Thanks. Indeed, I checked again and no oneworld direct routes SIN to DPS so we will likely drop DPS. AA does fly direct Tokyo to Vancouver on a JL codeshare (I missed that!).

I did include the mileage of all segments so above table should be correct.

Given I am at 30,000 miles I should be able to do the internal Australian flights and keep under 34,000.

Can anyone help with my other questions (and offer for a chat in the lounge, drinks on me ).

Thanks

Tony

A few things...

First, I don't see any eligible way to use TN on PPT-TYO. Are you seeing a Qantas code on the PPT-TYO flight anywhere? Otherwise, it appears that you'd have enough miles in the bank to fly back to Auckland and Sydney to get to Tokyo, e.g. ...DPS-SYD-AKL-PPT-AKL-SYD-TYO.

Second, although the trip isn't planned to take place until 2025, if it was booked today, starting from the UK (MAN or LHR) the base price for a DGLOB34 would be �6200 (plus a lot in taxes and fees.) If you started in Norway, the same ticket would carry a base price of �4433. You can fly one way from MAN to OSL in economy most days for under a hundred quid.

Now far be it from us to hijack your plans, but Tahiti is really the trouble spot in your desire to use Oneworld products to their greatest efficiency. Now maybe PPT is non-negotiable, but if it WAS an optional destination, you could use a Oneworld Explorer, with no mileage limitations, which would (or could, depending on your desires) provide a chance for additional travel, without bringing the Global Explorer's mileage limits into account.

For example, you could swap Fiji for Tahiti. Qantas fly nonstop from SYD to NAN. Or, if you're looking for a tropical or subtropical island break, have a look at Lord Howe Island, accessed nonstop from Sydney. Want a French-speaking Pacific island with beautiful beaches and landscape? Qantas fly from SYD to Noumea (NOU) on New Caledonia, from which one could travel to several out islands like the Isle of Pines.

If you DID switch to a Oneworld Explorer, you might be able to leverage more travel, over a longer period, than with the Global Explorer. Take for example this DONE4 route originating in Oslo: OSL-DOH-DPS-KUL-SYD-NAN-SYD-NOU-SYD-HND-SEA-ANC-ORD-LHR-AMM-DOH-OSL . This is imaginary of course and is only an example of an infinity of options available. This trip would give you lots of tropical beaches (or whatever) - Bali, Fiji and Noumea - and, if you wanted, a break from the tropics with a visit to Alaska on the way back to Europe. (Or it could be more tropical stops in Mexico, Central America or the Caribbean.)

But note that by not returning to the country of origin (Norway in this case) you'd still be able to use some of the Europe/Middle East segments allowed in the Oneworld Explorer. (You're allowed four flights and two stopovers in the continent of origin.) So in this case you'd land in London, but it would be a stopover, not a terminus. Months later (before the year's validity of the ticket expires) you could fly to, say, Jordan (could be Israel, Egypt, Morocco, Dubai, Greece, wherever) for a second (or is it third?) holiday, before ending back in Oslo, another hundred quid from home. Using the Global Explorer, you'd be well into injury time on the mileage front, but not with the OWE.

Anyway, some food for thought over the coming months. Now, to your questions.

1. You could include intra-Australia flights with the Global Explorer, but you'd have to count the mileage and segments. Remember open-jaw or surface segments still use one of the 16 maximum segments; even airport changes, like Narita to Haneda, or Heathrow to Gatwick, consume a segment, and you'd have to count the miles you would have flown between open-jaw airports, e.g. the train from DRW to ADL would consume a segment and you'd have to count the 1623 miles you would have flown.

2. Yes, full TPs and Avios.

3. Not necessarily. You can change dates easily; most people will book "dummy" dates when the flights first open for booking (around 330-365 days preflight, depending on the airline) then change to the "real" dates later. That's to lock in the price in case one is concerned that the price might go up if you wait. Date changes are supposedly free, but most OW airlines charge "service" fees (ha ha.) Changing the itinerary - connection to stopover, changed cities, etc.- requires the ticket to be reissued, with a flat fee (USD125 usually) plus whatever nuisance fees the airline adds.

4. Play with distances using the Great Circle Mapper (like the example above.) Remember to include the mileage between surface segment points.

