the first one was definitely the very best do ever!
it would be great to avoid the kind of situation that participants excitedly talked about the coin deal with a WSJ journalist who made money and fame from the report and killed the deal.

Since Scott never mentioned the coin deal in his article or video or audio report (click on the links I provided earlier in this thread), I doubt he can be blamed for killing the coin deal. The deal itself was set to implode for many other reasons as was mentioned in that thread & many others. Scott did an excellent job in his coverage of the trip, unlike what CNN appears to be doing.

And actually asking FTers to shut up a) is irrelevant to the purpose of the thread which is planning; b) more importantly, is so not going to happen. Have you ever heard of FTers being quiet? I'm just sayin...

Edited to add: I googled & Scott did write about the coin deal in his 12/7 column, long after it was shut down. And in the article he quotes the mint people saying they noticed an uptick in Aug & Sept & started investigating at that point & contacting credit card co's & individuals, long before the MegaDo happened. And in the same article he talks about the Hyatt promos & the length that folk will go to get them, so not specific on any one topic. As with all things FT, sometimes you get a good deal & can take advantage of it for a while & sometimes it gets shut down (mileage runs, anyone?). It happens. Be glad you were able to participate while you could, but don't blame the after the fact messenger.

Cheers.

Something like SEA-ORD-GRU-EWR-BOM-NRT-SEA?

Maybe with the last leg on the first NH 787?

Would be 28524 miles in total.

Some kind of circle pacific route ?

AKL - Customs / Ports
SYD - Qantas
SIN - SQ
NRT - Narita Airport / Boeing Dreamliner parts plant
US - Boeing Field + the plane graveyard



Wishful thinking from me.

Just a remark, after reading this thread and the RTW proposal involved.

Critics have mentionned time money and time concerns. I think they missed a key element. Some FTers, and given the threads w/r/t FTW flights, I guess it's a not insignificant number, wouldn't consider such a long itinerary in coach. There would be people torn between not attending and submitting themselve to the harrowing experience called Y, because J cabin would sell much quicker.

I actually read that article waiting in the RCC heading home from LAX. While I had seen the thread title many times when FT opened up on my browser, never looked at the thread itself.

As Tommy has noted in his very cogent initial assessment, we are not visiting cities so what's the point of wasting time at airports/airlines with little to offer? These are all minor newbies to STAR and we have much better prospects to work with among the majors. I thought the whole point of a MegaDo was to provide a unique "backstage" tour of airline ops. If you really want to see Istanbul and Cairo, book a STAR award ticket and go see these cities. (At some point I would like to visit both cities, but on this event we would be visiting CAI and IST, not Cairo and Istanbul!) My preference is to see more behind the scenes of major STAR carriers and meet the men and women who design the product that makes each carrier unique. And since we've done Europe and some of us the US, I'd say Asia is the region we should be directing our attentions to next.

I vote for Fiji as well (but it might be a bit too far to go!).

Only did the charter part i Y, but found the value for money to be good good. Are definately up for a second Megado. For me, a week (or up to 9 days Fri-Sun) sounds like a good idea

I was on the move when this thread started (I know, no excuse as FTer ) and am only just joining the discussion. Some of the comments I'd like to make have already been made but here goes:

- How was the value for the money paid in 2009
I've added up exactly what I spent on flights and hotel stays for SMD1 but mercifully I can't find the spreadsheet . Starting in Europe I did the Full Monty from the pizza get-together in ORD to the slumber party in Seeheim, and thought the TATL portion was a very good value (one-way BD award in C to ORD, LH405 in C back to FRA). Like some other respondents I found the C fare for the charter wasn't such a good value compared with the Y fare bearing in mind that (apart from empty middle-seats) the difference was supposed to be in catering. My lunch might have consisted of a few slices of tomato and cucumber without the gallant effort by Oliver and Dirk, and I missed out on champagne and malt because drinks carts never reached where I was sitting.

Don't get me wrong. I wouldn't have missed the DO for anything and I enjoyed sitting right up front where the action was. Having Mods as FAs was fun but probably not practical and the galley was not made for ambitious catering.

For those of us who joined the DO at ORD, there was an awful lot of hanging around when we got to EWR. The tour of CO operations was a less interesting repeat of the UA operations tour earlier in the day. I would have preferred a tour of the kitchen facility but we did not have any choice.

- How many days can you be away to participate in a DO
I was away for 8 days in all for SMD1 including a few days in ORD before the DO. I can manage a similar number of days though it depends when the DO takes place. Earlier in the year it might be more difficult, later in the year it will be easier. 4-5 days with 1-2 day at either end for travel to/from the start would be fine.

- How much money will you be willing to spend
Depends on the itinerary but a similar amount as SMD1 which for me was in the region of $3,000-3,500. I hope there will be a discounted fare to get to/from the starting point for those who are based on the other side of the world.

I prefer to limit the number of US airports we go through as much as possible in the current situation and quite like Kiwi Flyer's idea of a Mini Circle Pacific starting and ending in SEA perhaps?

Ohhh ... the plane graveyard in Arizona. Nice one! +1 on that for sure!

The full show is now up on the web site referenced in post 2. It has not actually aired on CNN International due to a pre-emption brought about by the Haitian earthquake and its ongoing coverage.

Guys, it's nice to see that the second * Mega DO is in works. Whatever the final outcome is, maybe we should think about constraining how many countries we would visit, because some of us would need to get a visa for each of those. This is just a thought...

BEG2IAH

+2

How was the value for the money paid in 2009
Taking into account flying, money-can't-buy-experiences, food, drink, more drink, EQMs and finding a whole bunch of new friends - yes, I'd say it was good VFM, (Flew C).
How many days can you be away to participate in a DO
Six full days total, four working days. Even with ridiculously generous European vacation allowances, taking more than 4 days out for self-indulgent flying (are you hearing my family here?) is probably pushing the limit.
How much money will you be willing to spend
Around �1,000 / �1,000 (well, they're about the same at the moment). But I'd probably want C-style experience for that. Any connecting flights to/from a start point I'd probably burn miles on.

I think GoldCircle had some very relevant things to say a few threads back.....

I think SMD1 left people wanting more. I was genuinely disappointed to have to head home on Saturday morning. Realistically though, if I'd ploughed on through Saturday, I'd have been exhausted to the point of not having much fun any more, and come back Sunday feeling grumpy, not elated.

I guess some of us will party hard on a DO, and some us have a hard limit on our hard partying (mine's about 4 days). Some of us won't go so hard, and will have more stamina. Getting the balance right seems important.

On the specifics:
* Would love to do Asia if there's enough things there to see.
* Airplane graveyard - now *that's* a money-can't-buy opportunity. Did KiwiFlyer suggest that? I salute you, sir.
* Enough ground time to mingle, socialise. I was very lucky on the charter to be sat next to some great people - I can imagine other people had other experiences.
* Miles are important to me. If I'm going to lay out �1,000 on flying, I'm potentially missing out on 26k EQMs I could be putting in one of the programmes.

Very best of luck putting it together, and I hope you get a better interest->booking rate than last time, where it looked like it was getting a bit scary at one point.