OneWorld Vacation for 2004
 

I am planning a vacation for October 2004. It is my intent to use miles for the trip. Does anyone have any recommedations on routing/order, in order to maximize our time? The cities we are planning to visit include: Johannesburg South Africa, Sydney Austrailia, Kuala Lumpur Malaysia,Hong Kong and possibly Tokoyo. Also, if anyone has any hotel recommedations, your thoughts would be much appreciated. Thanks

How many miles do you have which you wish to use for this trip?

We have a ton of miles. I just want to maximize the time and not "double back" if we do not need to.

Without concern for the airlines you fly on and not all in first class
DFW-NRT-HKG-KUL-HKG-SYD-JNB-LHR-DFW

Its about 33,000 miles and I doubt you will find a routing that is significantly less if at all. The only caveats are that you will be flying AA transpacific and if you are doing first class, the SYD-JNB is a two class aircraft. To rectify both situations, you would be able to do DFW-LAX-SYD-HKG-NRT-HKG-KUL-HKG-JNB-LHR-DFW which would be a slight over 37,000. Since the cutoff is at 35,000 miles, the second itinerary would cost more miles, but not significantly more, imo. Finally, combining the two of all first class and AA transpacific, you would get DFW-NRT-HKG-KUL-HKG-SYD-HKG-JNB-LHR-DFW which would also be about 37,000 flight miles. Hope that makes sense and hope it helps.

I assume Darren is suggesting ...HKG-KUL-HKG-SYD... because I don't think any of the OW airlines fly directly KUL-SYD (hence the backtrack to Hong Kong). However, Singapore is less than 200 miles from KUL and you can fly QF or BA from SIN-SYD. Perhaps you could drive to Singapore (not sure how feasible that is) or find a cheap Malaysian Airlines flight - such a ticket (on Malaysian or Singapore Airlines) is currently $58. I assume - but do not know - that a 'break' (i.e., non-contiguous legs)in a OW mileage ticket is allowed, given that the award is miles-based.

Indeed. In fact, that's what I was initially going to put in but confused myself. I am getting old and my brain doesn't work as well as it did in my 20's. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

So DFW-NRT-HKG-SIN-SYD-JNB-LHR-DFW which is 31000 miles and still fits in the 25-35000 zone.

The other option is DFW-NRT-HKG-KUL-land-SIN-SYD-JNB-LHR-DFW

CX definitely flies to KUL - Kuala Lumpur - from HKG. I'm not sure about driving, but with Malaysian and Singapore Air offering special 'shuttle flights' see http://www.kiat.net/klia/airlines.html that would mean only one extra trip.

Cheers,

TravelTil