Thanks!

I've actually changed the trip a bit in that I decided to spring for an AONE6 because it's really only another 2-3k and you get to see so much more that way!

My planned routing is now:

Positioning: SEA-xDFW-xLHR-RUH and return

1. Riyadh (RUH) - xLHR - Sydney (SYD)
2. Sydney (SYD) - Bangkok (BKK)
3. Bangkok (BKK) - Delhi (DEL)
4. Delhi (DEL) - Tokyo (NRT)
5. Tokyo (NRT) - Beijing (PEK)
6. Beijing (PEK) - Hong Kong (HKG)
7. Hong Kong (HKG) - New York (JFK)
8. New York (JFK) - Santiago (SCL)
9. Santiago (SCL) - Easter Island (IPC)
10. Easter Island (IPC) - Lima (LIM)
11. Lima (LIM) - xLAX - xLHR - Nairobi (NBO)
12. Nairobi (NBO) - xLHR - Riyadh (RUH)

Prices out on the online tool at 48,835 SAR or ~$13,000.

Hopefully getting AA to ticket it might knock a couple hundred off that.

I'll ticket as taking the AA LAX-LHR flight but I'll probably change it to BA once they've ticketed.

Any advice on changes to this is appreciated.

Why not take a SYD-AKL-SYD sector when you visit SYD? You have enough sectors available but will have to slum it in Business as no OW seats in First trans Tasman.

(edited: I now see you have several sectors in some of your 12 lines shown above and have actually run out of sectors if you ticket as shown. Maybe you can visit NZ next time or do a separate non AONEx trip ex SYD? )

I haven't planned out my travel in Oceania, but I am certainly going to purchase some separate tickets and will make it over to New Zealand, I just need to look at all of the options, including the Visit Australia and New Zealand pass.

Once I posted my original message I went on the OneWorld site and looked at the prices. I'm in the UK, and if I was to originate in Saudi instead of here, the price would be halved. OneWorld 6 continent in F looks to be $11500 on my conversion (SAR42800 straight to USD), much better than the $20000 priced from the US

I think BA New First is far superior to Flagship on AA but the real treat is HKG-JFK on CX F. I've only flown the Cathay First on one trip but it is incredible, the only superior flights I can remember are Emirates and Singapore in F (Or should that be R, they were suites). You have a long time to get hammered, eat and sleep, rinse and repeat.

I think this is a great itinerary because you hit the major cities and can do lots of side trips. In China I did a circle route of one way flights; Beijing, Xi'An, Chengdu, Lhasa, Shanghai, back to Beijing. Each flight was $100 or so and it was good fun, having done those cities I would say you have seen most of the big sights in China. Chengdu is home to the panda sanctuary as well as being a stepping stone to Tibet. If you're interested I booked my internal flights on ctrip.com, a lot of people use them. There is a competitor but I cannot remember the name right now

If you wanted to see Singapore and/or Taipei I would do these from Hong Kong, again in a circle of one-ways if possible. This is what I did when I did my first big tour of Asia, at age 19. Singapore is a fabulous city but you will run out of activities quickly, I would suggest more time in Taipei. Taipei 101 is what I went for initially but the various temples, museums and hot springs were a blast

Cambodia would be the obvious side trip from Bangkok. Angkor Wat is magnificent and something you really must see once in your lifetime

India is a problem as seeing the country properly would take a long, long time. While various areas have their sights and unique cultures, there are so many things to do and see that I'm sure it needs it's own trip. If you get the chance, Goa is a beautiful beach destination and very different to the rest of India

My mom is from Nairobi, so I must suggest a trip to Mombasa. Certain safety concerns in Kenya these days mean travelling extensively may not be the best idea but you should go see Mombasa

I would say Japan needs it's own trip to be seen properly but you can easily get the 7 day JR Rail Pass and travel the length of the country and take in Osaka, Kyoto, Nagoya, Nara, Hiroshima, Kobe

Just some suggestions there. I don't know how long you intend on staying in each of these destinations but those would be the obvious side trips that I would want to book separately if I really wanted to explore

On a side note, Riyadh to Sydney via LHR sounds like a solid 30 hours of flying. You can't get QF F on that can you?

Thank you for all the great advice! I'll look into everything that you have recommended. ^

In fact, you can. BA F to LHR and then QF LHR-SYD on the A380 in F That flight stops for fuel in SIN but counts as a single segment as it is a single flight number.

That is an exceptional flight, looks like the stars are aligning for you mate. My parents have done Qantas and Singapore in A380 F and I've done Emirates and Singapore. They are all great and all have Dom so no worries

The Qantas Lounge in Sydney is one of the best in the world, another great aspect of the QF F flight.

