Now that I re-read this, going west to east you could go somewhere in Europe, do that part of the trip, on to India, then to Asia, then down to Oz and then back home.

For Europe, you have several choices - BA, IB, AY etc. You might want to consider including Helsinki in the routing as AY can probably get you to most places in Europe and you can get the train from there to St. Petersburg and Moscow. St. Petersburg is less than 200 miles from Helsinki as the crow flies, although the train takes 5+ hours (I guess trains don't do well over water). It's 13.5 hours Moscow to Helsinki on the train (or AY flies to Moscow (SVO) from HEL. From Helsinki, you can also get the ferry across the Gulf of Finland to Tallinn, in Estonia, if that is of interest.

BA/IB/AY should be able to get you to TLV and then somewhere else in Europe (depending on where else you want to cover). From there to India, you probably have to go to Delhi or Mumbai, as I'm not sure anyone flies direct to CCU, so maybe that bit has to be a separate flight. From Delhi or Mumbai on to Asia (Tokyo/China/Bangkok), then down to Oz and NZ and then back home.

I'm not clear on where you want to go in Europe as you mentioned doing that bit by bus, so it's a bit hard to figure out where the 'starting point' is for the bus bit, which makes it hard to figure out where to fly. You could do LAX-LHR-TLV-MAD then bus from there or fly IB from MAD to somewhere else in Europe (or AY if you wanted to go to Helsinki). JL flies from Delhi to Narita and then CX/KA from there to Hong Kong/China/Bangkok and then QF or BA from Bangkok to Sydney. Alternatively, for parts of Europe, you may want to go by train - in Europe, they tend to be fast and convenient and usually from city center to city center, so that may be an easier way of getting around central/continental Europe.

I think you mentioned covering Oz by train or bus. That is probably not very practical - ok for local travel but anything else you probably need to fly. If you do go up/down the coast by bus, Nimbin and Byron Bay may be of interest.

Not sure I understand this bit - warm weather is usually a north to south thing, not east to west.

Fly east to west, it is alot easier on your body (jet lag). I have flown about a dozen RTWs in the last several years and I will never do another one from west to east.

"Here is my ideal routing:
LAX-SYD (travel in Australia would be based on what fit our needs while there, either an airpass, some train or bus travel etc)"

Australia requires a visa, but it is an on-line application. QF files the route

"Australia to New Zealand"

No problem, again QF.

"Australia - Japan"

QF or JL

"Japan- Bangkok, Thailand"

JL does it

"Thailand - China (need to check out visa requirements, mostly want to see the great wall and more of a tourist stop than anything)"

Need a visa and it takes several days, even with a visa service. Service via HKG on CX/KA

"China (or Thailand) - Calcutta, India (same travel plans as above)"

India requires Visas as well. They take a few days to get using a service.

"India - Isreal (relatively short trip, huge fan base there surprisingly enough!)'

Difficult to get from India to Israel. You would need to transit via western Europe. I do it a couple of times per year on a OW RTW and have to go via LHR.

"Isreal - Europe (once we're in Europe we'll be touring in a Tour Bus)"

No problem there.

You will also need to limit your RTW ticket to 16 legs. Open jaw segments count as a leg.

Use nested RT tickets to fill in the gaps.

RTW tickets limit the number of stops in each continent. I think you have too many stops in Asia, so you would need to book nested RT tickets for some of your stops.

I think you are looking for trouble expecting to get this figured, booked, "visa"ed.... in 4 weeks. I could do it, but I have been through it a bunch of times so I know most of the rules and most of the pitfalls.

Israel.

Actually not that hard. RJ flies DEL-AMM-TLV, or else one can just cross the Jordanian - Israeli border on land.

It has been pretty clear from the beginning that the OP has some completely unrealistic expectations.

Experience, knowledge of the rules, etc. are all helpful in planning, of course; however, the fact remains that there is SFA you can do without the availability.

cheers,

Henry

No, I didn't. I edited it to fix a typo so I'm not sure what your suggestion here is. I am not skipping India or China. They are in my itinerary. I have a guide who is planning our trips in India and China specifically and taking care of issues there. We are only making short stops in China as the body modification culture, due to their government and serious restrictions on personal rights, as well as my website being blocked at a government level in many areas.

You replied to my post which had mentioned both of those locations as not being included in this trip which is why I thought you were talking about those two continents since they're the only ones not included in this current tour.

First you make a statement like "only in America" would someone "skip two of the most populated countries" and then proceed to suggest that one of the countries that I am visiting doesn't have a body art culture. Is it your expertise that I should forgo Japan for China and India instead simply because they have a higher population count or does your body art knowledge end at what you've seen in National Geographic?

