You're pretty much maxed out for a DGLOB34, and you can't use FJ on a DONE4 / 5, so you have to decide if that's your priority. I'm honestly not sure if that ground segment ASP-BNE counts toward your 34,000 miles or not, we don't see a lot of chatter about the DGLOB* tickets on here. Are you driving that segment? Otherwise I'd certainly be doing it on QF, it's a long drive with not a lot in between but is only 3 days a week to BNE and QF only fly to APW from BNE. Your other short segments aren't terribly wasteful in my opinion as they aren't particularly cheap if you would have done them in business class anyway. The US domestic segments are a tossup, but ADL-ASP and DOH-DXB aren't cheap as standalones in business.

Your only other option that I see is to convert it to a DONE4, where you can have a lot more miles, but you can't have any FJ segments. That means buying your own way APW-NAN and also finding a different route from NAN-USA, but you could do NAN-SYD-DFW on QF (requires overnight in SYD). You haven't touched Asia at all, though on a DONEx you're still charged for it going from Europe to the Oceana zone, so there's potential to add segments there. A DONE4 vs. a DGLOB34 is only about a $60-70 difference on the base fare, so if you have any interest in visiting a couple of places in Asia it could be worthwhile. If you have no interest in Asia then stick with what you have, you're not wasting segments because you're at the limit on miles for that ticket, and you can't use FJ on DONE4. (That'll change probably in 2025 or 2026, but not soon enough). If I'm calculating correctly however you still have 2 more segments you can play with on a DONE4 (since you still need to get to ADL which has no direct flights to Asia and will require a connection in OZ adding 1 to your current 13 (***edit, I stand corrected, MH does fly to ADE 5 days a week, so potentially gives you one more segment if you're interested in a KUL stopover), so could consider for example DOH-TYO or HKG on QR, there to BKK or SIN on JL or CX, then QF to SYD-ADL. Or even DOH- anywhere in Asia on QR (but must be where CX or JL fly), stopover, then there to HKG or TYO, then QF/CX/JL to SYD and QF to ADL.I guess you could make that work with MH and KUL as well, I forgot MH does fly to OZ as well. I guess for that matter, so does UL, so you could do DOH-TYO on QR, stopover TYO-CMB on UL, stopover CMB-SYD on UL and SYD-ADL on QF

Ultimately what are you trying to accomplish with this trip? It sounds like going places you really want to go is priority vs. maximizing mileage / TPs, etc. If that's the case, you have a fine itinerary since the south Pacific is harder to incorporate currently in a DONEx until FJ joins OW. It certainly can be done as I've noted in my above alternatives, but you end up with a bunch of short segments that aren't optimized for mileage earnings vs. doing frivolous Europe-DOH-Europe segments on QR, SE Asia-TYO-SE Asia segments on JL, or ORD / DFW to ANC to ORD / DFW on AS for example. I think the way to look at it is you have a bunch of segments, even the short-ish ones that are actually quite expensive to buy in business a la carte, so it's still good value either way.

I don't know what the difference in your YQ will be if you do the above DONE4 suggestions vs. your DGLOB34. Using a QF segment ex-OSL for SYD-DFW typically adds A LOT, but you can ticket it on the AA code for much less YQ. The intra-Asia segments I've mentioned won't make a huge difference. Though note you can't ticket SYD-DFW on an AA code in the OW tool. You have to do that with a RTW desk or travel agent. If however your trip is later in the year, then AA will have their own BNE-DFW flight you can ticket on instead, which will work in the OW tool.

We are taking a flight from ASP to MEL, and will be driving up MEL-BNE. Mileage limitation left me with this option.

This is an interesting approach, which I didn't think off. Let me see if adding some stops in Asia, would allow me to start the trip in Australia in Darwin as well

Valid question. On the one end going places we really want to go (Australia, SWP (Samoa, Fiji), but as I'm more than average interested in mileage / points I definitely want to make sure to renew my OW Emerald as well. Both my wife and myself hold status with Iberia (gold), and one of the downsides of the FJ flights is that they don't credit with them.

