arthurhs

I've been working with Juicy Miles to book my RTW trip starting later this year (though there are many other services available).

It's been a great help since I don't really have the time or patience to figure it out myself.

The biggest issue is that I keep changing my mind and switching things around, luckily as a PM, I can do that easily.

I finally have half of my trip (as of now) booked for Dec/Jan.

ATL-LHR-AMS-BUD-AMS-NBO-CDG-CGK (a few of these are layovers)

With the other half being booked later this year for Nov/Dec 2015 -- Likely Australia-New Zealand-South America (Quito/Lima/Buenos Aires).

CPMaverick

4 years ago I did a RTW in J with AA miles for 175k. Not sure if the rules are still the same, but at the time you could book a RTW in J for as little as 130k AA miles.

DL has just devalued your brain, it's only a a steal compared to the robbery DL asks for normal business class awards now.

wanderlust1988

First Flyertalk post!
The past year I have been hoarding skymiles (which should be called skypesos or skylira) in the hopes of getting to 180k, which I was told by a delta employee circa 4 months ago was the RTW rate in economy. Yes I'm willing to take the torture of economy RTW while still in my 20s.
I'm at 140k so...should I keep focusing on delta or accept the sunk cost and switch? Not sure I wan tot wait for another 100k+.

CPMaverick

With one-way awards being more common, the easiest way to do a RTW is with a combination of one-way awards.

So, if you really want that RTW, you should be able to find several one-way legs on Delta. With a UA and AA credit card bonus (maybe US too if you do it now and then wait for the merger), you could hoard up to ~80-100k more miles from other carriers. With that and your Delta miles I bet you could get a 5-6 segment RTW trip, on different tickets of course (so a cancellation to all would cost a lot to get miles back).

122554

Tried and tried. All flights have to low tier. Good luck with that!

tomas.t

I actually just successfully booked a 280,000 mile reward ticket for the New Years holiday 2015. It was a 2hr phone call to the RTW desk, the agent was quite savvy and we accomplished snagging all my destinations. I had the options of carriers, so I chose the long hauls that have lie-flats and on exciting new equipment 787s and A380s.

SFO-CDG-AMS-NBO-ZNZ-NBO-BKK-SGN-DAD-ICN-LAX

AEHawk52

I'm extremely interested in this.

Can you shed some more light on your itinerary? For example, how many days and airline?

lamont2718

Beautiful redemption. But what route are you flying the 787 on? There are not a lot of Dreamliners flying around in SkyTeam (currently only 9 operated by CZ, 5 by AM, and 1 by KQ), and not on those routes either.

tomas.t

Sure it's basically 21 days, and what works well this year is how NYears and the MLK holiday in the US, tie in with the weekends so essentially 12 days off of work, but I get a 21 day vacation.

SFO-CDG-AMS - AF (3 days incl New Years in AMS)
AMS-NBO-ZNZ - KQ (5 days in Zanzibar)
ZNZ-NBO-BKK - KQ (1 night in BKK)
BKK-SGN-DAD - VN (8 days coastal, beaches Vietnam)
DAD-ICN-LAX - KE (2 days L.A)

tomas.t

Thank you. I agree, it is an exciting itinerary. The Dreamliner will be on KQ flying NBO-BKK which is currently being operated by 767 service. The 787 is loaded up on KQ's schedule for this route Jan '15. I believe KQ is receiving more deliveries and this 787 deployment will be in addition to their CDG-NBO Dreamliner Svc. It will reportedly be outfitted with Lie-Flats in Business and I'll be on the left hand side so I can look down on Sri Lanka as we pass over the Indian Ocean :-)

tomas.t

The A380 leg will be on KE, ICN-LAX

STBCypriot

I'm curious as to how you approached planning this RTW trip. Did you use the SkyTeam planner before you contacted the agent? Did you jsut tell the agent where you wanted to go an have them work out the routings?

Kwaj boy

Nah...it's still a steal.

jjglaze77

tomas.t's itinerary is a great example! I have booked a total of 7 of these trips (have only traveled 5 of them though). Here's my most recent one:

TUL-ATL-YUL
YUL-JFK-SXM
SXM-CDG-EDI
FCO-PVG
PVG-MEL
AKL-PVG-HNL-LIH
LIH-SEA-ATL-TUL

All of this for 280k in J

Doing your own homework is the key. Most/all of the Skyteam carriers have their award availability on either ExpertFlyer or KVS. Spend some time with these tools before you call and it will make the call much less painful.

One of my reasons for switching to the dAArk side this year was because of their great RTW program called Oneworld Explorer. Then one day in April, DUI Doug decided these awards were too generous and canceled the entire program

Now, there is no RTW option using AA miles. Only a series of one-way awards without any stopover options for saving some miles here or there.

Not sure what you mean. The award amounts have not changed (yet). An economy class RTW is still 180k miles. The award most are all discussing here is the business class award for 280k miles.

You can do as little or as much homework as you want. I always just look at the Skyteam route map and figure out where I want to go myself, research availability online via delta.com/EF/KVS, then call in. You just have to know the basic rules:

1) Continual east/west direction for your stopover points (connections don't matter). Easy way to check this is on gcmaps.com. Input each of your proposed destinations and follow the latitudes.

2) 6 Total stopovers (note: an open jaw counts as only 1 stopover and the 2 points of the open jaw must conform to rule 1). See my example itinerary above. I have a total of 8 cities, but it works because I have 2 open jaws therefore bringing my stopover count down to 6.

3) 16 Total segments, including surface sectors. If you are trying to maximize the value of the award, this can be the limiting factor. My sample above is at the maximum 16 segments because of the 2 surface sectors (EDI/FCO & MEL/AKL).

3Cforme

jjglaze77, you are too modest.

You demonstrated proficiency in finding which award-eligible carriers go where and when, plus proficiency in both ExpertFlyer and KVS award searches, and had the patience to paste it together in a manner that satisfies RTW award max segment/direction rules. There are many people on Flyertalk - let alone the general population - who would struggle to do that. Congrats on the success of your diligent efforts.