Hi All,

I am about to attempt my first RTW in J. I'm an AA EXP and would like to include SYD, ZRH, CMN and BOS in my itinerary, starting in ATL. I'm looking for comments and advice from the veterans among you.

My priorities are the following:
1 - Maximize comfort (fly AA and upgrade to F using VIPOWS, fly BA in the near-flat-bed J, whenever possible?)
2 - maximize service (avoid IB?)
3 - minimize total trip length (I'd gladly do it under the 10 day minimum that RTW requires, if I could)
4 - and of course, more Q-miles/Q-points wouldn't hurt...

So, I was thinking:

ATL-ORD-ZRH on AA (upgrade to F w/ VIPOW or miles)
ZRH-MAD-CMN on IB
CMN-LHR-SYD on BA
SYD-LAX on QF, LAX-BOS on AA (upgrade to F w/ stickers on AA)
BOS-ORD-ATL on AA

Any comments on the above? Would a westbound route be better? I read about the great service on CX and the possibility of upgrading using miles. Any thoughts? Any way to include it such an itinerary?

Thanks!

Just one comment.

Because you are flying LHR-SYD you have to pay for the 4th continent (Asia)and because you are not having a stopover in Asia on that leg you are able to backtrack to Asia on the way back to North America.

So you could fly LHR-SYD-HKG-TPE-SJC and then upgrade your TPE-SJC AA segment or NRT-wherever AA fly from Tokyo.

If you want to maximise Q-points - well that requires a whole book.

1. comfort. y, BA J & AA F, also using AA upgrade on CX into CX F, but 40K miles works on RT, not for RTW (since that will be 1-way, so the best use of the 40k upgrade is(atl)-LAX-HKG-SYD-HKG-(lhr) - cx on capital letter routes )


2. servie: maiximize CX segments
3. min trip length: fly west bound? witht he tail wind (or is it east bound, i am always confused with E/W). also, overnight on the F seats, since u can sleep well

If you want to do the whole thing in the minimum 10 days I think it boils down to a choice between time in the four cities you list or time on planes to get more miles. You can easily get at the very least another 20,000 flown miles out of a 4-continent OWE RTW but it comes at the expense of your four stops becoming quite brief.

Eastbound cuts the flying time due to prevailing winds, but IMHO westbound is better jetlag-wise.

There's an understatement, Hagbard. As it is, the itinerary is about 30K miles. At 500mph, thats about 60 hours in the air. Add about 2 hours per stop, and you add another 20 hours. That's over 3 days, which only leaves less than 2 days per stop. And that's not accounting for transfers, customs, etc...

And my last westbound flight destroyed my system much more than the 10 eastbound flights before it combined. I think it just depends on the person and the routing.