Hiya everyone,

Im sorry if this is a question asked a lot or already answered somewhere. I've had a look though the forums and it seems everyone on here is far more knowlegdeable than me and I'm not up to speed with a lot of the abbreviations.

Here I go, I am planning a world trip and am searching for flights as follows;

Bangkok - San Francisco
San Francisco - Mexico City
Mexico City - Lima
Lima - Santiago (Overland)
Santiago - Auckland
Auckland - Christchurch (Overland)
Christchurch - Sydney
Sydney - Cairns (Overland)
Cairns - Bangkok
Total: 23501 miles

I have stumbled across the oneworld circle pacific, but I'm struggling when it comes to quotations / bookings. Qantas aren't able to help me unless I want to start and finish in the USA, and Im not getting much help from travel agents. I live in the UK, but I'm not sure if that has an effect on who I can use, and who would be best for prices. Any help would be great.

Thank you

Leanne

Just a bit I forgot to add, I do need to start off in Bangkok or Singapore (I can get a seperate flight there), and I also need finish in either Bangkok or Singapore because I'm making my way home over-land. This is why I can't go for a regular RTW ticket.

If there are any other suggestions, rather than the OW Circle Pacific, I am open to those also.

Thanks again

Leanne

Welcome to Flyer Talk leanne03

Travel on Circle Pacific to/through South America requires the 29,000 mile fare. In any case, because some of your legs do not have direct flights you will need the extra mileage (every flight counts towards total mileage and also land travel also counts).

Alternatively by rearranging slightly you could do a 5 continent one world explorer, which has a bit more flexibility albeit at more cost.

Any airline included on the itinerary, or any travel agent, should be able to help you with this ticket.

Thanks Kiwi Flyer

If I understand correctly then I have two options;

Option 1 - I buy a 5 continent RTW ticket from London and don't take the flight home at the end. This would mean buying an extra return ticket from SFO - BKK (because I need to visit Bangkok towards the beginning and end of my trip)

OR

Option 2 - I buy a Circle Pacific ticket from Thailand, and then buy a seperate one-way ticket to get there.

After having another look at the plans we don't need all of the flights listed, and finishing in Sydney would be sufficient. We can then arrange our own way back to Bangkok from Darwin through Indonesia and Malaysia. This would also save on backtracking from Singapore or Bangkok. I'm not sure if that would have a massive effect on the mileage used (going straight from SYD to BKK and not taking the flight?), or maybe open up some other options?

In terms of booking a RTW or Circle Pacific ticket from Thailand / Vietnam, is it simply a case of going on to google and choosing a travel agent over there that offers these fares, or is there another way of doing it?

I've been looking into this for a while now, trying to find a relatively inexpensive way around it. I've tried calling and emailing agencies and airlines, but I never seem to get an advisor who knows enough to help me properly. I didn't realise that going to S America would cause such problems.

Thanks again for your help

Link to fare rules for Circle Pacific:

http://www.oneworld.com/content/libr...rule_sheet.pdf

Be familiar with the fare rules for sectors, stopovers etc - this is the best way to start. All mileage (flown or surface sectors) are counted in the total. So CNS-BKK is not the direct mileage unless OW starts flying that route (which they don't). Therefore you could do CNS-SYD-BKK or CNS-BNE-HKG-BKK for example.

Many here use AA for tickets - ring their local number, arrange the itinerary through them and see if they will accept cc payment over the phone, by fax or personal visit.

Your current itinerary may look like the following:
BKK-HKG-SFO (stopover North America 1) with CX
SFO-MEX on MX (stopover North America 2)
MEX-LIM on MX or LP (stopover South America 1)
SCL-AKL on LA (stopover SWP 1)
CHC-SYD on QF (stopover SWP 2)
CNS-SYD-BKK on QF/BA

Rewritten in another form: BKK-xHKG-oSFO-oMEX-LIM//SCL-AKL//CHC-SYD//CNS-xSYD-BKK; total segments (incl. land) 11 (which is ok, up to 16 allowed); stopovers would also be ok. Total mileage is around 28'900 miles which is very close to the max. of 29'000 (the issuing airline will need to confirm that you are under the 29K limit).