I don't see how I am going a "very long way around". LAX-Australia/NZ then to Japan, China, Thailand, India, Isreal and Europe seems fairly logical to me. All of the planning has been done with a world map and organizing it by the way that would make the most sense, taking account into weather and local activities and cultural festivals that we plan to attend.


That's like saying that the only tattooed people are sailors and inmates in America when 1 in 3 University students now has at least one tattoo. My host in Japan runs Burst Magazine which is a magazine dedicated to our culture. They also run Burst China, which is a Chinese version of the magazine.

Unless I've somehow missed it and you're an authority on body modification, you're making some rather uneducated statements about a very large subculture, one that has roots in almost every culture around the world. Statements like that show an apparent bias against a culture that is near and dear to my heart as well as one that I have worked in for the past 12 years.

I run one of the oldest sites on the internet that is dedicated to body modification. It started in 1994 as a usenet group and has grown over the past 16 years, with more than half a million readers daily of our blog alone and more than 20 million visitors to the rest of the site every month, I think I know what I'm talking about when I say that you are very wrong.

Regardless of what the reasons for my travel, it's irrelevant when I'm asking about booking the actual tour itself. If you don't have anything to contribute to help further the goal, then there isn't really any reason to post passive aggressive commentary that doesn't help anyone.

Got the painters in luv?

At the time I replied to your post it did not include any of the text regarding your ideal routing. You added that after I started my reply.

Moreover that post still (at the time I started writing this) has your routing as Aus - Japan - Thailand - China - India. Which is far more miles than Aus - Japan - China - Thailand - India, which you now seem to be proposing.

As to the freak shows, I will leave that in your capable hands, but there are plenty of places in Japan that won't let you in with tattoos. See for example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lw8eHvM1j9k

Ahh, okay, now I get it. I was trying to figure out why I couldn't book that online. I'm fine with having the routing stuck in stone but I would love to have more flexibility in changing the dates. We may find we've got too much time on our hands in a certain city and not enough in others so I'd like to be able to phone up the airline and try to cut out a day later or a day earlier.

If they don't have the actual fare buckets open, are you able to fly "standby" ie, just go to the airport when they have seats open but not the fare class and hope to be put on the plane?

To leave the dates open then, I'd have to call and book it through the desk and then they'd actually physically mail the tickets to me? If we lose the hard copies are we SOL then? It's been a very long time since I flew with paper tickets!

I think that you're correct. It may have been a Vatlantic flight, which I was considering.


Air New Zealand isn't part of OW correct?


I was looking at that. The only thing I wasn't sure about was if I would be able to purchase the tickets and get the cheaper RTW ticket if I started the RTW ticket in Ausstralia but was purchasing using a CC with a billing address in the US. The RTW fares on OW are $4400 but when purchased from Australia they're only like $3380.00. Then again, if you add in the price of the flights to Australia to begin the tour and to return home (unless I made it so we were making a stop in LA and then forgetting to take the last leg), it saves about 2500 if I can save 500 per ticket over 5 tickets. The only question I have is if I can purchase the RTW tickets for the Australian price with a billing address in the US.

If I need to fly from point A to B but it requires that I make connections through C or C and D to get there, does that equal one segment or more? When I used the booking tool online, I did the following:

LAX-MEL--BNE--AKL--DRW--TYO--OSA--SHA--BKK--DEL--TLV--HEL--STO--OSL--LON--LAX--LAX

It said that it was valid so I'm assuming that even though a couple of those have connections even they're still one segment each. According to what I printed from the saved itinerary, it said this:

Stopovers: 15 /
Coupons: 15 / 16

So I'm going to guess I still have one more segment that I can use?

I have two weeks until we leave, though to get a RTW ticket I need 8 days advance purchase. I hadn't been planning on using the RTW to do all of our travel, other than where it makes sense like burning segments in Australia, since we have a lot of overland touring that we need to do to visit the various cities in smaller countries.

I really appreciate everyone's feedback. I've done stuff like this before but usually I go by myself or with one travel companion. I thought it would be easier to plan, just do what I normally do but buy more tickets but it's one thing just to hop a flight to the next place when you're traveling in a small group but when you've got 5 people, those last minute flights add up!

Assuming you're trying to do this on a OneWorld Explorer ticket that isn't even close to valid.

There are no eligible direct flights on DRW-TYO, SHA-BKK, DEL-TLV, TLV-HEL, STO-OSL, ...

16 segments means 16 flights each with its own number. If you need two flights with two different numbers then that's two segments.

I don't believe that I meant that the order in which I listed the countries was the exact route that I wanted to travel. I inverted Thailand and China and that seems to have really upset you and for that I apologize. I didn't mean to be the cause of such stress for you.

