A friend of mine and I are planning on doing a RTW DONE4 starting in Asia, Feb 05. We are in the QF program, and are looking to maximise the Status Credits we receive for the trip, but the full plan for that trip is a question for another thread.

My question to the guru's here:

We want to start in CMB, but could fly from BKK or TPE as well for cost reasons (will buy a seperate ticket from BNE australia to and from this start location).

We have been trying to work out how many places we could stop in asia before moving on to europe or africa with as many routings via HK(so it is only one flight segment because as i understand it most cx flights have to route through HK anyway) as possible for the sake of SC points. For instance an initial flight of CMB to somewhere in India, via hk.

This is in the hope to get as close to QF Gold, or OW Sapphire by the time we get to the next continent, especially if the second continent is europe.

We require a total RTW routing on our DONE4 that will get us to QF platinum/OW Emerald by the time our trip ends.

If it is unrealistic for the Gold before europe, please advise.

Thanks in advance guys, ive been reading for a while and hope to help contribute to others soon.


Cheers

Simon

You are allowed 4 flights and 2 stopovers in your continent of origin.

Yes, I understand that rule.

I just wanted to know if you flew a leg in asia and cx routed you through hk to get there does it count as 1 or 2 segments

1 segment equals one flight number. As far as I can tell, CX breaks all its flight numbers in HKG. For example, I can fly from SYD to LHR on BA - 24 hours of flying - as BA uses 1 flight number even though BA stops in BKK. If I flew CX from SYD to LHR, it would count as 2 flight segments, as CX has one flight number into HKG and a second for the onward flight.

you are asking about flights such as cmb-hkg which stops in BKK? but is on 1 flight number/segment?
karachi is the only place AFAIK - that will give you 100 sc per flight..

i would concentrate on max seg's in the US as those will all be booked in F and you can have 6 seg's max.
so maybe do what ever you like in Asia, do lhr-dxb-lhr- ?- lhr, then get the most out of the US such as lhr-yyz-

If you're ticketed CMB-HKG and you're flying to HKG. It doesn't matter where the plane stops enroute either in SIN or BKK, you're on 1 segment only.

where you hoping to be able to go from CMB-NRT 4 times??

There is a conflict between mileage and status runs. Status runs you might want to do the minimum amount of extra flying, for the shear hell of it. I used to route LHR to SYD or back, every weekend. I would always switch aircraft in SIN to ensure that I got the UK-Asia, Asia-Oz status points rather than UK-Oz direct (At least outbound as I would usually xONEx the route via LAX home). You may want to take some of the triangular routes that CX operates and split the coupons over those and still get to your basic destination. They used to do HKG-BKK-SIN and if all you wanted to do was HKG-SIN then do the two coupon thing, check in for both flights once and just sit there and arrive in SIN later than going direct.

You might want to try to maximise the number of 2701+ mile flights and 5000+ mile flights that you take as you are sector/coupon limited. Get a printout of the routes that the airlines take and try to work your changes in as soon as you reach the 2701 or 5000 miles. It is a long way from HKG to Europe, about 6000 miles direct to London so split it if you have the coupons into two sectors of 2701 plus. CX do Bahrain if that is any use. You could always end Europe in Madrid and take IB over the Atlantic rather than have to route through LON again. Using Finnair is always good for the 1000+ mile flights if you only have a day to do a quickie 120 point two coupon dash. HEL is a beautiful city in summer but a bit dark in winter!

As a final point, good luck on getting a D class seat anywhere. I used to get the economy seat a lot and they don't credit you for the D status if you travel in cattle.

See you in the lounge in HKG or in Oz sometime.

David

I am not sure why you want to maximise the CX flights, but let me say a few things in gthis regard. The CX J seats/beds are generally considered by people here to be less comfortable than the new QF Skybeds and BA's horozontal beds. And when flying CX on the QF FF program you don't get the FF status bonus. But if you are just starting out on the status chase, that may not be as much of a problem until you reach Gold/Plat levels when the 50% and 100% bonus on QF, BA and AA flights becomes attractive.

That said, here are a few thoughts.

I am not aware of any CX flights that transit HKG. As far as I know, all CX flights originate or terminate at HKG.

You can use CX for carriage between SWP and Europe continents, even if you start in Asia and have used you 4 Asia segments and/or 2 stopovers. For max QF status earning on CX between SWP and Asia, use AKL-HKG-LHR. This is two sectors of your 20 max, but each sector is over 5000 miles so 160 SC each. You could even do HKG-AKL as you intercontinental between Asia and SWP, then trans-Tasman to SYD/MEL/BNE and a bit around Australia before heading back to AKL for the AKL-HKG-LHR.