5. You can see base fares using Expert Flyer. Additional taxes and fees are route-dependent, but you ought to browse this thread - https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/onew...periences.html - to see what people are experiencing. The choices of country of origin, the ticket's issuing airline, airlines used in the course of the trip, and stopover points can make a HUGE difference in the bottom line - 20% - 30% or more.

6. People are different. Westbound in the northern hemisphere (maybe southern too? Not sure.) generally is against the prevailing winds, so the flights are longer and the nights last forever. You're passing through 24 time zones; so jetlag is going to be an issue from time to time, with no escape. That's one reason that flat beds in business class are beneficial.

Happy planning!

Thanks for this, plenty of food for thought... I am sure I will be back with more questions.

Edit - I checked on the PPT-TYO again, and whilst it shows a route it is via AKL. I am leaning towards a visit to French Polynesia on another trip and going from Sydney straight to Tokyo but will look at some of the options suggested by Gardyloo ... Thanks to everyone for the detailed replies

If you can drop PPT, then a DONE4 will generally make more sense and give you more value than a glob ex. You could pretty much hit all of your other destinations plus a few more as noted by others above. 16 segments with unlimited mileage provides a bit more freedom and flexibility.

So a JL operated/marketed flight NRT-YVR that has a AA codeshare(AA flight number). JL flys that route not AA. Could book either marketed flight.

Easy to go DPS <----> SIN as a separate cash side trip.

And via Australia as no Oneworld airline flys AKL-TYO non stop?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auckland_Airport

FJ (Oneworld connect) does fly NAN to NRT. FJ OK for OW Global, but not OWE
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...s_destinations

Did you particularly want to go to PPT? If you're looking for a pacific island holiday within easy reach of Australia's east coast, have you considered Vanuatu? It's delightful, and there are direct flights from SYD with Air Fiji (which is a OW affiliate)

This is quite addictive! I have reconfigured the trip based on suggestions as shown below. We have not decided on the South Pacific island yet, but we are aiming for a QF serviced location. We are starting in Oslo but this can obviously change depending on price. We have a trip to Iceland included, which we will do a few months after the rest of the trip. I am hoping this trip will satisfy the criteria of OW Explorer and understand this will offer better value than the Global Explorer? Locations in bold are where we will be spending time ie not stopovers. A few questions:

1) Is this OK with OW Explorer? I have a few stopovers in Europe, I think this may be an issue and I can take out Manchester and just buy a return LHR-MAN. Also, is the Icelandair codeshare allowed with OW Explorer? If not I can just use BA from LHR?

2) The first airline in this trip is QR, I assume that in order to maximise Avios the first airline I use would ideally be the one that I use the most on the trip (Tier points should not be affected)? In this case would it make sense to use a QF flight (Emirates codeshare) to SIN or would this not be allowed with the OW Explorer?

3) The flight to SIN involves a stopover in Doha, does this count as an additional continent? If so I should perhaps look at Finnair to get to SIN in order to keep the number of continents to 4?

4) Is flying from OSL to SIN via LHR using BA allowed and if so can it be booked with BA as the first airline with the trip starting in Oslo?

GCMapper

Welcome aboard

Cannot use Icelandair as it is not a OW airline. Look at the rules for allowable airline.
Have you downloaded the rules from the OW web site?

Airport code for main Doha airport is DOH. DIA is another (old) airport in the region
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doha_I...tional_Airport
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamad_...tional_Airport

Why DOH-SIN-SYD when can go DOH-SYD/MEL/BNE/ADL/PER/AKL non stop on QR? Noting no stopover in SIN.
Could be more adventurous with more stopovers.

Edit
From OP's other thread -->South Pacific Island for Holiday/Snorkelling direct from Sydney?
[IMHO replies better in this thread]

A stopover is a stay of more than 24 hours; a transit is a stay of less than 24 hours. You are only allowed 2 stopovers in your continent of origin; in your case this continent would be EUR/ME. A stopover in DOH will be one of your two permitted EUR/ME stopovers which may affect your later travel plans. I�m not sure if what you have identified as overnight stopovers are real stopovers or just transits.

The QF codeshare on EK is not permitted. You may only use the airlines listed in the rules.

