover (option for earlier flight at 11:25am too) ---
F) 03/09 - ARN-LHR BA775. Dep 13:20 Arr 13:10. Economy 5TPs

This brings the totals to:

Ticket 1: Flights A & F - £150 (multi-city ticket)
Ticket 2: Flights B, C & E - £1315 (to be booked by company TA -- hope can still do Qatar Plus deal with that, from reading on the Qatar forum, it seems that I can)
Ticket 3: Flight D - £150 (found on ITA, forcing not to price in Q bucket (=0TPs))

Total cost: £1615, Total TPs: 580, £/TP: 2.78.
[Although £1250 of Ticket 2 booked by my company, in theory, I am getting a £/TP of 0.63 on my own money.]

This new routing also gives me the QSuites on SIN-DOH, which was one thing that I had hoped to get from this trip.

This is my last major trip as a PhD Student before I graduate and become an employee and am much more limited in my holiday allowances, so I am happy to spread the trip out and make it as crazy as possible!

For the past few years it seems to have been extended, and if it isn't, I have friends with whom I can stop to have a rest with anyway. It is also not a "proper" overnight stop, arriving early morning I could rest in the (arrivals) lounge for a bit and freshen up before heading into Doha and then as the outbound is at 2:05, could get back to HIA not too late and relax in the departure lounge (is this possible?).

I had the same issue, it kept putting the return leg of LAX-JFK into economy. So I am not overly concerned with being on the transcon on the way back so I routed via Boston. Get to fly back on the 787 too which is a nice compromise.

Huge thanks to KARFA for setting up the thread! Looking forward to seeing what TP runs people get up to and become available this year.

That's a lovely little TP run! I think I'm going to try and do something similar - although probably with only 1 AUH - CMB - CGK run. However at the moment the positioning flights are coming up in the several thousands for me!

How did you manage to get the position flight in W so cheap? I'm only looking on GF rather than through ITA - would that potentially have something to do with it? (Assume the 2 runs AUH - CGK are 2 separate nested tickets? Easy to B2B there)?

Damnit! You are right, it does push it into Business!! Never mind.

Just adding my own belated thanks to KARFA and the other contributors who make this such a great thread. I wish I was better organised to take advantage of some of the amazing offers I read about here. And Happy New Year to all. Cheers. Fritz

Could this sort of itinerary be booked online? BA multi city tool only allows 6 legs - sorry if this is a stupid Q!