Or if you are going the other direction, look for AKL-HKG-JFK as travel between SWP and North America. The JFK-HKG as the return to Asia.

Remember that you must return to your point of origin, so starting in Asia other than inter-continental gateways like HKG, SIN, BKK, NRT, DPS, BOM etc will require you to retainan Asia segment for your return. That may make BKK an attractive place to start as you can return to BKK from Europe or SWP using QF or BA, and by the end of the trip you should be WP status and enjoy the additional 100% status bonus points on the QF/BA flights.

Thanks guys, I appreciate the help.

I should have been more clear initially it seems.

I was not wanting to transit bkk or tpe.. i was saying that if i had to start there it would need to be for a good reason as they are considerably more expensive for done4 ticket than cmb.

The main reason i was wanting cx was simply because i thought that to and from several destinations in asia, not including hkk, they might route you through hkk without incuring a segment penalty, and therefore maximising SC points.

As far as I know you cant fly Qantas Skybed if you aren't flying to or from Aus/NZ. And although we live here in australia, the cost of starting a done4/5 here is prohibitive (best price ive found is $8400aus for a done4 originating here in AUS).

coming through SWP is not really an option as we want a done4. We think that we have to start in asia cause of the cheap cost, but really its only a status points getting exercise in asia as we dont have any destinations there we are wanting to stopover in for any lengthy period of time. Most time will be spent in africa, europe and north america. And even then, africa is mainly stuff out of johannesburg.

But above all, as much as we will enjoy are trip, it is equally important to us to gain emerald/QF Platinum, as by qualifying in feb, both of us will be able to keep that status for 20months (our program calendar ends in nov).

Any more help would be appreciated, and the tip for flying only on F equipped flights in the US is a great idea to gain more SC's for free.


Best Regards

Simon

the max points in asia/ start of trip, would involve HKG-karachi-hkg-asia somewhere-hkg-lhr-dxb-lhr would get you 680 SC for starters.

so i guess cmb-hkg-karachi-hkg-nrt-lon-dxb-lon-
but maybe think about flying to karachi versus the extra SC..
it has been discussed here before - do a search

One other thing to note: QF has applied to fly SYD-HKG-LHR, and by the time next Feb rolls around, they may be running that route. And I agree, their new beds are way more comfortable than CX's; the latter do not lie nearly horizontal. As a result, in order to avoid sliding off the bottom, you have to put them in a sort of "Z" config. Not very comfortable- BA flatbeds are better, and new QF beds (on all flights from SYD and MEL to LHR, via both SIN and BKK), are much better.

If you're wanting to do Africa, keep in mind you'll have to route either ASIA-NA-EUR-AFR-ASIA or vice versa - you won't be able to go to Europe from Asia, as it leaves you no way to get out of Africa then (except for the Ghana and Nigeria exceptions - but it seems like you're headed for South Africa). If you're looking for extra miles you can always book on the AA codeshares on some CX flights (such as HKG-NYC), thus getting the seats and service, plus the status bonus too.

There's been plenty written already in plentiful threads about ways to maximise the miles and SC's for most continents. For NA flights such as SFO-BOS and DFW-ANC are over 2700 miles, for EUR the LHR-DXB is over 2700 as well - and there's plenty of 1000+ mile destinations in all the areas to help bump up the SC's too if you're not looking to spend too many hours in the plane.

I guess at this point it's probably worth listing any destinations that are musts for you, and taking it from there - once you know where you definitely have to go, it makes it easier to work out SC runs around that and gives you an idea of what else might be possible. Certainly wish you luck with it all, sounds like it should be an enjoyable time!

Hi again,

Remember to split that flight HKG to LON if possible, and effective. Haven't had time to check but you could go CX via somewhere like AMS, FRA, CDG or earlier like BAH, depending upon your coupon consumption.

Secondly, from what I remember of the aircraft schedules, the QF aircraft on HKG out of Oz are the same as the QF aircraft to LON (not Pacific config or the new 400ERs). Therefore, you stand a chance of getting a skybed on this route.

What is the benefit of doing that? These are all over 5000 miles, so the same SC's, but to get any >1000 miles connections you really need to end up in LHR or HEL, and to get to HEL on a flight >5000 miles you need to start from SIN.

Personally I would be looking for HKG-LHR on BA or SIN-LHR on QF.
QF127/128 has been skybed equiped for some months now. The other QF 767 operated HKG flights have the old dreamtime seats with the small IFE screens.