I cannot take a month off at once to make a huge trip, so I am researching how to break up a 4-continent OWE into several mini-vacations and a couple of trips to visit my family in SFO. From reading through the archives, it appears the best way to do this is to nest a rt ticket back to your home city to create a virtual "stopover" on another continent. Keeping that in mind, would this routing be possible?

"trip 1"
EWR-LIS (drive through Portugal and Spain)
BCN-ATH
ATH-LHR
buy a rt LHR-JFK and go home for 2 months

"trip 2"
JFK-LHR return on paid rt
LHR-CAI
CAI-LHR
buy another LHR-JFK rt and do another 2 month stopover

"trip 3"
JFK-LHR return on 2nd paid rt
LHR-SIN
SIN-NRT
NRT-BKK
BKK-HKG
HKG-SYD
SYD-PER
PER-MEL
MEL-AKL
AKL-SYD
SYD-LAX
LAX-JFK

"trip 4"
JFK-SFO
SFO-JFK

"trip 5"
JFK-SFO
SFO-EWR

I'm pretty sure the Europe/Asia/Australia parts are OK but I am not so sure about the extra trips to SFO. Does it matter that I originally leave from EWR and then do these side-trips to SFO from JFK? Can I do both trips as JFK-SFO or should I mix it up and try other area airports (LGA, OAK, SMF)?

Your thoughts on inserting paid tickets within your RTW are valid. I have done it, and will be doing it again on our current ticket.

Your itinerary looks fine until you get to Australia. Then, it is my understanding that you can only cross the Tasmania Sea (Australia - New Zealand) once. You show RT SYD-AKL-SYD.

In the US, you are only allowed one transcon flight. You've got 5 in your proposed intinerary. Sorry, but you'll have to drop all but one!

In general this should work. What you could do:
- Instead of going back to LHR go to ia different place in Europe. If you travel C you will find tickets in the UK more expensive than other places (like CAI etc.)
- You could also buy a Europe-NY-SFO with stops in NY, which would give you the additional transcon
- Not sure about Australia. Is the limit one transcon or one flight to NZ? (SYD-PER-MEL)
- Check if RTWs are cheaper from Europe (non UK). You could start there or in Canada.
- Also check, not sure if it is possible to travel the same sector twice (JFK-SFO)

This issue with the trancons are as described by SanDiego1K. You are only allowed:

ex-lon ticket are more expensive than ex-europe.


you may want to check the fares ex-ath, ex-lis, ex-bcn. and rearrange the order of cities you visit.

also, as discussed. there is only one transcont allowed. you have to break your other journey into x-dfw/ord.

or go to MIA instead

Thanks to everyone for their thoughful replies. As mentioned in a different post, I can take the Qantas flight SYD-LAX-JFK which has a single flight number, so it won't count as my North American transcon. I could then do JFK-SFO-ORD-JFK (3 segments, one transcon) and LGA-ORD-SFO-ORD(3 segments) and find a way back to NYC from there.

I'm trying to convince my wife now, and my best argument seems to be the opportunity to visit places that are out of the way and normally have expensive fares. Instead of maximizing miles I would prefer to travel to more costly locales, like the Canary Islands, Cairo, and Easter Island. Where else are "high-ticket" destinations that you could get to on a OWE ticket?

On my 4-continent (ex. Australia) I spent my Aussie segments to Cairns, flew to Johanneburg and Namibia, then up to Eastern Europe (Sofia and Kyiv) and Switzerland. For the US, I'm burning all my segments to get down to Grenada. A big factor in these choices was the cost of flying from the US.

I probably don't have to point out that if your wife is from the same planet as mine, she'll not appreciate flying all day and all night to get to spend a day somewhere just because the flight was a bargain.

Without looking for such out of the way places (unless you've been dying to get there anyway, and have plenty of time to enjoy a stay) note that even more direct OWEs are excellent value, especially in the premium cabins. If you don't normally fly up front, the argument "if we do this we can fly first and enjoy beds" might be a winner.