Can anyone check that the following is a valid business class RTW itnerary with OW.

Melbourne - Bali
Bali-(Hong Kong)-Osaka
Osaka - Hong Kong
Hong Kong - (London) - Beirut
Beirut - London
London - Oslo
Oslo - (London) - Barcelona
Barcelona - Quito, Equador
Guayaquil - (Lima - Santaigo) - Lima *
Lima - (Santiago) -Rio de Janeiro
Rio - Santiago
Santiago - Easter Island
Easter Island - Tahiti
Tahiti - (Sydney) - Papau New Guniea
Papau New Guinea - Melbourne

* Any other way of doing Guayaquil-Lima or Quito - Lima

I think this means that i have to buy 2 more segments? (Europe & South America)

Do I get full miles with BA?
If not, what miles program should i enroll in?

Thanks

Jupeter

You have two huge problems, one of which is causing the other. QF no longer flies PPT-SYD on QF metal. Because of that, you would need to go through North America. This adds a continent and screws up your segment totals for South America.

It is also difficult to tell what you are trying to do in South America, but it looks like you are flying into Quito, overlanding to Guayaquil, flying to Lima through Santiago, flying to Rio through Santiago, and flying to Easter Island through Santiago. If this is right, you have 6 segments, and you are still stuck in Easter Island. So add a 7th to get off.

So you have 4 segment charges, and you have to add a 5th continent unless you want to change a few things and do the EZE-SYD flight on Qantas. Then you add segments, but drop the additional continent.

[This message has been edited by Darren (edited 06-03-2001).]

Hello Jupeter,
Since you are flying in Business, your ticket would in D class, which gets full miles and points from BA.
From your address, you seem to be a UK member of the Exec Club - this would mean that your base mileage would be doubled for D class.

I would however suggest going for an AA Platinum challenge and putting the miles in there- you would earn roughly the same number of miles as on BA, but if you look at the AA awards, they are much better value than on BA. Check on the BA Website for various award redemption requirements and then on AA.com for the same redemptions -you'll find that you can use AA miles to buy award tickets on BA and at cheaper 'prices' than using BA miles.
Hope this is clear- check on the AA pages here for loads more info on the Platinum challenge.
Regards
Salt.

salt, BA is cheaper than AA on certain routes. SFO-BOM/DEL/MAA is only 100,000 miles in Biz RT on BA while it is much more on AA (I believe it is 150,000 miles). On the other hand there are a lot more routes on which AA is much cheaper. The 3 airline OW award allows similar awards using both AA and BA.

On the whole I do recommend AA plat and AA miles but the recommendation may be different if the flying patterns are different.

Thanks all

We'l be crossing the South Pacific via the EZE-AKL route missing out of Easter Island and Tahiti :-(.

The reason for all this Santiago hub'ing is that we are restricted to going to Rio for certain dates.

I'm definetly going for the challenge with AA, couldn't convince my wife to do it though, she'll be sticking with BA (and only get silver ;-) )

Darren, the Guayaquil - (Lima - Santaigo) - Lima *
is actually 2 segements since the first flight goes through Lima, bit of a long way around but at least it gives us the miles.

Furthermore we'll be doing Caracas instead of Rio as that gives us more miles ;-), got the miles with Varig to do the Rio trip anyway.

One more question though, if we do the Hong Kong (London) Beirut with 8 hours stop in LHR does the the LHR - Beu bit count as a segement in Europe?

Thanks again,

Jupeter

Yep.

Europe:
#1 lon-bey
#2 bey-lon
#3 lon-osl
#4 osl-lon
#5 lon-bcn

South America:
#1 gye-scl
#2 scl-lim
#3 lim-scl
#4 scl-ccs
#5 ccs-scl
#6 scl-eze

Three extra segments.

Just a few more comments. You can go mel-hkg-dps on Cathay without extra charges. CX biz is pretty nice. If you are doing this primarily for miles, you could do bcn-(scl)-gye-(scl)-lim-(scl)-ccs-(scl)-eze. Personally, I wouldn't do either. Without debating whether to use IB, since I have not flown them, I would probably go bcn-(scl)-ccs-(scl)-gye-(scl)-eze. I would for two reasons. First, it cuts one segment charge off. Second, if you want to downgrade the additional sector to coach, it is on the shortest sector.

Have a good trip. Don't expect the Lan Chile miles to post any time after flying them. Loved the airline, but miles posting has been like pulling teeth from an alligator. So far, AA has been useless, other than to say that I need to wait a full 60 days.

If they serve the Tarapaca Millennium in biz, drink a glass or 6 for me....