Hi everybody,

Noob here! I am planning a trip for myself and my new husband sometime in late 2013/early 2014. We have roughly 50-55 days. The bulk of our trip will be in Australia/New Zealand/Bora Bora but we would like to utilize airline’s stopover policies to experience a couple other destinations at the beginning and end of our trip.

Our goal is to maximize our miles/points using stopovers, open jaws and one-ways to see as many places as possible without over doing it. Although we travel a lot, we have never been out of North America. So, since this is our first “big” trip, we cannot decide where we want to go or what we want to see first! We do have a bit of ADD when traveling and it is really difficult for us to stay in one place for more than 4 days.

That being said, what I am looking for is some “creative” routing options to Australia/New Zealand/Tahiti through Asia, South America, Europe, etc. We live in Dallas so our main airport is DFW but we don’t mind flying out of different cities. Most of my miles are with AA and BA. I also have MR and UR points but I feel as though I have time to accumulate miles with any airline given the time between now and the trip.

I know Quantas flys direct between DFW and SYD. But, as mentioned, I am not really interested in flying directly from North America. I have listed below some of the options I am aware of. I just can’t seem to figure out the most efficient way to put it all together.

• Cathay Pacific via Hong Kong (first choice).
• Quantas, Thai, Emirate via Bangkok
• JAL/ Air Tahiti Nui/Air New Zealand via Tokyo
• PPT via Easter Island with LAN
• Quantas via Santiago, Chile
• Singapore via Sinagpore Airlines

I am not interested in a stopover in HNL. Ideally, I would like something like this:

1. Cathay Pacific: SFO-Hong Kong(stop)-Bangkok
2. Singapore Airlines: Bangkok-Singapore(stop)-Sydney

Does anybody have any suggestions for “creative” ways to get to OZ/NZ/PPT from US? What is the best strategy to maximize miles? Also, I would like most flights to be in Business/First class. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!!!

I assume you are talking about award travel since you post in a forum that its main goal is to gather miles and points for award travel.

AA has an Explorer award that is distance based instead of zone based.

There is an excellent STICKY in AA forum explaining the rules of this award because it is entirely different from the more well-known zone-based award among airline programs.

In that thread you would see lots of examples of creative routing. In fact one such recently involving Australia.

A 25K distance, 150K AA miles would be able to get you visit most of the places in the Pacific (without PPT or Easter Island) on you wish list in Business Class. 185K in First (if I remember it correctly). However, many flights on your envisioned plan DONT have First Class.

You can use BA Avios to do Intra-Australia, between Australia an NZ award on QF because BA and QF both belong to OneWorld.

UR points dont transfer to AA. MR points can go to DL or BA or CX though CX's Asiamiles are pretty much useless when it comes to redeeming award flights - high mileage cost + high fuel surcharge cash cost.

You would need to bridge some portions in the South Pacific, i.e. the French Polynesia with separate awards / pay tickets - because no one single award would be able to accomplish what you envision. You would also need separate award for the SCL side trip.

In the airlines you mentioned, basically they are across all 3 Alliances - so that would also imply that you may need/want to use more than one award as for example, you cannot mix QF and TG in one award - QF belongs to OneWorld while TG belongs to Star Alliance. Same holds true you cannot mix CX and SQ in same award - CX is OneWorld member while SQ is Star Alliance. FYI, award on SQ flights is notoriously hard to get in many routes.

I also note that you mix members from different alliances in one routing - it aint going to work. Award travel goes by SAME Alliance - i.e. you cannot mix JL with NZ - one belongs to OneWorld one belongs to Star Alliance. Air Tahiti Nui cannot be used as AA Explorer award as it is NOT OneWorld member but it is a partner of AA, so it can be used in a Zone-based traditional award.

You can also use one of the many award booking services to plan for your itinerary based on what your miles balances in each program. The fee is quite reasonable in my opinion, as they are the experts, know the rules of various programs, the route maps, the routes that easiest to find award seats, etc etc. Well worth the few hundreds you pay to get the chores completely taken care of by such service. My feeling is, for a total newbie, this type of services would be actually a life saver, especially for your desire of "I would like to have most flights to be n Business / First Class." and a very ambitious itinerary.

Hi, Happy!

Thank you very much for your quick response! Yes, I am talking about award travel and have most of my miles with AA and BA so I will definitely look through the AA sticky regarding the Explorer award. I have done some research with regards to this award and similar awards such as the AsiaMiles OW award. I just wasn't sure if there was any "cheaper" options using one-way awards with stopovers through a variety of different carriers. This would also allow me to mix carriers in different alliances such as CX and SQ in my first example.

I plan on transferring my MR points to BA (hopefully there will be another 50% transfer promotion before then) and using BA Avios for the intra-australia flights. I am not really concerned with the OZ/NZ/PPT portion of my trip, mostly getting to and from this region while trying to balance efficiency with experiences.

I will also take a look into award booking services as this may not be a bad suggestion for such a complicated itinerary. However, I have really enjoyed learning the ends and outs of my new "hobby." I have always been a bargain hunter so it is wonderful to be able to combine my passion for a good deal with my desire to travel the world!

Thanks again!

I also wanted to add, I was not suggesting mixing 2 carriers from different alliances on the same award. I was simply creating a list of all the ways I know how to get to OZ/NZ. Sorry for the confusion.

When I'm trying to get creative I use the following:

http://www.airlineroutemaps.com
This has almost every airline you might want to see. I like to use the site to see what connections can be made, what airlines fly where, and see where else I might be able to go with stopovers/OJ.

For Oneworld I use this site:
http://onw.innosked.com/?show=MAP

Just because the route exists doesn't mean there are seats :-P The good news is that with 50 days to travel, you should be ok to find seats as long as you are flexible during those 50 days.

Once you've plotted out a route:

www.awardnexus.com

And search for the flights there by date. Allows flexibility in searching by date as well as award class.

I've had good luck using these three in combination, and then calling with exact flight numbers when booking. Agents have told me there is no availability, but when I give them flight numbers, especially on partner airlines, they then have no trouble.

CX awards would not be cost-efficient both in terms of miles and cash.

AA's Explorer award by far is head and shoulder above any similar type of distance-based award either among OneWorld members (both CX and old BA have similar type but much more costly, and far less segments can be included in an award), or the UA's RTW award (very rigid).

You would definitely need to have several awards to piece out the whole itinerary. Getting an understanding on the route map of EACH alliance would enable you to do the mixing of awards in different programs so to get the most out of each type.

You would learn a lot from the AA Explorer Sticky on lots of creative routing. The portion of your plan that is relatively more difficult is the IPC and SCL portion on LA - because AA prices it in South Pacific hence much higher cost than BA's old chart, but I am not sure how it would fit into an Explorer award due to the distance involved. You may need to look into flying between Australia and South America in one direction - kind of making a gigantic circle of your trip. Check Great Circle Map to visualize your itinerary so you can see which way to go is the most optimal routing (instead of wasting the distance). OneWorld also has a great Interactive Map. Just remember, only the routes marked in Blue can be used. Marked in Red are code-shares therefore not eligible for Explorer award.

Stub: Thank you very much for these great resources! I have only been in the game for about 5 months now and have not yet come across airlinesroutemaps or awardnexus. I should have some fun playing around with these new tools!

Award travel is so addicting! Now back to my job that pays the bills