If all goes well, I plan to take a couple of months off next spring and use a pair of OW330F awards with a special friend. I realize this is a very broad question, but I'd like to hear from people who have done this kind of thing. Ideally, I'd like to visit 6 continents, see a lot of interesting places, and do it all within 16 segments, 50,000 miles and 60 days. And of course I'd like the experience of flying in F on CX.

Any suggestions? Destinations, routings, sample itineraries?

16 segments forces some prioritizing, especially trying to visit interesting non-hubs on 6 continents. 50K mileage limit is no problem, even moreso only counting stopover to stopover distance. Award Availability to Australia can be difficult so you might plan around that(forget JFK/LAX-SYD/MEL, but HNL-SYD, non-SYD/MEL australia, & cathay routes sometimes open). Lan Chile releases just 1 first class award seat per flight, but you want 2. Brasil requires visas applied for in advance.

You can get away with really crazy routings backtracking repeatedly through continents since normal RTW rules do not apply -- just one stopover and two transits per city. You might not take advantage of that too much since longhaul flying is exhausting even in first class, depends on what your partner can stomach.

To extend segment count, use cheap awards within a continent (use open jaws and/or stopovers), or buy segments seperately where cheap (like LIM-CUZ-LIM, and many Australia flights). Another possibility is interesting one-way overland trips, saving you from backtracking and saving several segments.

JFK-EZE-LHR-CPT//JNB-SYD-HKG-JFK 7 segments

a few easy add-on ideas
EZE-IGU Iguazu falls, not oneworld yet (lan argentina someday?)
LIM-CUZ Cuzco Peru: for machu piccu-- 7 day stay is good for 5 day hike
SCL try Vina del Mar nearby. Skiing nearby too.
SCL-PMC Puerto Montt: so pretty and easy, short visit ok, try lake boat trip
SCL-PUQ awesome hiking trip torres del pines, penguins
SYD Many fantastic walking trips reachable via train&ferry
SYD-OOL If you don't like the gold coast something is very wrong with you
SYD-CHC Christchurch,NZ: southern scenic route driving is awesome
SYD-DRW Darwin late may/june good, exotic&rough 3-5 day hiking trips
SYD-CNS Cairns fantastic super easy tourist spot, great scuba too. Go go go
JNB-LVI Livingstone for victoria falls (Zambia side, avoiding zimbabwe)
HKG-BKK Bangkok: smog traffic humidity, great place anyway. Cheap&Fun to shop.
HKG-NRT//KIX-HKG land in one airport, leave from another, train between.
Hawaii Ahhh, you know you want to
Costa Rica Well setup for tourists, nice things to see
LHR-PRG/VIE/BUD Land in one, leave from another, train between.
LHR-LCA/ATH I luv cyprus & greek islands

Thanks, benoit; lots of food for thought.

More ideas and suggestions welcome ... for 660,000 miles, I'd really like to make this an unforgettable trip!

vasantn, there is a book called "1000 Places to See Before You Die" that would be a good starting point for planning your trip. I think it's been on the best seller list for a while now. I don't care much for the author, but the book itself hits the highlights. Alternatively, for free, you can visit the UNESCO world heritage sites list and get a sense of what natural and cultural highlights you want to see.

benoit has already given you a great routing through the most of the key hubs. Now you can overlay your interests on top of it.

Well, I've been working on the 220,000 mile business version, but I am trying to break it into 3/4 "trips", returning to the west coast between each. I've been working on it for a month or so, and probably change the destinations twice a week. Every time I look at a new possibility, I like it. Also, I am definitely no expert, but here goes...

You may conisder Japan - Australia, too; when I was looking for business seats, they seemed easier to find than US - Australia.

My guess is that you can use the Cathay Pacific, Qantas, and Lan sites to get an idea of what seats are available, though I am not sure that matches directly with what is available to you with this award. Lan, for instance, seems to have been a problem, while Cathay came through for me in all cases.

Be careful of the open jaw, my understanding is that it will count as a segment if taken in the middle of your itinerary.

Basically, I knew I wanted to visit NBO, and I believe I can only get there on BA now, so I am focusing on building around that. It may help your sanity by picking a few must sees and going from there. Is your special friend in on the planning?

