I hoped that you could all help me with some suggestions on my first RTW trip which I am planning at the moment. I have read many many many many threads and am much better informed now, but also much more confused with all the options ... These are my constraints / desires:-

- Will likely be a DONE3 (?) for cost reasons. Looks like the best places to start this would be either Sri Lanka or BKK ?
- Travelling with a friend, and will only have 2 weeks or so , due to work commitments.
- Will travel in Jan or Feb 05
- We will take an econ ticket from LHR to the start of our DONE3
- Would like to visit HKG, SIN (?), KL, Tokyo in Asia
- Then would want to go to South America (in time for the Rio Carnival) - any suggestions on best routes and/or stopover before / after Rio ? - Chile / Argentina ?
- On return to Europe, would likely stop that trip there after our 2 weeks travelling, and recommence the final legs of the RTW ticket later in 2005 around Europe and back to origin.

So essentially we would likely be in Asia and SA (2 continents) only for the 2 weeks, with the Europe (3rd continent) section and return to origin later in the year. Is this possible ?

What would your best suggestions be to maximise the experience (and miles etc. ) in the short period of time that we have ? I'll be likely using my BA FF card FYI.

I look forward to your comments and recommendations. ^

Thanks !

John P.

If you want to include South America then it cannot be a DONE3. You need a DONE4, minimum.

From Europe, best place is Cairo, Egypt.

Viajero,

If we went in the other direction, thru LHR to Rio, could we then use a DONE 3 ?

Guy Betsy,

Is Egypt still the cheapest even with the CMB or BKK fares so low ?

Thanks,

John P.

No, because once you get to Rio you cannot get to Asia without 'touching' (buying) a fourth continent (NA or SWP).

For European based travellers, Cairo is still better than CMB and BKK. If one starts in CMB or BKK, you can have only 2 stopovers in your continent of origin (Asia in this case). If you want to visit HKG, SIN, KL, & NRT you won't be able to do so if the ticket is bought in CMB or BKK.

Hi John!

Good to see you're taking this idea forward, as you said you might when I was doing mine

Re your initial thoughts, I really think you need to question your reasons for starting in Asia. You mentioned costs but, although I haven't checked for a while, my understanding is that CAI is still the cheapest, even after the price increase early this year.

But there's more to it than that. If you want to see HK, Singapore, KL and Tokyo, then you must start outside Asia. The rules concerning what you're allowed to do are completely different in your continent of origin. Instead of being allowed 4 sectors within each continent (6 in NA), in your continent of origin you are instead allowed 2 stopovers. The intention is that you use these to get to and from a suitable inter-continental gateway, but I'm not sure to what extent that intended usage is enforceable.

Anyway, you will not be able to visit these cities in any normal sense if you start in BKK (say). You may get away with contructing a little MR at the start and/or end of you itinerary that takes in these airports, but you can only have two stopovers. I doubt if this is what you intend.

A good reason for starting in Asia would be if you want to use your OWE to visit somewhere like DXB which, as I'm sure you'll have gathered from this board, counts as Europe for OWE purposes.

Hope this helps and trust the real experts will correct anything I've said that's not right!

As others have mentioned, you'll need a DONE4 for this trip. The lowest prices in Europe are still to be found in Cairo, although there's a whole clutch of countries that comes close: Turkey, Yugoslavia, Croatia, Poland, Romania and Bulgaria are about 50 GBP more expensive than Egypt at current exchange rates for a DONE4. There's not much experience yet with starting a RTW from any of these locations, but they would have the advantage of keeping a LHR-DXB-LHR mileage run open, which CAI precludes.

The routing for NRT, SIN, BKK and KUL is going to be tricky. The real problem is KUL, as I think you can only get there from HKG. You could do something like WAW-LHR-NRT-HKG-SIN-BKK-HKG-LAX-GIG-LHR-DXB-LHR-WAW, but I don't see how you could fit in a trip to KUL. Your best bet would be to buy a separate ticket for BKK-KUL-BKK, which may be cheaper than doing the SIN shuttle. You've still got plenty of segments to spare with the above, especially in the Americas. You could fly back GIG-SCL-LIM-MEX-LHR for instance and still have segments to spare. Or LIM-JFK-LAX-ORD-PHX-LHR to add some mileage. Unless I've miscounted, that would still leave three segments to be added... perhaps add a stopover in GRU? GIG is so much nicer, but if you're there anyway...

So then we have, assuming you start in WAW:

WAW-LHR-NRT
NRT-HKG-SIN-BKK-HKG-LAX-GIG (using the transit clause)
GIG-SCL-LIM-JFK
JFK-ORD-PHX-LHR
LHR-DXB-LHR-WAW

That's going to be a little tricky, if not impossible, as there is no direct OW flight LAX-GIG that I can see.

I could have sworn I'd seen one before posting... of course, I can't find it now either. Anyway, one could reroute HKG-JFK-(GRU)-GIG.

The best way to include KUL would be to use eitehr a separate ticket or the train to get from KUL to SIN something like this:
LHR-NRT-HKG-KUL//SIN-BKK-HKG-<NA>

I've never taken the train, but I have heard bad things about it. Apparently it takes forever on poor tracks. I think there are bus services as well, and LCC's flying out of a Malaysian airport just outside of Singapore (the name of which eludes me at the moment). But even the SQ shuttle is not very expensive, and is probably the most convenient way of getting there.

Thanks for all the help so far ! ^

WAW sounds like a realistic start point, particularly since we would like to do the DXB trip later in the year .... (and also the facts that it is closer than CAI and served by cheap Aer Lingus flights direct from DUB)

The KUL trip can be arranged by train / bus / separate ticket - that's not a problem !

The route on WearyBizTrvlrs post sounds like a good one :-

WAW-LHR-NRT
NRT-HKG-SIN-BKK-HKG-LAX-(GRU)-GIG (using the transit clause)
GIG-SCL-LIM-JFK
JFK-ORD-PHX-LHR
LHR-DXB-LHR-WAW

Any other comments / recommendations ?

Would there be any benefit(s) to doing GIG first i.e. WAW-LHR-GIG-onwards ?

Thanks again,

John P.

Note that there's no LAX-GIG flight as Viajero pointed out, so you need to fly via JFK instead. You still have some North American segments to play with, so you could do JFK-SFO-HNL-ORD-MIA-DEN-LHR for instance.

You can certainly do GIG first, and often flying west is easier in terms of jet lag than flying east.

Sorry, no can do.

(no backtracking from HNL)