As I mentioned the DOH/DXB connection is up for debate; happy to split into two trips elsewhere if I can achieve that. We are planning to do this trip april next year, so there is time and BNE-DFW could be an option in that case.

Welcome, peterd87, to FlyerTalk and the oneworld forum in particular. Planning and taking RTW trips can be great fun and you'll always get good advice here.

Just as a point of interest: All of my oneworld RTWs have been xONEx so I don't know if continents are even a thing on the mileage-based GLOB ticket you're considering but as far as xONEx itineraries are concerned Australia is included in SWP.

Good luck!

Thanks so much for the feedback so far. Seems there is opportunity to turn it into a DONEx. Need to find some time later today to work on the puzzle. Continents are part of the DGLOB, but it does not seem to count Asia as part of the route to Australia, contrary to the DONEx

Realised so far this RTW solution has plenty of opportunity, but somehow it makes you greedy as well as you would like to squeeze in more and more :p

DRW does have QF flights to DPS and soon to be SIN, also to ASP so that's an option. JL doesn't fly to DPS so if you choose there then it would remove Japan from your possible Asian stops (unless you remove segments somewhere else)

Since you've mentioned you're crediting to IB, then miles per segment definitely matters, so where practical I'd be looking at the longer segments within a region, without compromising the places you really want to visit. That 3,001-6000 mile range is really the sweet spot for you, which you do have several of. The only intra-Asia flights though I can think of that go over 3,000 would be NRT-CGK and NRT-CMB, you can get to SYD from both, but not ADL or DRW. I've always been a bit surprised that JL doesn't do TYO-DPS on their own metal, they oddly codeshare with GA once a week on the route, and NH has the codeshare every other day. It's a leisure route but Japanese will still buy premium cabins on leisure routes as you see on Hawaii and BKK. Indonesia is nice in a lot of places and domestic flights are quite cheap, so something to consider. Sri Lanka is interesting too and is more stable again now. Just sub in SYD as your arrival point in OZ and plan to use other tickets (like Avios) for the city that was subbed out. Of course if 115 or 225 tier points is enough vs. 500 then it opens up a lot more possibilities in Asia.

I assume you've already thought of this, but you can transfer your IB Avios to BA to redeem for your necessary intra-Australia flights (since I'm pretty sure IB still requires a round trip award) as well as your FJ flight APW-NAN. You could also transfer to QR but I don't think their award chart for intra-Australia is any different and they tend to charge a lot higher fees.

Since you're planning quite a lot of travel in Australia, just keep in mind the rules for segments. You can only have 4 flight segments within the continent (including SWP), so just as an example, DRW-ASP, ASP-ADE, BNE-APW, NAN-BNE, (could be ADE-ASP, ASP-MEL, BNE-APW, NAN-BNE) Naturally you'll want to use them on the most expensive sectors which with the cities you want, I believe those would be (if buying business, and maybe even economy). The other domestic segments should be pretty easy to book on Avios though, I've always seen tons of availability between the bigger cities. (*Note that segment limit is only for DONE4, not DGLOB34, and I'm not entirely certain but I don't think the surface segment counts towards your 34,000 miles in DGLOB34, so you should still be able to add ASP-MEL if sticking with your original plan)

All of your comments made me think on how to optimize routing and turn this into a DONE4.

Putting our travel plans together for the next year and a half it turned out we could use part of the ticket for this October / November, next chunk April / May next year and then finalize the last portion in October 2025. Will be adding some additional flights as cash / points.

