Hi

We are planning our first RTW for our Honeymoon. Any feedback on our schedule would be appreciated.

Here we go.....

LHR-DEL-HKG-PEK-HKG-KUL; SIN-MEL-AKL-NAN-SYD-WLG; AKL-SCL-IPC-SCL-LIM-EZE-LHR

Reading messages from others planning their trip they seem to take a lot of changing to get them within the rules. We have gone round in circles getting this far, but I am sure we are probably still missing/forgetting something. Hopefully not, but any comments or suggestions would help.

Thanks

Catper33

First, congratulations!

Second, I believe the NAN segments are operated by Air Pacific, not Qantas, hence can't be used on a OWE ticket. Maybe New Caledonia instead? Worth looking at, anyway.

Are you starting in London? You could save a lot of money by starting in Poland, Croatia, Turkey... You have some European segments to use.

I'm still in the planning phase, too, so will look forward to feedback.

I expect that with a bit of effort you might be able to get this down to a global explorer but if not then gardyloo is correct about the nadi segments. If you can get a routing under 34k miles then you can use air pacific on the glob ex.

You could do something like this: LHR-DEL-HKG-PEK-HKG-KUL/SIN-SYD-AKL-PPT-IPC-SCL-LIM-EZE-LHR on GLOBEX34 (39909 miles) and have the following additional tickets:
- SYD-MEL-SYD (with QF or DJ)
- AKL-WLG-AKL (QF, NZ and probably some others as well)
- AKL-NAN-AKL (with FJ/QF or NZ, you should be able to find it for USD 540 or even less(try a two segment "Visit South Pacific Pass", I did it on FJ/QF for USD 500 + tax))

Or a ONE4 with AKL-NAN-SYD on a two segment "Visit South Pacific Pass" with FJ/QF (the cost should be USD270 + USD270 + tax). For "Visit South Pacific Pass" look at http://www.solomonairlines.com.au/fares/vspcond02.htm

Hi

Thanks for the feedback and the congratulations.

We are not able to get our miles down to less than 34k and need the flexibility of no mileage restriction. As well as getting married we are in the process of emigrating to NZ (I'm beginning to think we're mad doing it all together) so need to have some flights that could easily be changed without any concern about going over the milage quota.

Depending on the residency visas we may have to leave the country and fly back in, hence the AKL-MEL-AKL. Does anyone know if you can purchase extra sectors after you have left your original departure point????

We weren't concerned about the two flights in continent of origin, but can they be used when you return eg. we fly from S.America to another European destination and then to LHR or are they only usable at the start???
The slightly revised plan!!!

LHR-DEL-HKG-PEK-HKG-KUL; SIN-PER-SYD-AKL-MEL AKL-SCL-IPC-SCL-LIM-EZE-LHR

I see what is meant about flights to NAN - it wasn't important for us to go there so we've changed it as you can see.

Apologies for the longer message, but big thanks to Gardyloo,Darren and JuPe for the previous help and suggestions.

I think you're confused a little. It's not two flights in the continent of origin, it's two stopovers. So, assuming you don't ticket & start in expensive Britain, you could go XXX-LHR-DEL...EZE-LHR-YYY-XXX, where XXX is your country of original departure. For example, WAW-LHR-DEL...EZE-MAD (stopover)/BCN-HEL(stopover)-WAW or something similar.

Thanks

You are right that I'm confused, there seems to be so many different aspects and definitions!! Another look at some of it now needed I think!!!

Cheers

I have not been to Delhi but when I was looking at going I remember that the flights seemed a bit difficult to get because they are always full. If you have to then you can also do LON-PEK-HKG-DEL-HKG-KUL...

Welcome. Sounds like a fantastic trip.

Oh, and yes you can buy extra segments after departure. Its considered a reroute and treated like any other reroute from my experience. Keep in mind, however, that you are still limited to only two additional segments per continent and you are still limited to 20 total.

It would help to know which class of travel you will be taking for the starting point recommendation as the prices swing about a bit and economy suffers high and low seasons in some areas.

It would help to know which FFP you belong to to maximise your miles and status points with the routes.

Depending on class, you may find LON-PEK-HKG-DEL-HKG-KUL easier to book. I think that you could also use AY for economy and business LON-HEL-PEK as another way round as you have the sectors spare but not for First.

The into SCL sector is difficult to book so beware. You might consider doing it as SYD to SCL but that would not meet your re-entry requirements if you do not get the Visa (mastercard, amex, diners....). If you added North America to it then you would be able to route via NA to SCL and then back through NA out again provided that one was a direct transfer to get over the lack of SCL seats from South Pacific.

