Hi

I’m planning my first RTW (I’m going to start ex CAI) in F

Cities that I’d have to visit
Tokyo, Singapore, Hongkong, LA

Cities that I like to visit (but can drop)
Dubai, Buenos Aires, Cayman Islands, Darwin (the latter two for the diving)

I’m quite fond of flying but I rarely fly F so I want to make the flights the main attraction therefore want to go with the carriers and flights that offer the best F experience.

Objectives

-Maximize AA miles (I’m about to to a AA plat challenge at the same time)
-Maximize time on the better carriers (I assume that the F is best in CX, QA & BA is better than AA etc)
-Maximize flagship service flights
- Visit the cities above

Is there anyone out there who has any suggestions how to make this trip the best possible`?

Best regards

You are going out ex-CAI, where do you want to finish. It might make a difference to the way suggestions run for the DXB part of the trip.

How many continents do you intend to purchase? At the moment, it looks like you have ditched Africa, included the other five. However, for the addition of Darwin, you have added a continent. Do you really want to go diving where they have fresh water and salt water crocodiles? I am sure we can come up with some good options if you can answer the finish and number of continents question.

Would you want to stop somewhere on a mileage run or would you be prepared to do an out and back for the hell of it? Are you going Northern Hemisphere summer or winter timetable as that makes a difference for seasonal availability of places like Anchorage which can be well worth visiting.

Hope to get back soon

Spotwelder

How about this:

CAI-MAD (IB)
MAD-LHR (BA)
LHR-DXB (BA)
DXB-LHR (BA)
LHR-HKG (BA)
HKG-SIN (CX)
SIN-HKG (CX)
HKG-MEL (CX)
MEL-DRW (QF)
DRW-BNE (QF)
BNE-MEL (QF)
MEL-SYD (QF)
SYD-JFK (QF)
JFK-LAX (AA)
LAX-DFW (AA)
DFW-ANC (AA)
ANC-DFW (AA)
DFW-BZE (AA) - good diving
BZE-MIA (AA)
MIA-LHR (AA)

I think you are not allowed to start in CAI and end in LHR.

I would think CNS would have better diving than DRW, is that what you meant? If this is the only place you are visiting in Australia you may be able to pick up a cheap SIN/BKK/DPS-CNS R/T

I confer. You must return to country of origin. Even if you don't ever plan to use the return, your ticket must show the return and must be issued as such. So , in effect, you need to include 1 more segment from LHR-CAI. And still keep it within the 20 segment rule.

Thanks for all the advice.

As far as I know I must stop where I started, that is CAI. Maybe it better to to drop one continent?
I only have appointments in South East Asia and LA so all the other stops are negotiable.

There should be some execellent WW2 wrecks off the Northern Coast of Australia - that is Darwin I guess (perhapps with fresh water crocs). Cairns might be ok too.

The trip is intended to take place next spring.

I keep blowing this rusty old horn, and to no real purpose since afaik no one has *ever* been bitten by the rtw rules, but when you fly an owe your contract with the airlines requires you to return to the point of origin, or an allowable alternative. The never-enforced potential consequences of not doing that are being charged point-to-point fares for the segments you did fly, retroactively. That wouldn't be a pretty picture. So, while admitting one more time that it doesn't seem to be a real risk, I think any newbie should be appropriately warned.

If I drop Australia (and add NRT - one of my must go:s) and do a ADONE3 instead it'll be:


CAI-MAD
MAD-LHR
LHR-DBX
DBX-LHR
LHR-HKG
HKG-SIN
SIN-NRT
NRT-JFK
JFK-LAX
LAX-DFW
DFW-ANC
ACN-DFW
DFW-BZE
BZW-MIA
MIA-LHR
LHR-CAI

Would it be possible? Any possible improvements from a status earning perspective? Another question: Does it matter if i have the AA metal segments early or late (from a AA status maximizing perspective)?

Are there status earning differences between the carriers that I should take in consideration?

Best

No, because that's 5 segments, one more than the maximum.

Edited to add:

SIN-NRT (be aware this is two segments)
...
DFW-ANC (be aware ANC fligths are seasonal)
ACN-DFW
...

posted in error

The itinerary looks OK to me (not sure about segments in Europe), but I'm still new to this. It should not matter where your AA segments are, as you'll earn the same amount of qualifying miles in A or D on all carriers. To maximize your bonus miles you should aim to get to Platinum as quickly as possible though, as that'll get you the 100% miles bonus. You'll earn a 25% bonus for flights flown in D, and 50% bonus for flights in A.

However, note that for qualifying points there is no difference between A and D; you get a 1.5 points per mile flown. So for status qualification (rather than award mileage accrual), there's no difference between A and D. If you do the Platinum challenge, you could also go for BA Gold status. I don't remember whether US residents need 800 tier points (as we do in continental Europe), or whether BAEC has a higher threshold there. BA Gold is valuable for AA lounge access in the US.

Obviously I need to drop MAD then and go CAI-LHR directly. Then I have 4 segments in Europe.

Another question. I have the choice between BA, QA and CX on LHR-HKG, which is best in F?

In the OW FAQ posted in this area the CX flights to japan is not listed as traditional F, I'm just wondering then- how good are they?

Best

Yes, but if you do that then you'd also have to drop LHR-DXB-LHR.

Don't know, but QA (you mean QF?) is not one of them. AFAIK only BA and CX fly HKG-LHR.

As Viajero pointed out, this would render LHR-DXB-LHR ineligible, as you're allowed only two flights between the UK and the Middle East. You could however drop the DXB-LHR flight, and do DXB-HKG. This still leaves the problem of your final segment LHR-CAI. You could do MIA-MAD-CAI instead, and both IB and AA offer F on MIA-MAD.

If you do that, you'll have a spare segment. Since you only have threesegments in Asia, you could add another one there.

Opinions seem to differ on this. You can find comparisons of BA versus CX F-class in the Trip Reports forum.