RTW from India: any experience?
 

Have been spending my free time for the past few days looking at the RTW posts up on Oneworld sub-forum. Have tried to find India-based TR's or routings but coming up unsuccessful. Has anyone on this forum looked at this? Any posts/forums I should look at to get India-specific info?

what exactly are you looking for????

Hi Keyser, looking to read some trip reports or routings for RTW flights originating out of India or undertaken by a person from India so that I can get some information from a local perspective.

I did a couple of CRWSTAR3's a few years back when I had to go to both NZ and US from India. But now the RTW fares are really not that competitive anymore ex India, especially with the GoI J/F tax which adds anywhere from several hundred to over a thousand dollars on the most basic premium RTW ticket.

Is there anything specific you wanted to know?

I didn't have any specific question as such when I started this thread. I just wanted to learn from the experience of any other Indian on how they went about getting a RTW ticket, how they maximized their usage of sectors, whether getting this ticket ex-India is worth it (it is not, as you suggest), where are some of the good locations to start from (seems like Khartoum is being discussed a lot in RTW forum!) etc.

However, given your response AJLondon, wanted to know
- How did you go about booking your RTW ticket?
- How did the cost-benefit comparison work out for you?
- Do any Indian carriers have tie-ups for RTW fares? I remember reading somewhere that KF was allowing bookings for OW RTW fares ex-India

I played around with the itinerary on the Star Alliance RTW validation tool (on the web) and once I had decided on the routing and the specific flights, I took it to a TA. Note that D class (discounted business class code used for RTW on most * carriers) can be hard to get availability on. SQ is particularly bad.

It was good given I needed to cover both Oz/NZ and Canada in the same trip.

My itinerary on my recent RTW (a few years ago now!) was something like:

DEL-SIN-AKL-CHC-SIN-ICN-YVR-YYC-YWG-YUL-YYZ-LHR-MAN-EDI-LHR-DUS-MUC-VIE-DEL

And this was in the good old days when LH awarded 2.5k miles&more miles on each shorthaul segment in Business!

No idea!

We've done several OWE trips ex-India over the past few years. The DONE3 (3-continent J class) tickets used to be a pretty good value at less than Rs 250,000 (about US$5500) but over the years it has climbed up above Rs 400,000 (almost US$9,000) because of the addition of service tax and general inflation. Right now there is probably almost no cost advantage over tickets booked normally, but the quirky rules of the OWE allow for some nice MR possibilities that you would not normally book (see below).

There are several choices of itinerary ex-DEL or ex-BOM. Westbound there are AA, AY, BA, and RJ, while eastbound there are CX and JL (and QF ex-BOM). IT will soon be another westbound option and MH will join the eastbound ranks.

Some of our routings have been:

DEL-HKG-LAX-various NA stops-RDU-LHR-HEL-LHR-DXB-LHR-DEL

DEL-NRT-HNL-DFW-various NA stops-DFW-LHR-AMS-LHR-DXB-LHR-HKG-DEL

DEL-HEL-FCO-LHR-ZRH-LHR-DFW-CLT-DFW-MIA-DFW-SFO-JFK-NRT-HKG-DEL

DEL-LHR-FCO-LHR-NCE-LHR-DFW-CLT x BDL-DFW-HNL-NRT-HKG-DEL

From a MR perspective, the second one worked out the best combining the Hawaii leg, the LHR-DXB "European" legs, and the DXB-DEL routing (via LHR and HKG...do not attempt this in economy class!).

I've booked tickets both through local travel agents (a royal pain) and over the phone with the AA RTW desk (much better if you can get them to answer) with ticketing at the local AA office in CP.

I do not believe that the OWE rules permit the use of any Indian carrier for these fares; this will change next year when IT joins oneworld.

Although I mainly fly AA I have never used the DEL-ORD flight on an OWE; oneworld considers this flight to be Transatlantic which makes it very difficult to utilize on a OWE fare. The only valid DONE3 construction I have thought of is an India (Asia) - North America - Australia - Asia routing.

I think the fare differential (especially taking into account the A/D class surcharge for an xONEx) will make it almost worthwhile to commence the RTW in AMM (if you don't want to bother with the logistics of KTM). It also has the added advantage of booking via AA thus avoiding fuel surcharges when compared to other airlines.

Assuming you are travelling on an Indian Passport, your biggest "hassle" is going to be obtaining the various Visa's required.

Here's a one ex-AMM itineraries to consider

AMM-LHR-SYD-NRT-DEL-HKG-BOM-HKG-JFK-LAX-DFW-ANC-DFW-LAX-LHR-MCT-AMM - 58703 BIS miles

Is that really a valid Oneworld itinerary? Is backtracking not a problem?

Nope, the SYD leg makes it a 4-continent, and I don't think it's possible to go from Europe to Australia without passing through Asia.

Remove the SYD leg and it looks OK. Backtracking is permitted so long as it's within a continent.

Sorry for the delay in responding. As am looking at this mainly from a MR perspective, some of the routings presented here are great for that purpose

The AMM outbound and booking on AA (and on AA call centre) are tips I'll keep in mind as well as the fact that backtracking is allowed within continents (Wasn't very clear on this after going through the OWE website). Thanks all