designing my LONE4, lots of wanders
 

I apologise myself at first because of my english and my little knowledge of all this thing. Here in Spain, IB does not give a clue about how this rules, and I´ll end up purchasing the ticket in a BA office in Madrid to begin in LHR if it´s possible.

if I begin in MAD the offer only CAI as a destination in the middle east, and from CAI the only way to go would be Dubai, which i´d have to reach overland (impossible visa across arabia saudi) or in a flight i´d purchase out of the LONE4 ticket. The other problem is reaching Asia: from Dubai the offer only Mumbai, and i´d like to arrive directly in DEL. So I wonder if it´s allowed to do LHR-CAI-overland BEY-LHR-DEL.

In Asia i´d go DEL-SGN, overland SEA and then KUL-SYD. They told I´d have to stop in HKG from DEL to SGN, it´d be smarter to be some time in HKG before departing to SGN, wouldn´t it?. The other thing is I´d have to stop in HKG another time if I depart from KUL to SYD, if not i´d have to go to SYD from singapore...

after all i´d be in South America where i´d like to do SCL-LIM and then go overland to La Paz, departing from there to EZE, and finally EZE-MAD.

Please, if you see any mistake, any good advice about how to tailor this thing to make it better, i´d be really helpful. IB does not help at all...

Hello, welcome along to FT!

Just putting your plan into a more simple format:

LHR-CAI
BEY-LHR
LHR-DEL
DEL-HKG
HKG-SGN
KUL-HKG
HKG-SYD
SYD-SCL
SCL-LIM
LPB-??? - I'm not sure how you will do this, LPB-EZE is at least 3 flights, say LPB-ARI-SCL-EZE
EZE-MAD

OK - a few problems, if you start in the UK, you have to end in the UK, also if you start in the UK you are only allowed 1 international departure. So, let's have you start the trip in Spain, adding MAD-LHR onto the route, and you have a legal routing. It's only 14 sectors though, and just under 35,000 miles - so you can add a few more sectors.

If you want to push up the distance you could fly LHR-HKG-DEL rather than LHR-DEL direct. You could also fly EZE-LHR-MAD instead of EZE-MAD direct (and BA is better to fly than IB!). You're now at 16 sectors, with 4 sectors to add in Australia/New Zealand - say travel overland to Brisbane then fly BNE-PER-ADL-AKL-MEL and then overland to Sydney to catch you SYD-SCL flight. So now your routing is:

MAD-LHR
LHR-CAI
BEY-LHR
LHR-HKG
HKG-DEL
DEL-HKG
HKG-SGN
KUL-HKG
HKG-SYD
BNE-PER
PER-ADL
ADL-AKL
AKL-MEL
SYD-SCL
SCL-LIM
LPB-ARI
ARI-SCL
SCL-EZE
EZE-LHR
LHR-MAD

20 segments and just over 48,000 miles.

Hope that helps, and happy travels. :)

Take a look at the RJ thread; http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=483287 which will open up some possibilities for onward flights from CAI. The only question is at what point this will start to be possible (i.e. when the joining into OW takes place) - i.e. if you're thinking of a year or so ahead, then it might be possible; if you want to do this sooner, then probably not.

thanks a lot phillipas and ropmot 141,

I don´t understand the miles thing, don´t get what it´s got to do if the ticket is continent-based. I suppose I won´t add more destinations in australia just because it´d add more airport taxes, is it true? anyway I´m planning a budget trip for 2007, and by now australia gets too far of my planned budget to spend such a lot of time there. So I suppose this itinerary would be right no?:

MAD-LHR
LHR-CAI
BEY-LHR
LHR-HKG
HKG-DEL
DEL-HKG
HKG-SGN
KUL-HKG
HKG-SYD
SYD-AKL-SCL / SYD-AKL-SYD-SCL (doesn´t really matter )
SCL-LIM
LPB-ARI
ARI-SCL
SCL-EZE
EZE-LHR
LHR-MAD

if it can be possible, it´d be great. Anyway i thought i was allowed to do only two segments in my departing continent, and supposed that the MAD-LHR-CAI...BEY-LHR and the returning EZE-LHR-MAD wouldn´t be permitted. If the itinerary above is right, i´ll send it to IBERIA cause it´s by far the best for me...

Have you seen this tool? http://jph.bytestacker.com/award.htm Put your itin into that, and it will check most of the rules against it.

i have validated it right now, 1: MAD-LHR: 1st of 4 (Europe)
2: LHR-BEY: 2nd of 4 (Europe)
3: CAI-LHR: 3rd of 4 (Europe)
4: LHR-DEL: intercontinental
5: DEL-HKG: 1st of 4 (Asia)
6: HKG-SGN: 2nd of 4 (Asia)
7: KUL-HKG: 3rd of 4 (Asia)
8: HKG-SYD: intercontinental
9: SYD-AKL: 1st of 4 (Southwest Pacific)
10: AKL-SCL: intercontinental
11: SCL-LIM: 1st of 4 (South America)
12: LPB-ARI: 2nd of 4 (South America)
13: ARI-SCL: 3rd of 4 (South America)
14: SCL-EZE: 4th of 4 (South America)
15: EZE-MAD: intercontinental
Congratulations!! Valid itinerary!!! - (35852 miles)

You´ve been really helpful to me!!! thanks a lot

You're most welcome! :)

The miles thiing is the idea of pushing up the number of miles so that you can collect more miles to your FF account (FF being an airline loyalty scheme) and thus get a free ticket to somewhere nice as a reward for flying a lot. This said, if you're simply looking for a budget holiday then I can see the sense in sticking to where you actually want to go and avoiding the airport taxes - it's got to be your choice. Do make sure you credit to some account or another though.

You are of course correct in saying the ticket is limited by segments rather than miles (which is what makes it so good for those who want to clock up vast number of miles).

Have a good trip - and well done for making sure you include NZ, it's much better than Australia! :)

Happy travelling :)

finally, if i end up purchasing a ticket with this itinerary, what company it would be better to join the FFprogram? BA?, Cathay????? :confused:
are they enough miles that i´d be a fool if i didn´t take a FF with such lots of flights?

Yes. They cost nothing to join so do it.
With Oneworld you can also get frequent flyer miles on AA or QF as well as BA/CX. All depends where you live and what your future travel will be after - before your RWT. AA is one of the better programs in OW