It's not that easy to continually post all of the places that I want to visit as there are dozens and dozens of cities and countries that I want to cover.
That being said, what I am trying to do right now, and the purpose of the thread is to purchase a set of RTW tickets for my staff and I to act as the skeleton of our trip. It is to help reduce the cost of the longhaul flights and to keep us motivated and on track.

I don't think that I look like a freak show but you can be the judge of that yourself. Despite being in places that had signs that said "No tattoos" etc, I have always been allowed in. I have never had a problem in Japan and while I do understand that some people do have issues, my body art has never prevented me from accomplishing anything in my life.

I understand that there are places that I can't go as a heavily tattooed woman and that isn't limited to bath houses or swimming pools in Japan. I can't visit most Muslim countries without serious risk to my personal safety and I'm okay with that.

I just don't see what benefit you get from continually insulting me when I'm simply asking for advice.

As I explained in my OP, I'm trying to take advantage of the best weather. I've been talking to a lot of members of my site and they've all agreed that the tour should start in Australia/NZ and that we should go West and start in Australia because it's the end of summer. As we move on and head back up North, it will be a month later so that spring will be starting and I have heard amazing things about Japan in the spring. As we move through the tour, we're trying to delay the northern most parts of the tour until it is more likely to be warmer.

Warmer weather also means less luggage as we won't need to pack heavy jackets and cold weather accessories. It's enough to have to carry the luggage that we'll have and camera gear for the show.

I've also heard as well as experienced it myself that it's a lot easier to adjust and recover from jet lag going West to East instead of the other way around.

I hope that clarifies the desire to travel West.


I'm definitely planning on visiting Helsinki. Our Russian guides are planning on meeting us there to bring us to the events they're putting together in St. Petersburg.

I do absolutely love taking trains!

Is there a reason why it seems so difficult to do this in the reverse of what you've explained?

That is correct, we are taking a tourbus/RV Europe, I'm not talking about greyhound, I'm talking about tour bus/RV with driver. We have two choices of where to meet them, either in London or in Germany. I was hoping to actually meet them in Madrid so that we could just drive in a giant circle hitting all of the major points and then stopping and parking the bus for a couple day trips. I want to go see the Vatican, head over to Ibiza as well as Athens etc where it may not be as feasible to drive.

We have about 6 weeks of touring around Europe, like a band basically. We have a lot of time to meander here and its the last leg of the trip so we can pretty much extend it as much as we want as the largest share of artists are mainly in Europe.

I believe I only said that about the Melbourne to Perth train. I believe it takes a couple of days but I can't remember off the top of my head. It's more of a vacation/site seeing part of the trip. As I said before, I love trains. I once took a train from Los Angeles to Chicago because I wanted to stay in a sleeper car and just watch the US of A go by. It took 4 days but I loved every minute of it.

I was going to get an airpass for the flights around Australia.

See the start of my post. It explains about the weather and jet lag.

Thank you for your thoughts and your help.

Yes, aside from catching the end of summer in Australia and giving ourselves more time for it to warm up, up north, this was a big reason why I want to go West to East. The jet lag will waste a week of my time if we go East!

Yes, visa is not a problem. Online, easy peasy.

Yep!

Been there, visa issued upon arrival with no problem before. Doubt there will be one now!

Ding!

China is about 2 months away, so I have time.

Again, two months away and the people in India who are taking care of me are very well positioned to be able to aid in whatever needs to be done.


I'm not against just flying to Europe on to the next part of our trip and then taking a flight over there since I just want to go for the weekend either.

We'll be taking the bus and then parking it occasionally and taking flights like I said in the last post. We'll have the flexibility of being able to hit an airport when we need to without having to unload the whole bus and take it with us.

That's what I was confused about. I was not aware that if a flight had a connection, that it took more than one segment, which is kind of crappy because if I'm going from A-B and I have o stop at C to get there but I'm not doing a stop over or anything else, I shouldn't have to waste a segment on it. Now that hat has been explained to me, I understand it. I also didn't realize this because I had no problem with the first simplified RTW tickets that I planned through oneworld's planner. I was able to choose all of the flights and went through the entire thing up until paying for it. Once I realized I had all of these extra segments, I was trying to make sure that I got my moneys worth but I didn't know that the connections cause it to be counted as a segment.

Yes, I believe that it is 4 but for some reason I was thinking country in a continent not the continent itself.

It has been hard to explain where I want to go because when I list the cities/countries that I have in mind, some people take that as being the definitive route that I want to take and then tell me I'm crazy.

If I posted the full list of every city that we're going to, I'm sure I'd see some heads popping off their bodies.

