Need some help from the experts as well
 

Hello:

I just downloaded the information on puchasing a OWE fare (sticky). I am relatively new to the sight so please bear with my learning curve.

In January I will have some significant time off and am thinking of going RTW. Mileage program of choice is AA where I am currently platinum. If I book a RTW fare in Business or First (thinking 4 or 5 continents) beginning in NYC do you think it is possible to qualify for Executive Platinum which is 100,000 flown miles or 100,000 "Q" points? My priorities are....A great vacation......getting as close as possible to Executive Platinum asap (I want to use all 20 segments). Ahhh the ultimate balance.

1) What website can I use to look at the mileage earned between cities? and flights that qualify, schedules, segments, etc? I want the planning to be perfect.

2) Is it better to book with a travel agent or the airlines (email me any suggestions please) as I am unsure and unfortunately my TA passed away recently.

3) Would buying my ticket orginating from another city save me money? I saw Sri Lanka is one...but is there anything closer?

4) Please feel free to post any other links which you feel could be of help.

I am not trying to re-invent the wheel just trying to learn as much as I can and do this all right the first time. Thank you in advance.

E.

Welcome to the OW forum. Your questions are still vague. If you can post some additonal details it will help.
Some answers are: Where would you like to go and when?

Yes you can make EXP with a 5 continent ONE, but you will have to take some flights that are seasonal (to ANC) or not interesting (SCL-CCS).

Starting in the USA is probably the worst place to begin because it costs more money and you have only 2 stopovers. If you have FF miles, starting in Poland, Egypt, Sri Lanka, and Thailand seem to be the contenders for cheap fares. Do a search on Warsaw and EMECO for threads related to buying in another country.

Book with the airlines, AA and CX seem to be the best with BA and QF not far behind. Travel agents can be a problem if they do not have experience with the OW product.

This should get you started.

Remember that A and D fares earn 1.5 qpoints per mile on AAdvantage, so you only need 66.7K miles to make EXP (and no difference between A/D now in earning status). Almost any AONE5 routing will be over 50K miles, or 75K qpoints, and it is fairly easy to reach 60K miles. Getting over 70K requires taking the extreme flights, but presuming you fly other than on the RTW you don't really need to squeeze every mile out of it. 60K on the RTW would get you 90K qpoints, and you would need at most 20K miles (at discounted fares 0.5 qpoints) to make EXP.
I like to use the Cathay Oneworld downloadable timetable for planning routings. This is not perfect but better than the other tools around. You can get it from http://www.cathaypacific.com

Travel Details
 

Ok.....I have decided I would like to go to the following places..... This would be Mid-January to Mid-February (I am thinking of 1 month trip).

Buenos Aires
Rio
Santiago
Fiji Islands or Maldives
Australia (melbourne and Sydney maybe Cairns for the reef)
India
Dubai
Jordan
Thailand
Japan
Bali
J-burg
Capetown
Kenya
UK
France
Holland
Istanbul
Hawaii

Any suggestions for maximizing the mileage and hitting all this places? Thanks in advance.

E.

Impossible on a OWE. You have about 3 rule violations (remember OWE must be on OneWorld airlines as listed in the rules, you cant fly on partner airlines), limited to 20 segments and further limits within continents on specific routes. Check the rules and use the OW electronic timetable (or pay a TA a few hundred dollars to do the routing for you).

.... and after hitting all 19 places in your list within a month, I should think you'll be ready for a vacation..... :)

If you're trying to figure out distances, the Great Circle Mapper is a very useful tool - http://gc.kls2.com/

From the east coast you probably should look (for the moment at least, prices are subject to change) at Eastern Europe as your starting point. We are almost certainly (75% sure) going to be starting our first RTW from Istanbul in late November or early December. So once you've figured out your route (and indeed your list is too long and not wholly possible with one xONEx) you could add on flights to and from your start/end point; if you fly on AA's codeshares with Turkish airlines to IST you would get q-points for those legs too.

Go to Fewmile's excellent oneworld site and download the rules and study them - many gotchas embedded there, especially regarding backtracking, numbers of segments and layovers, subsidiary airlines, blah blah. Use the great circle mapper and oneworld electronic timetable to see who goes where when. Become fluent in airport codes. All part of the fun.