You know what you've seen, and what kinds of things you like. Maybe one or two things you know and love sprinkled in amongst several new experiences? Again, showing your friend something you've enjoyed has the potential to be rewarding.

I'm trying to focus on places that are more expensive to reach, as well, so I keep talking myself out of Germany, and I'm really struggling with Beijing.

The biggest killer for me has been the lack of a Lan route map. None of the links I have found on flyertalk or elsewhere seem to be working.

Right now, I have on hold SFO-LAX-SCL-IPC-SCL-LAX-HKG-DPS-HKG-PEK-HKG-YVR-LHR-NBO, and I'm still looking for seats NBO - home. I just discovered that I'll have to pay for a visa for Indonesia, though, and there is a lot there I won't have time to see under this scenario, so I'll be rethinking that portion (again).

You may also like to take a look at the OneWorld timetable. There's a lot there, but I found out there's an SFO-MAN flight that stops in BOS but has the same flight number all of the way through (so would count as one segment). Not that one would take this with an F award, since the BOS-MAN is one class, I believe, but you may find something that interests you.

Of course, playing with the possibilities is great fun. Enjoy!

Try this.

Beautiful. ^

That's a really good book that I recomend as well.

Indonesia is actually one of the cheaper visa destinations on your destination list. Chile, China, and Kenya are all much higher in terms of visa costs...

Well, hopefully this is keeping within the spirit of this thread, and not hijacking it.

I had killed off the DPS portion of my trip in favor of MRY-LAX-HNL-SFO, but my Hawaii plans fell through. So, I am currently looking at SFO*-MIA-SCL-IPC*-SCL*-LAX*-HKG*-PEK*-HKG-YVR*-LHR*-NBO*-LHR-ORD-SFO*. This appears to be 44,800 miles, and 14 segments. I am SFO based, so will be getting back there between each piece of the trip. Right now, LAX and YVR are extended layovers, during which I will come home. Any great ideas for tweaking or adding the last two segments to fullest effect? The person with whom I'm working at AA was told that stopovers count as connections, so I may have a hard time convincing him to try HKG-DPS*-HKG*-PEK*-HKG as I had before, but that is where I'm leaning. I'm not married to PEK, though, as it is often reasonably priced from SFO, of course.

You may find it difficult to get transpacific F seats on QF. Your alternative might be to take a CX flight and do your east asian travelling before Australia if that is permitted. I really liked Fiji and consider it and the outlying islands worth a visit. NZ is agreat experience but there is only direct J service on QF from the US. I know on other FF awards they allow you to transit SYD to get a transpacific F segment but there is no OW F from AUS-NZ.

South Africa is varied and absolutely beautiful. I'd recommend the Wine Country, Karoo Desert, the Cape and Kwazulu-Natal, most especially the drive from Durban to Petermaritzburg which is splendid. Great safaris in SA. I too would recommend Victoria Falls. When I was there Mugabe hadn't yet gone over the edge and one of the most enjoyable experiences was staying at the Victoria Falls Hotel. Again, I think only SAA offer F from AUS to SA with QF opting for a J, Y configuration.

Sounds like a wonderful trip.
[PS - If you join the QF FF program you can see award flight availability even though you don't have any miles to book it. Expertflyer.com can show you hidden buckets such as award codes used by carriers for a particular class of travel. That will require you doing homework on each OW board to have that information at hand when you want to play with dates. You can buy supplementary flights fairly cheaply in many local markets to avoid using your 16 segments too quickly.]

Problem is that no Oneworld carrier flies to Fiji so he would have to purchase a seperate ticket.

Can you confirm that 16 segments + a single open jaw between the first and last destinations is permissible?

An open jaw in the middle of an itinerary definitely counts as a segment. But I have never seen anyone post that an open jaw consisting of the originating city and the final destination counts as an additional segment.

Thanks. I currently have been able to hold a 16 segments + open jaw between the first and last airports itenerary. If I am able to ticket this (I have on occasion had comments about an itenerary being invalid for some reason a day or two later) I will post a confirmation.