I have gone through the rules in detail (famous last words) and hope that the revised itinerary below fits but suspect I have missed something. I have added a few stops to maximise the free flight segments within each continent (Vietnam is somewhere we have not visited). Apologies, I was not clear in my use of the terms stopover and transit, I have updated the spreadsheet accordingly.

I have removed the Manchester flights as you are only allowed 2 stopovers in your continent of origin. For the same reason I have deleted the Iceland side trip (was for later in the year after the round the world trip).

I am returning from North America to Oslo via Doha rather than London in the expectation that taxes will be lower, is this correct? Will also get more Tier points I guess!

I am looking at a oneworld Explorer, assume this is a DONE4? What can I expect this to cost?

GCMapper

(1) You only have 14 sectors here, so still two to play with.
(2) SGN-KUL-SIN-SYD seems wasteful. You can get a cheap return SIN-KUL-SIN or vice-versa. Rather do something like SGN-NRT-SIN-HND-SYD
(3) Similarly, SYD-HND-HKG-YVR. If you stop in Tokyo earlier, you could do SYD-HKG-YVR.
(Remember the 2000 mile threshold for Tier Points.)

Thanks for this, I will have a look and see how I can re-route...

Edit - I think the two sectors I have left need to be in North America as I think I have maximum free sectors in Asia and Australia?

henry999 Do I not already have the maximum number of segments in this trip (16) once my Sydney to South Pacific island return flights are added? Is each flight, including surface segment (DWL-ADL) not a segment?

I have taken on board Henry99 suggestions and makes a big difference with TPs and Avios, now to sell the idea of more flying to my wife, the most challenging part of the planning Trip will earn > 1,500 TPs so hopefully a no brainer...

I count that I have a maximum of 16 segments but I may not be counting segments correctly.

GCMapper

I would look at it this way. The base price for a DONE4 ex-Norway at the moment is �4480. Let's assume the added taxes and fees (and note the taxes aren't the issue, it's the supplemental fees charged by the airlines that makes the big difference) add, say, �1200 to that price, for a total of �5680. If you use all 16 of the available segments, that equates to an average cost of �355 per flight. Now that's terrific value on something like HKG-YVR or DFW-DOH, but not so great on KUL-SIN, which you can fly for �25 in economy or �145 in business class as a walk-up. Of course, there may be cases where there aren't cheap alternatives to using a coupon from the RTW, but with all the time you have to plan, I'd suggest thinking about maximizing the value of the RTW, both in terms of the savings, as it were, by using the RTW over conventional tickets, and in terms of possible elite status ramifications. Your current plan (above) would generate around 1080 BA tier points by my calculations, more than enough for BA Silver but 420 short of Gold (never mind the BA-metal segments required for the moment.) I think it's entirely possible to hit that 1500 with your RTW ticket, if that's of interest to you.

Another consideration is the order of your visits. I'd personally be concerned about your ability to find someone - either an airline operative or a travel agent - who could machete his/her way through the thicket of rules and regulations in order to ticket a route that goes Europe/ME - Asia (with stopovers) - Australia - Asia (with stopovers) - North America. The rule that allows two entries into Asia without the requirement that one of them only be for a "direct connection" to/from the Southwest Pacific is quite recent, and even though you might have the rules on your side, resistance on the part of an issuing airline (blame ignorance of the rules, inexperienced staff, whatever) could make your life miserable. Is it mandatory for you to visit SE Asia en route to Australia, then access North America via HKG or Tokyo? Could you bundle all of your Asia stops separately from the Australian ones, maybe doing Australia first?

If tier points are important, then adding stops in North America is an easy way to run up the score. While the rules only allow one transcontinental nonstop, there are a number of routes with segments above 2000 miles, elevating the tier point totals from 40 TP to 120 TP. For example, Chicago to Anchorage is over 2800 miles each way, Dallas to Anchorage is over 3000 miles, and Dallas to San Juan, Puerto Rico is over 2000 miles, all of which are allowed within the rules.

For example, this route - OSL-DOH-SYD-DRW//ADL-KUL-HND-DFW-ANC-ORD-SJU-DFW-SEA-DOH-MAN-HEL-OSL would generate around 1500 tier points, enough for Gold, including a stopover in Manchester if you want it. With this plan, you'd do your SE Asia shuttling on your own dime, outside the RTW rules, and save the RTW segments for higher tier point or Avios yields. Just a thought, anyway.