Good luck, I got arrested and thrown into jail on my honeymoon in Africa on arrival at the airport from LON. Why is this delight missing from your RTW?

Spotwelder

Hi Thank you to everybody for the advice and feedback.

As you can probably tell I'm not used to this so probably have not included all the info!!

The plan is a LONE4, however if we discover a long lost relative who wishes to give us a wedding present that we would really appretiate this might become a DONE4. We would have liked to have certain sectors in D, but I didn't think this upgrade was possible for only the odd bit.

We don't currently belong to a FFP, but will probably join BA or QF . ( Most flights we do are or will be with either of these, with family members working for BA - can't get staff travel for this trip unfortunately.)

Your suggested routing was actually what we wanted to do, but we have a problem with passports and visa's for China and India. We get married the end of September, want to fly out about a week later and can't get these two visas in time plus we have to submit our passports to NZ embassy for residency visa stamps before we leave. To confuse it all again no-one seems to know what to do about my change of name when I'm married in relation to tickets, visas etc.!!!!
I've always got my China visas from HKG before within a couple of hours so changed our route for passport reasons. Any suggestions on China visas or shortcutting the process and accomodation booking requirements from the UK would be of help so we can do as you said.

We know the dates we want to go to SCL (NZ School holidays as I hopefully will be teaching there by then) August 2005 - do you anticipate there still may be problems despite the notice? I hadn't considered the NA routing it might be a better option with availability issues to SCL.

Being in jail in Africa must have been an experience -not one you want at any time let alone your honeymoon. With the amount of time we have and having spent plenty of time travelling in Africa before we decided to leave it out for this trip, but there are some fantastic places to explore. Was the rest of the trip OK??

Mileage earning on BA on these tickets is limited so just be careful. Of the two, QF is probably the better option but look at all the programs before deciding.

Out of curiosity, where are you and your spouse-to-be citizens? It seems youre very worried about visas.

I suggest you ask on this board for advice and experience. Maybe in the Travel Buzz forum. Seems to me that if the ticket and your passport match then there is not going to be a problem but that is pure speculation. I suggest you post the question somewhere and get some first hand experience because I dont think your problem is all that unique.

I have second-hand experience of a situation like this: my brother and sister-in-law went on a RTW trip for their honeymoon. The way they handled it was not to do anything about changing her name on any paperwork until they were back hoime and knew they wouldn't travel for a while. Changing your name when you get married is not compulsory, and there is no problem travelling on your maiden name for ever if you wish. The key thing, as the previous poster said, is that your passport and ticket must match.

We're moving out to New Zealand.

Residency and entry visas are proving complicated and I guess the concern you point rightly out we have is so we don't find we can't leave when we want as we haven't been able to be organise something.

Your passport can only be in one place at one time so to speak so wanting it to be with China, India, New Zealand Embassies for Visa stamps and at UK passport Agency for renewal/change of name is obviously not possible. If we had more time I imagine this wouldn't be a concern at all!!!!!!!

As has been said before 'we must be mad ' doing lots of things all at once.

Are other FFT programmes better than QF? Other threads have mentioned AA's programme as being worthwhile, but beyond the OWE we'll only really be flying with QF/BA so thought perhaps AA might not be so good for us.

Thanks for advice about Travel Buzz Forum will investigate further.

Are you sure about that (QF/BA only)? I wouldn't be surprised if you do most of your travelling on RTW tickets since AKL is almost exactly equidistant from London either way round... I'm guessing that a RTW ticket is probably not significantly more expensive than a simple roundtrip and gives you lots of free extras in Asia/Eur/NA...

LHR-SIN-SYD-AKL = 12017 miles
AKL-LAX-LHR = 11960 miles

Well if you are UK citizens it is possible to get multiple passports if you travel a lot (I have only hit a limit of four...) and cannot get the visas or there is a clash of visas between countries that won't let you in if you have been somewhere else.

I would go with the maiden name thing. Change it on the passport when the ticket is dead. This can be done at any High Commission or Embassy abroad if you are a UK citizen.

Once I got out of jail in Africa, I was under house arrest in the hotel for a week and finally got my conviction and conditional discharge for "firearms sumggling" just before leaving the country. They had kept my passport until I left. What they didn't know was about the second passport....

Happy landings and go with the QF programme. Holidays could be the worst for availability on the SCL part. The second week in December might be the best or the third week in January as these are the traditional low points but this might just be northern hemi quiet times.

Spotwelder