I knocked together a play-time itin based on your list; it leaves out key destinations like Fiji, Bali and Thailand, plus short hops that in Europe are not only inefficient but use up valuable tix. I think this follows the rules but it's only for fun anyway. You don't need to send a check. :) Note that "/" means a surface segment thus CNS-MEL/SYD-HNL means you're traveling on land or separate ticket between Melbourne and Sydney. Remember, only two stopovers in the continent of origin. You need all six continents for your wishlist, which means fewer segments in each to stay under 20. Here it is:
Total q-miles is around 70,000, of which 60,000 or so, if in J/D on oneworld carriers, would earn 90,000 q-points. If the remaining 10,000 miles are at 1 pt/mi, there's your EXP.

You probably should get trip insurance and plan on a nice hospital stay when you're done. Given flight times, waits, non-daily service, etc., I would imagine this itin in a month gives you 1.2 days per city max.

Happy planning.

One month!
 

Well even I would struggle to visit that many in a month, but there again, I get to use 2 xONEx tickets to get all the destinations in.

IST-LHRx-DXB-LHR-NBO-JNB-CPT-JNB-HKG-DEL-HKG-NRT-CNS-MEL/
SYD-HNL-LAX-JFK-EZE/SCL-GIG-LHRx-IST 20 stops, 6 continents.

I would suggest that 6 continents in a month is rather too much for a vacation. Whilst I do it for work, that is a bit different. You would not do anything but aircraft and airports.

A lot of the excellent list above is not necessarily available in First Class so you might want to save money and go business. The LHR-DXB return is available in First but you would start with business from IST to LHR and return. NBO off LHR depends on which aircraft you take, 747 yes, 767 no. NBO-JNB-CPT-JNB is business or cattle. The JNB to HKG carries First but HKG DEL does not. Some of the NRTs do and some don't. NRT to CNS isn't first and the odd Australian domestic is. Oz-HNL isn't First but you might manage First for most of the rest. Long haul business has the flat beds on quite a bit of your routes for the night sectors.

Personally, I would limit yourself to just 4 continents if you wish to see anything when you get there. Do the odd silly mileage run by all means but this can clash with wanting to go somewhere and see something.

On the slightly more practical side, have you thought about how long it will take to get visas for the countries that you wish to visit?

Proposed itinerary
 

OK.....I am thinking now that I will skip Africa on this trip and use the 5 continent ticket. My proposed itinerary is below.....Please let me know if I violate any rules and if so can you suggest an alternate or quick fix to the below.....As you can see, I am also now looking at beginning in Cairo.

CAI-LHR,LHR-DXB,DXB-LHR,LHR-LAX,LAX-EZE,EZE-CCS,CCS-SCL,SCL-IPC, IPC-SCL,SCL-LAX,LAX-JFK,JFK-HKG,HKG-NRT,NRT-HKG,HKG-BOM,BOM-SYD,SYD-BME,BME-MEL,MEL-LHR,LHR-CAI.

Thanks in advance!

E.

You can't do CAI-LHR, LHR-DXB, DXB-LHR . . . LHR-CAI

CAI-LHR,LHR-DXB,DXB-LHR,LHR-LAX,LAX-EZE,EZE-CCS,CCS-SCL,SCL-IPC, IPC-SCL,SCL-LAX,LAX-JFK,JFK-HKG,HKG-NRT,NRT-HKG,HKG-BOM,BOM-SYD,SYD-BME,BME-MEL,MEL-LHR,LHR-CAI.

Dubai is still the problem. As I suggested earlier, you will have to do the CAI-LHR xxx HKG-DXB-LHR-MAD/BCN-CAI or vice versa if you wish to do DXB off CAI on the xONEx tickets.

You are using the North America transit twice exemption if you do not stopover twice. I would suggest that you do the LHR-LAX-EZE first. If you have run out of sectors, and I think you will, then you can just substitute LHR-EZE direct (but via GRU).

You have chosen to Asia-SWP from BOM but it would be possible to do it from NRT to SYD/MEL so you could change the Japan/India order if you wanted.

I think that the best that you can do for a 20 coupon trip is:

CAI-LHR (for the night sector in First and you return during the day/evening on Iberia in Business) - EZE (direct but via from LHR) - CCS - SCL - IPC - SCL - LAX - JFK - HKG - NRT - HKG - BOM - SYD - BME - MEL - HKG - DXB - LHR - MAD/BCN - CAI.

It is also possible to end your trip in the "Middle East" so you could end up in DXB. I do not know how you propose to start/finish the trip. You can get an off ONEx single from DXB to CAI for about US$400 in economy on Gulf/Emirates. This would give you another few sectors to play with and allow the LAX from LHR to come into play again.

Hope this helps.