mcjava

5 days ago has the most surrealistic conversation of my life.

I live in China, just across the border from Hong Kong.

I had a trip planned HKG-FRA-HKG, then found out I had to be in Texas first. I called PS&S to see about an RTW award ticket instead of original RT HKG-FRA.

After plugging in my SM's number, etc, got the awards desk. RTW? "Oh, we have a special line for that".

Got a quite friendly lady on the phone, and told her I was thinking to book a RTW award ticket. Told her HKG-Texas - FRA - HKG.

She says "oh, that's not around the world". She starting talking about degrees of longitude, going east/east, then west/west. I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

I asked her: "Asia to US to Europe to Asia, what about this is not RTW? I'm not even zigzagging to S. America or Australasia?". She was adamant about the longitude things, so I asked her "if I flew HKG-Europe-US-HKG would that be valid?" She said "Yes, of course". I said "so, Delta has a Round the World CounterClockwise award available, but not a Round the World Clockwise award?" She said "yeah, something like that".

Admittedly, I was calling at 1 am China time, after a few glasses of wine, I might have not been enunciating perfetly, but I was just flabbergasted. I almost asked her how many more glasses of wine she had had than me!

She finally agreed to just see if the "system will accept it", and if it did, then it would be 180K for economy (or maybe it was Business? I just tried to check at dl.com to see what the mileage is, but there is no such chart published) (so much for award charts being available at dl.com ). Of course, HKG to US was not available. By that time, I was already thinking to call AA where I had 147K orphaned miles, so I just hung up, and called AA, where I got HKG-DFW on CX J/AA F, DFW-FRA AA economy, FRA-HKG CX First class for 145K AA miles (3 one way awards, J Asia-US, Y US-Europe, F Europe-Asia). I just took the HKG-LAX segment in CX J, and will finish off in CX F class later next week. As much as I have loved DL over the last 4-5 years (and been accused by many here as a "koolaid drinker" which is a phrase I despise and think should be banned from FT), my experience trying to redeem Skymiles lately is just depressing. After my economy flight Texas-FRA next week I guess I will have to decide to go with Oneworld again (but so many CX fare classes don't get Aadvantage miles) or *A using my recent instantaneous match to CO Plat from DL PM.

pbarnette

Is it perhaps a # of stops issue? Was looking at some revenue RTW's (on *A) for the wife, who needed to go EU-ASIA-US-EU, and found that there was a minimum of 3 stopovers required. So, HKG-IAH-FRA-HKG, for example, wouldn't have qualified.

sbagdon

What's the full suggest routing. I'm not aware of any nonstops HKG-AUS.

Easiest way I've found to describe it is "cross two oceans and it's RTW".

My example is DTW-NRT-DTW is acceptable, yet DTW-CDG-NRT-DTW is RTW.

I'd argue that HKG-FRA-ATL-AUS-ATL-FRA-HKG (you cross the Atlantic twice) is acceptable, while HKG-DTW-AUS-DTW-FRA-HKG is RTW (you cross both the Pacific and the Atlantic).

I've never done a "real" RTW (stop, layovers, push the miles, etc), my only experience has been routing. So for me, it's all about the routing.

pbarnette

That ain't what the fare rules were saying. With the purchased fare I was looking at, you couldn't do CPH-FRA-SIN (stop)-NRT-EWR (stop)-CPH, without building in an additional 24+ hour stop somewhere. But, again, I don't know the rules on a DL RTW award, just hypothesizing.

mcjava

I had not even started to discuss number of stops before she told me Asia-US-Europe-Asia is not "RTW".

I guess for my itinerary, there could have been a lot of stops (transit stops, not layovers) using DL/NW/KE/KLM/AF, but that had not even come into the equation when she told me I wasn't going RTW.

I'm in Dallas now, even called AA to change my LAX-DFW flight to one day earlier (all with no sweat or fees), and actually had an incredible meal in FC on LAX-DFW on AA. 3 course meal including a cheese cake sundae.

Supersonic Swinger

Whoever you spoke to at DL was on something, "RTW" products have to have a minimum of three stops, on all the alliances.

The benefit of AAdvantage is that their OW awards are mileage based, not "RTW", and they allow one-way awards as it sounds like you've discovered.

Whatever reasons one might have to fly Delta, earning and then redeeming frequent flyer points should not be one of them otherwise you will be sorely disappointed.

pbarnette

I think you may have misquoted me? First, I was discussing what I found when trying to find a *A RTW ticket, not one from DL - I've never spoken to anyone at DL about a RTW itinerary. Second, I was saying that the ticket did, indeed, require a minimum of 3 stops, which I believe is what you are saying, too. I was merely speculating that, perhaps, a similar requirement was causing problems with the OP's itinerary.

Supersonic Swinger

I was agreeing with you. I was saying the person the OP spoke to on the phone at DL had no idea. A RTW in each alliance involves at least 3 stops (http://www.skyteam.com/about/product...dtheworld.html, http://www.oneworld.com/ow/air-trave...lobal-explorer, http://www.staralliance.com/en/fares...world-fare-tc/), the whole clockwise/latitude whatever the DL rep was going on about meant either they didn't know about the 3 stopover minimum, or were incapable of articulating it.

pbarnette

Got you. But it is all moot, as I think the OP got a great deal with the OW option they took.

Supersonic Swinger

Agree. While AA as a whole isn't anything exceptional, I'm becoming more convinced that AAdvantage is "best in class".

pbarnette

I've always believed that to be the case, at least for US-based EXPs. Unfortunately, I can't count on hitting 100k every year, and the partner earning situation makes it a tough program for my needs.

Sabai

That's because the New Global Airline hasn't a bloody clue as to what it's doing with (or more accurately to) the shiny new toy that they have purchased.

I have flown BKK-USA-AMS-BKK and CGK-USA-AMS-CGK on NW/KL more than a couple of times on RTW tickets in C at very reasonable fares given the miles involved.

Despite touting its bigness on its website - Delta Air Lines is the world’s largest airline. From its hubs in Atlanta, Cincinnati, Detroit, Memphis, Minneapolis-St. Paul, New York-JFK, Salt Lake City, Amsterdam and Tokyo-Narita, Delta, its Northwest subsidiary and Delta Connection carriers offer service to 368 destinations in 66 countries and serve more than 170 million passengers each year - Dl strikes me as being incredibly ill-adept at providing acceptable levels of service to its unfortunate customers who are far more sophisticated in global air travel than the rubes who are running the airline.

Supersonic Swinger

Yes, OW status is hard to achieve, I was referring to earn/burn.

RTW in J - AA 190k, DL 280k
One way JFK-SIN in J - AA 55k, DL 330k.
Buy maximum miles for round-trip JFK-LHR in Y - AA 40k for $1,000, DL 60k for $1,680.

redtailshark

SM is :-: best in class :-: for redemptions, especially being based outside the US. As another respondent said, it'll cause great grief for those who expect to be able to use them in a semi-meaningful manner i.e. in ways comparable to most other FFP.

Even BA EC is easier to manage for redemptions than DL SM, although accumulation is another matter.

As for drinking the koolaid, well, we've all done that....nobody did so with more gusto than the former WPE. Our red koolaid was intoxicating...but it was largely home-brewed. Unlike DL, NW never made any claim about their program being :-: best in class :-: although it very clearly was, in every respect.

I'm having no problem managing my Star miles to move around Asia to connect to my open-jaw paid itins. Redeeming at the stated levels without difficulty. Just like WP used to be, but just another thing that SM can't manage.