RTW advice
 

Hi all,

I've been a long time lurker and have found the forums to be most helpful (as well as occasionally amusing :-) ) now it's time to delurk¬

I have a few queries, I hope some of you will be able to help me with:

I am planning on purchasing a RTW with oneworld Ex-EDI. I've tried using the oneworld RTW site, but it is painfully slow!

My plan is to travel across the USA (WAS, NYC, ORD, SEA, SFO, HON), then onto to HKG, PER then back.

A few queries I have are:

Am I better off booking WAS - SFO as a surface sector and use low cost plans/trains/automobiles (hopefully not ending up like Steve Martin!)?
Should I look at doing an Ex-EU via MAD or DUB?
I have around 60,000 avios - can I do anything meaningful with them?

Many thanks for your help. :-)

1) What class of service?
2) Your proposed route presents a few challenges.
a) BA only flies into IAD, but AA does not fly from IAD to NYC direct so you need to fly out of DCA which causes a surface segment or connect somewhere.
b) AA does not fly SEA-SFO on their own metal. They codeshare on AS but that isn't allowed on a xONEx.
c) AA does not fly from SFO-HNL direct any more so you need to connect in LAX or PHX or DFW.

I would look at something like: EDI-LHR-JFK-DCA-ORD-SEA/SFO-xDFW-HNL-NRT-HKG-PER-SYD-LHR-EDI and buy a cheap SEA-SFO ticket. If you are willing to change your US routing you could get a better usage out of the segments.

And also note that the UK has always been one of the most expensive places to start such a trip. You could save a significant amount of money by, for example, positioning to Cairo to start the OWE ticket.

That is true for a DONE or AONE, but exUK isn't that bad for a LONE, hence my asking what class of service.

exCAI
exEDI
exARN
exOSL
exAMS
exCPT
exJFK

Fair enough. I guess I overlooked the fact that there are a few people on FT who fly down the back! :D

Keep in mind that you have a max of 16 sectors for the ticket and a max of 6 sectors in North America.
Surface sectors count, also connecting flights use two (or more) sectors.
You could buy a separate side trip from one of your stops in the US to have more flights. You don't need to make your US stops in any logical order, but only one transcon flight is allowed and i believe you need to end in Hawaii and then continue from there.

I didn't say I would do it, but to each their own.

If I had the cash, I'd fly first. :D In saying that, the reason I asked about ex-EU, is the possibility of getting a decent quote for business (as this is a trip I doubt I'll ever do again, I could be tempted to push the boat out a bit. However, I can live with economy. :)
I was thinking about buying a ticket between SEA-SFO with AS (I could pick up some extra Avios).

I'm very flexible with my routing, so I'll look into that.

Any other suggestions I should look out for?

Thank you so much for the advice. :-)

If you go business class take christep's advice and start somewhere besides the UK; Cairo is decently priced.

Short hops in the US is usually a waste of segments on a DONE so try to do a routing that will allow you to maximize them. Something like LHR-SEA/SFO-JFK-ORD-DCA-DFW-HNL would be better.

Cool, I'll have a look into this routing. :)