Book RTW trip with two award programs
 

Have about 130K miles each in AA and united.

Plan for a RTW trip- take about a month , start from US, like to cover

- Europe (mainly UK &France)
- Mideast (Mainly Dubai and Cairo)
- Asia (Bankok, Japan and NZ-Auckland))

If possible ,
- South America (Rio and/ or Buenos)

think I can get mixed economy and business class if plan right and lucky:)

Any suggestions (best time of the year to book, sequence of visit, stopovers...) appreciated!

Welcome to FT!

You're going have to provide far more information for anyone to provide you with any real help, starting with where you are travelling from and how many stops you plan to take. You should probably also do a bit of legwork to see if for a sample itinerary you can get award seats or not.

It's not really helpful if I tell you that there are economy seats on AA from JFK to CDG in mid-April and then onwards with EgyptAir to Cairo three days later if you're not in New York and you want to spend more than three days in Paris.

There is a lot of help available here, but it only works when we have something to work with.

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry: BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.1030 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

How soon can you book? AA's award chart is changing in March. ;)

Be aware that AA no longer offers free stopovers on its awards. And UA only offers free stopovers on its roundtrip awards.

For travel in Economy using AAdvantage miles, be sure to check the dates for off-peak award travel (offered on certain routes) to save some miles.

AA award chart here:

http://www.google.com/search?client=...hannel=browser

AA Partner award chart here:

http://www.aa.com/i18n/disclaimers/a...rtnerChart.jsp

You might also consider getting some BA Avios, which could be useful for shorter legs like UK-France; intra-South America; and even Japan-Thailand. In addition to the Chase/BA card which earns BA Avios directly, Amex MR points, Chase UR points, and Starwood points can all be converted to BA Avios.

Is it just you?

Sequencing/Timing wise two things are key. First AA flights must be booked before devaluation as noted above otherwise this won't work. In addition AA off peak Y is only eligible October - May 15th.

If it were me this would be the ideal:

USA - LHR (AA Y, 20k AA)
London to Paris (Train)
CDG - HND/NRT (QR J or JL J, 52.5k AA)
HND/NRT - BKK (CX Y or JL Y, 10k AA or 20k for J)
BKK - SYD/AKL (TG J or NZ J, 30k UA or 40k for F)
SYD - AKL or vice versa (Buy it, cheap flight on VA or Jetstar)
SYD or AKL - SCL - GIG/GRU (QF or LAN J, 50k AA)
GIG/GRU - USA (UA, 55k UA)

Grand Total: 132.5k AA miles (assuming you can get 2.5k AA) and 80k UA miles (or 90k if you use F from BKK - SYD). That'll leave you some extra miles to play with for flights where I suggested using train or buying. This also puts you in J for all major flights with USA - Europe in Y (which I tend to think is sufficient if you are coming from the East Coast especially if you do off-peak Y) and TYO - BKK which is a 5 hour flight (but if you can generate an extra 10k AA you can bump that one up to J).

This all assumes you can find saver availability. You'll have to be very flexible, I have no idea if it is even possible to get seats on the QF or LAN flights from Australia/New Zealand to South America.

Would be a good idea to also check for combinations with paid fares. Intra Europe can be had for $30-$100, Air Arabia for $100+, and Air Asia business long haul (e..g NRT-BKK) sometimes $250. Will give you much more flexibility and allow you to fly the long hauls in business.

Thank you all for valuable inputs.

Decide to short it to 11-12 day, either in March (next month!) or this November,
just do most wanted (London, Dubai ,Auckland/or Queenstown, Tokyo) with miles saver bookings,

day1/2, US (evening flight) to London ,plan to arrive in the morning ,use united miles , why ,see below.
Take 8 pm Etihad flight all the way to Sydney with stop over at Abu Dubai.

So will have 10 -11 hrs in London, seems I can do a short day trip to central London. Wondering How far I can go and what/how many I can see?

Like to use AA miles, so enjoy that "apartment", it would just cost 80K for over 20 hrs of 1st class flight. Once available day was confirmed, will start book other flights
day 3: at Abu Dubai, have 14 hrs, can I see both AUH and DXB ,seems big bus only
do one side a day.
Day4, Arrive in Sydney around 7 pm, , seems Etihad can not carry me all the way to Auckland, stay Sydney for the night, is night at bondi beach a nice place to go?
day 5, catch morning flight to Auckland, just buy it as Duke787 mentioned, arrive 2-3 pm, not sure what can I do , or fly to Queenstown
day 6, pending day 4, or just a day trip from Auckland
Day7, another day in Auckland for day trip or Queenstown
Day 8, fly to Tokyo Use united miles) with free stop over night in Bangkok, arrive 9 pm
Day9, tour around central Bangkok in the morning, catch fly to Tokyo around 3 pm.
Arrive Tokyo 11 pm
Day 10, tour around Tokyo's most popular places

Day 11 ,Hope to see some Sakura if in March
Day 12 Back to US

1st time doing this, does this itinerary looks too tight?
Also can not find miles saver business class from Auckland to Tokyo and then US.

Far too much long haul travel in 11-12 days. Other the inside of aircraft & airports you will not see that much.

With AA awards you cannot have stopovers.
Dubai is not the home airport of Etihad. Are you mixing up Dubai & Abu Dhabi? (note the spelling)
For Auckland to Tokyo and then US have you looked at which airlines fly these routes.

Award availability is never guaranteed, especially in premium cabins.
You have a lot of work to do before this trip is even remotely possible.

Sorry, but this is completely mental. Save your money and buy some books with pictures. 11 days to travel around the world to spend a day each in London, Dubai, Aukland and Tokyo is just, well, stupid. But it's your money/points and technically it is feasible. Enjoy the inside of airplanes/taxis/trains and sleeping from exhaustion.