For the Circle Pacific product, flying a given segment or going overland makes absolutely no difference. The miles must be counted. So flying from SYD to BKK at the end or going overland means that the miles for SYD-BKK must be counted. Of course going overland from CNS to BKK would save you the miles for backtracking CNS-SYD. But since you need to buy a 29k-mile ticket anyway, it won't change your final price.

Fare is today THB 126'260 which equals GBP 2'545. Taxes are on top.

PS: I don't know whether an intercontinental surface segment is allowed at all

Why wouldn't it? You're giving them something for nothing

I know that intercontinental (transoceanic) surface sectors between TC1 & TC2 as well as between TC1 & TC3 are not allowed on the oneworld Explorer. Indeed, there seem to be no such restriction on the Circle Pacific.

So in the case of the OWE, OW airlines don't want you to give them anything for free

Thanks for all of your help, I think I'm going to go away and do some rule reading and figure out the best thing to do. I think it wall all come down to ����'s in the end though. Unfortunately.

I was also wondering whether a sum of one-way flights would not be cheaper. I've done a quick search and found the following:
- BKK to SFO can be had for 700-750 US$
- SFO to MEX for 250-300 US$
- MEX to LIM for 500 US$
- SCL to AKL for 1350-1400 US$
- CHC to SYD for 130 US$

Given that you said that you could end your journey at SYD, this would cost roughly 3000-3200 US$. You could save roughly 400 US$ if compared to the Circle Pacific (if I've done all currency conversions correctly ). And maybe cheaper options can be found.

Yeah I've been looking at that too. It's definately worth considering I think.

If you are planning to do this soon, be aware that flights through SCL will be unreliable at best (due to earthquake damage at SCL). Also note that the Circle Pacific fares book into L class (IIRC). This is very restricted and availability may be hard to get in popular times. The individual sector fares (quoted for a more competitive fare) may be in an even more restricted class making getting seats when you want them even harder (the SCL-AKL sector is usually very popular).

The Circle Pacific fare allows changes whereas some sector fares may not (without penalty)

We aren't planning on going until October, and won't be in Chile until Jan/Feb next year so I'm hoping things will be a bit better down there by then.

After having another look at our plans we decided that San Francisco might be pushing the price of our ticket up, so we have re-thought and simplified, and come up with;

UK - Mexico (26/10/10)
Mexico - Lima (25/11/10)
Lima - Santiago OVERLAND
Santiago - Auckland (05/03/11)
Auckland - Christchurch / Queenstown OVERLAND
Christchurch / Queenstown - Sydney (09/04/11)
Sydney - UK

A seperate return ticket from UK to Bangkok would be added on top of this. I think that this would probably be a cheaper option than trying to start and finish in Bangkok.

We are looking for the cheapest way to visit South America and Australia / New Zealand, so if changing where we arrive and depart from has an effect on the price, we are flexible. Also if leaving out Mexico has a big effect on price, we can always book a seperate ticket for that too.

I'm not sure how this will effect everything, but it's worth a try.

With this itinerary I think you should really consider a "classical" RTW ticket, even though you said earlier that you were not seeing this as an option.

Through a oneworld Explorer you will be able to put all your destinations in the itinerary at no extra costs. SFO would be in, same for BKK. Prices are in the �2,500 + taxes and fees range for departure from the UK (which is one of the cheapest origins for economy class RTW tickets).

Alternatively take a look at the Global Explorer ticket. By keeping mileage under 29,000 you can get this for around �2,050+.

A possible itinerary (for the explorer) may be: London-San Francisco-Mexico-Lima//Santiago-Auckland//Christchurch-Sydney//Cairns-Sydney-Bangkok-London. You'll have plenty of flexibility to add more flights up to the total of 16 (that is 5 more flights than in the example above) or to do at least a section of the Bangkok-London segment overland.

That's now an xONE5, but if you fly direct from the UK to South America and buy a separate ticket to MEX then it's an xONE4 and almost certainly cheaper that way. (Mexico is in North America)