Current routing:
OSL - DOH (3082mi, QR - October '24)
DOH - MIA (7679mi, QR - October '24)
MIA - AUA (1134mi, AA - November '24)
AUA - JFK (surface segment) - we will take a flight AUA - AMS and start the trip from JFK again (mainly because this is a cheap points destination from AMS, could change to any other)
JFK - LAX (2475mi, AA - April '25)
LAX - SYD (7488mi, AA - April '25). The direct DFW - BNE flight that was referred to earlier will likely not operate anymore mid April 2025
SYD - ASP (1256mi, QF - April '25)
ASP - MEL (1154mi, QF - April '25)
MEL - BNE (surface segment - May '25)
BNE - APW (2433mi, QF - May '25)
APW - NAN (surface segment - May '25)
NAN - SYD (1970mi, QF - May '25)
SYD - DOH (7687mi, QR - May '25)
DOH - AMS (3062mi, QR - May '25)
AMS - DOH (3062mi, QR - October '25)
DOH - OSL (3082mi, QR - October '25).

This would lead to 49124 miles, of which 45564 will actually be flown. On Iberia this would credit as 4820 tier points, though timing with the split year is not ideal. For my daughter who has no status (3 year old I will check and see what makes most sense given that Iberia is now allowed). AA RTW desk should be able to ticket given the TATL segment with AA.

Any view on the above, does this indeed seem to be correct and should it be feasible to ticket as such? I realise we are still skipping Asia (though that is less of interest for this trip - when I get the hang of this likely it will be part of the next).

Many thanks!

Peter

Hi,
How do you get OSL - DOH under QR? I thought it was not possible to get QR on first segment?

You can't get it in the online tool - but according to what I read here on the forum AA RTW desk should be able to book it.

Looks like a great itinerary overall. Split years are definitely not ideal but unavoidable in many of these tickets, so you'll need to plan any extra needed elite points around that. I actually grabbed one of the ex-CAI ones when it was on sale recently that's entirely in 2024 but that's also very rare for me. I tend to split them over elite years, but have parts in each year so it evens out.

TBH on a DONE4 it's not optimal to skip Asia, it is a waste because you do pay for it already. But if you are using all 16 segments elsewhere that's a different story. I always have some anyway because I live in TYO, but understand that's different for everyone.

1) CAI was never “on sale” as you say - the price was merely lower than normal because of a currency devaluation. If you were Egyptian paying Egyptian currency, the price was exactly the same as it always was.

2) saying that skipping Asia is missing out because you already paid for it assumes everybody is using these tickets solely to get the most of them. Many people use them because they are cheaper way of going to destinations. They already have to go to in business class. It bothers me that in this thread a lot of people put others down for not trying to squeeze every ounce of value out of the tickets. People have different priorities.

Obviously I'm trying to get the most out of them, and especially the earlier comments made me rethink my choices. Though as you mentioned, priorities are different for all of us. Asia will not be my priority for this trip. Given the distances that we will cover, traveling with 2 young children (4 year old, 1 year old) we are indeed better off with a RTW ticket in BC vs buying these separately.

Considering FF programs to credit; Iberia doesn't seem to be best in terms of actual avios accrual based on the various programs, mostly at 125%. Alaska Airlines might be an option for my daughter. It would allow her to get MVP at the end of 2024 and MVP gold prior to the last 2 flights in 2025. Need to think if I'm going to switch Iberia to Alaska as well in that case.

If you're going for big RDM earnings, then AA or AS is likely to yield the best results. AS is easier than AA starting from scratch. But if you have big credit card spend you could earn status on AA with that and give yourself a head start. Without the elite bonuses then AS would generally yield more RDMs on these tickets, but AA elite bonuses count towards all OW flights vs just their own. The big caveat there is you have to avoid long haul AA flights and use codeshares where possible, and AA won't ticket those. AS is a simpler program per se, but their award chart can be less generous. It's distance based now, so there are some sweet spots that beat AA. AA also has a different qualification year, AS is the typical January-December, AA is March-February, where BA and IB are April-March. If you're doing one of these per year that'll balance out in the end, but if it's a one-off then it might weigh more into consideration.

I know very little about AY's program, but someone noted in another thread that they would net enough tier points for OW Emerald on a DONEx ticket, so could be worth a look. They recently switched to Avios but no one knows yet when the transfer to BA (and therefore IB and QR) will be implemented and apparently their own award chart is pretty bad.

It looks like you have enough to get ba status at least silver?
if so I'd go with that as you can easily pool miles with a household account.

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