How long are you planning on taking to do all this? I'd love to be able to take 6 months or so and really go slow. Like I said, shoot me a message if you want to know more about any of the cities, I'll fill you in

I am most looking forward to the A380 flight and the CX HKG-JFK

I am constricted by my school schedule, so I plan to leave June 15 and return end of September.

I'm sure I'll take you up on your offer for advice, thanks again so much!

I scrapped Africa based on time constraints, plan to do that with the family in 2012. Here is my final itinerary, an AONE5, which is on-hold so that I can go purchase it at the AA desk in YVR. Due to some errors in the online tool I was unable to book online, it kept failing after I put in my credit card.

Positioning: SEA-xJFK-xLHR-RUH and return

1. Riyadh (RUH) - Amman (AMM)
2. Amman (AMM) - xLHR - Sydney (SYD)
3. Sydney (SYD) - Bangkok (BKK)
4. Bangkok (BKK) - Delhi (DEL)
5. Delhi (DEL) - Tokyo (NRT)
6. Tokyo (NRT) - Beijing (PEK)
7. Beijing (PEK) - Hong Kong (HKG)
8. Hong Kong (HKG) - New York (JFK)
9. New York (JFK) - xLAX - Santiago (SCL)
10. Santiago (SCL) - Easter Island (IPC)
11. Easter Island (IPC) - Lima (LIM)
12. Lima (LIM) - xSFO - xLHR - Riyadh (RUH)

I'm going to Vancouver on Friday or Saturday, got the Capital One card to avoid FOREX fees.

Do you have a visa for Saudi or do they now allow airside transit w/o visa, or what?

cheers,

Henry

They allow TWOV if your connection is less than 18 hours and you are taking the next flight. Both are true in my situation. You can also get permission to leave the airport of your transit is between 6-18 hours. I'm considering applying for their free transit visa designed for 18-72 hour transits for convenience.

BrewerSEA I'm getting 15 segments for your trip.

Can I suggest you try using your last segment somewhere in the US? it's going to waste for no reason!

For example:
8. New York (JFK) - xLAX - Santiago (SCL)

Try this
JFK-xSJU-xLAX-SCL
JFK-xMIA-xLAX-SCL

Try adding something inbetween.
JFK-SJU-LAX will be all booked in D business though
JFK-MIA this will be domestic F
MIA-LAX has the 777 service so you'll get 3 class F (of course not meal)

Here is a picture of how it is

I'm an idiot, I forgot to include my initial RUH-AMM segment as it was added toward the end of my planning, when I was trying to force an AA booking online. I ended up not needing it as I booked through the RTW desk, but because I looked at a bunch of travel possibilities after thinking I would need to do this, I decided I wanted to go to Jordan and do land travel around the area.

At one point my itinerary included the MIA-LAX 772 flight, it's a pretty good tag-on.

Don't know if your positioning flights before and after the AONE5 is a return ticket or not
but do you realise that you are not required to return to Saudi at the end of the RTW ticket - anywhere in the Middle East will do
and that way you can get to visit another place (e.g. MCT)

I considered doing this but the price difference is pretty significant, considering I'm paying for a J ticket to RUH, which is about $4500 r/t, and a couple of other cities I've tried in a multi city booking all were at least $1000 more, e.g. DXB, AUH, MCT, KWI, BAH, DOH, JED...I think I've got everything pretty much covered there. If I'm missing something I would LOVE to hear it though.

Thought I'd post here with the final purchase information. I hopped over to YVR to take advantage of the wonderful Canadian exception. In the end I had to make two trips because of an issues with my credit card (very frustrating). On the first trip for some reason a few of my held segments had been cancelled, but luckily this was fixed pretty quickly by the very helpful Karen at the AA desk in Vancouver. She had to call the rate desk to reprice the ticket after putting the segments back in, but that only took a few minutes. One issue that came up both times is that they had to remove a number of X characters from different parts of the ticket, not sure exactly what that was but it was fairly time consuming to remove each individually. They said it there was a character limit, I think in the fare calculation field on electronic tickets. Second time up they just had to remove the X characters and the whole process took less than 10 minutes.

Price for this AONE5 ex-RUH?

Fare was SAR 38,416.00 which at today's exchange rate was CAD 10,364.00, pretty much the same in USD as they are close to at parity.

YQ was $297.12
AY was $7.42
XT was $472.27

Ticket issuing fee (for using a counter) $33.60 (incl tax)

Total out-of pocket price: CAD 11,174.41