You call it trouble, I call it adventure!

My first country returns the visa in minutes online. Then the only other visas that I need are for China and India which those parts of the trip are more than 6 weeks away. I have plenty of time to get the visas.

Can you explain to me what's unrealistic about my "expectations"? I'm not even sure what you guys think my expectations are to begin with. I'm simply trying to purchase a bunch of plane tickets. If it ends up being too much of a pain in the ... to purchase a RTW ticket for myself and four other people, then I'll just purchase a string of multi-city or one way tickets.

You're right. I have absolutely zero experience or knowledge of the rules for RTW tickets. I doubt that many people do, which is why I came to the mecca of air travel that is flyertalk and asked a bunch of guys that I figured would have that knowledge and expertise so that they could share it with a girl like me who doesn't have it.

All that aside, I have earned almost 2 million AA miles (this trip will put me over the 2mm mark!), I'm EXP and have been for a couple years. I somehow managed to get blessed by the gods at AA last year when I only flew 75k miles and they gave me EXP again anyway. All this at 29 while I'm off flying around looking for trouble with my unrealistic expectations!

But seriously guys, thank you for your help.

What can I do to make it easier to help me? Would you like a list of all the countries that I want to go to? As I've said, I'm very flexible still with the exception of a couple time frames when I need to be in certain countries.

Are there any circumstances when there would be a connection where it did not require an additional segment?

So that means the key is getting as many direct flights as possible. I totally didn't get that this whole time and now I'm feeling pretty dumb!

As I said before, I had done a much smaller RTW ticket but it worked easily and told me everything was valid. I didn't realize it was using additional segments. I thought that I wasn't maximizing the trip because I wasn't using all the segments but it turns out that maybe I was.

No - the only time there can be two physical flights counting as one segment is if it is a "direct one-stop" (or two stop in a couple of very rare cases) flight with a single flight number and you stay on the flight all the way through. (e.g. HKG-CMB goes via SIN, but if you book it and fly it as HKG-CMB then it's only one segment).

On visas, I really don't think you should underestimate the time required. China and India both require your passport in their embassy/consulate to issue a visa, and China can sometimes be a bit awkward about issuing visas to certain passport holders (US and UK amongst others) who are applying from outside their country of residence.

And, by the way, since you said you want to see the Great Wall in China you need to be flying to Beijing, not Shanghai.

Huh?

What is unrealistic is to think that you can go from (a) having a vague idea about putting together an RTW for 5-6 people, leaving in six weeks -- but with no clear routing in mind -- to (b) having that trip all nailed down, booked and paid, three weeks later. Did you read the rules? Did you see this part?

> For economy class reservations made 22 or more days
> before departure, tickets must be issued at least
> 21 days before departure.

As others have tried to tell you, over and over, it's not so simple as to just say 'Oh, I'll have that flight'. Finding availability (especially for 5-6 people together on every flight) will not be a picnic. Have you even tried to plug an approximate plan into the OW RTW tool?

Making everything fit together takes hours and hours of planning and adjustment (which is why most travel agents hate RTWs), not to mention the inevitable compromises on your ideal itinerary. I think you have left it much too late.

cheers,

Henry

the important things to know before getting yourself too deep with routings, etc. are: total segment restrictions (16), continent restrictions (how many continents are you doing?), intra-continental segment restrictions (varies with continent), and inter-continental segment restrictions (again, depends)

without a firm understand of that "framework" you'll likely end up confused as to what you're doing wrong.

also, apparently the LONEx has a 21-day advance purchase? Did not realize that. Couldn't the OP buy a ticket with the first leg(s) 21+ days, then change the dates to the ones they want (assuming availability)?

What you are quoting does not mean that an economy ticket has to be issued 21 days in advance.

The ticketing rules depend on where the ticket starts -
TC1 - (North and South America) -
Reservations for the first international flight and all preceding flights are required at least 7 days prior to departure of the first flight. Subsequent segments may be open-dated. Tickets must be issued at least 7 days in advance of the first flight.
Exception:
For economy class reservations made 22 or more days before departure, tickets must be issued at least 21 days before departure.

For travel originating in TC2 (Europe or Africa)/ TC3 (Asia or SW Pacific)
Reservations for the first international flight and all preceding flights must be made prior to departure. Subsequent segments may be open-dated. Tickets may be issued up to one hour prior to departure.
Exception:
Economy
Reservations made - 22 or more days before departure
Ticket - At least 21 days before departure

Reservations made - 21 - 8 days before departure
Ticket - At least 7 days before departure

Reservations made - 7 days or less before departure
Ticket - No later than 3 days after booking