I've been contemplating a trip to Europe in J/D, and being a reader of FT I of course know that for about the same money I can do a DONE4.

After a bit of playing around with some routings I've realised that we'll end the trip with QF Platinum status which surprised me!

We have 2 big issues at present:

We have virtually no interest in the N American continent. After much thought we've been able to come up with the following list of things to do in NA: Niagara Falls, Smithsonian (Zoo, Natural History and Air and Space - 3 days worth there!), Ghiradelli, camera shops in NY, and maybe the space museum in Florida and the Grand Canyon. Of course, this eats up all the sectors (and more) in NA, and after the first sentence of this paragraph I'll feel silly if we end up buying extra flights!

We usually travel for 3 reasons - to visit family, to experience the culture and to see the sights.


We don't really care for long flights, and were thinking that CAI would be a nice stop between Asia and Europe, but we've realised that it's quite hard to get to CAI since I can't find a CX flight there.

Anyway, our current plans look like this:

SYD-HKG-NRT-HKG-?-HKG-FRA,OSL-HEL-BUD,DUS-LHR-SFO-JFK-? for MCO-YYZ-? Washington-JFK-xHKG-MEL-BNE-DRW-PER-MEL

Might have to buy another flight or two in NA, outside the RTW.

The logic behind FRA,OSL-HEL-BUD,DUS-LHR is that we have family in DUS and will have Eurail passes, but OSL-BUD is at least 3 - 4 days train ride. We can drop this for a better option - CAI maybe - and buy this sector. Or hope that Malev have joined OW and can book OSL-BUD as a direct flight.

HKG on the return is just a transit - we'll go for a nice meal at our favourite restaurant and maybe a comfortable bed then fly on.

(MY special thanks to everyone on FT for the hint that I shouldn't start at home so I can get a second holiday out of the trip! Can visit family in BNE and drop in for dinner with a cousin in DRW and an aunt in PER on the way back!)

Anyway, this doesn't include CAI and there's a couple of ? locations in the US 'cos I got confused at all the airports some cities have.

This routing doesn't get us to Plat until after we leave HKG the last time - any hints to get there before HKG so we can get our OW Emerald and do some lounge hopping?

Obviously, I'm happy to drop off PER and DRW if I can find a better use of those sectors elsewhere - but if I've got sectors to spare I'll use them!

We're planning a total travel time of 3 months, with 2 months in continental Europe, a few days in London, at least a week in Asia and maybe a week in NA. We want to be in DUS for Christmas. (2006! Or even 2007.)

Any suggestions for improving the routing for maximum miles and SCs and also suggestions for how to do NA would be appreciated. Other people's itins may also help give me ideas - I haven't found much on FT about DONE4 originating from Australia.

If I go to a TA will they be able to book it with AA for me?

Thanks!

Audrey

PS: Just fed syd-hkg-nrt-hkg-bom-hkg-fra,dus-lhr-CAI-LHR-sfo-jfk-mia-yyz-jfk-hkg-mel-bne-drw-per-mel into Mileage Monkey and it came up OK at 53270 miles and 1840 SCs. CAI definitely adds a lot of miles and SCs! This also gets us to Plat when we return to HKG.

Be very careful with the jfk-hkg-mel transit in hkg. May not be allowed since you enter Asia 2 times. The rules are not clear on this issue (with many threads about it). Some are successful while others are not. I always make sure that the exception allowing for a 2nd entry into Asia is always a route with a transit between Europe and SWP.

AA RTW Desk won't let you transit Asia if you are coming from NA. They interpret the rules to be only from/to Europe.

Moreover, if it is the JFK-HKG flight that gets you to OW Emerald there is absolutely no way that will be reflected in the systems in time for you to be able to enjoy the F lounges prior to your next flight less than 24 hours later.

To avoid the possible problem mentioned above ( JFK-(x)HKG-MEL ) you could of course do:

syd-(x)hkg-fra,dus-lhr-cai-lhr-sfo-jfk-mia-yyz-jfk-hkg-nrt-hkg-bom-hkg-mel-bne-drw-per-mel

which is 53244 miles. Not sure when you would get to Emerald on that though.

I believe that both CX and QF have been reported as allowing the NA-(x)HKG-SWP option. Once issued it would only be a problem if for some reason you needed to get the ticket reissued whilst in Europe or North America at a BA/AA facility. I am not clear why you would want it to be issued by AA originally? I think that would be hard for a Australia origination. Any of CX, BA, QF would be possible - I'd go with CX just for efficiency of any rerouting required and because they don't have the BA/QF of imposing extra fees for actually doing any work.

By the way, you could visit more places in Asia by doing:

syd-(x)hkg-fra,dus-lhr-cai-lhr-sfo-jfk-mia-yyz-jfk-nrt-hkg-sin-bkk-bom-syd-bne-drw-per-mel

albeit for quite a few less miles (50440) and less long haul CX (although I reckon that is less of an issue in J than it would be in F).

You might also look at taking the train between Osaka/Kyoto and Tokyo in order to visit both of them.

syd-(x)hkg-fra,dus-lhr-cai-lhr-sfo-jfk-mia-yyz-dfw-kix,nrt-hkg-sin-bkk-bom-syd-bne-drw-per-mel
(for 51223 miles)

You would be needing rather more than a week in Asia to do: Tokyo, Kyoto, HK, Singapore, Bangkok, and Bombay!

Or even better for me would be to see some of India by train:

syd-hkg-fra,dus-lhr-dxb-lhr-sfo-jfk-mia-yyz-ord-del,bom-bkk-sin-hkg-kix,nrt-syd-bne-drw-per-mel

(for 51930 miles, but dependent on the recent report of ORD-DEL being, bizarrely, transatlantic being either an errant agent or an errant instruction which will, I hope, rapidly be reversed; DXB is probably better than for pure relaxation - Egypt has more "archaeological" interest though)

The restriction on not passing through your point of origin was removed several months ago. It is perfectly OK to do so. The restrictions are that you can only have 2 stopovers in the continent of origin, and cannot leave the country of origin a second time. so you could start any of the above options in MEL instead of SYD.

AA (Syd) are several hundred $ cheaper than QF when issued in Aust due to the application of fuel surcharges.

Ah - OK. Are people finding that they are subsequently being charged for fuel surcharges at check-in for the segments for which they haven't been paid?

AA doesn't seem to be very on the ball at the moment - they still seem to be charging US$75 for reroutes too, when getting it done by CX would be US$125, and by BA/QF US$125+GBP25(or similar in each location).

Thanks all for your comments!

headinclouds, Johnosan: thanks for the clarification. I read the rules and saw it could possibly be interpreted either way - one of the reasons for my post.

christep: only really planning HKG for about 4 days and NRT for about 2 - we've been to both before and know exactly where we want to go. I'm allowing flying time in addition. BOM would be just a MR - *maybe* we'd spend one day but unlikely. (But I've checked the timetables and flight times are not entirely friendly. We may drop this altogether and use the sectors in NA or Australia.)

The *purpose* of this trip is to go to Europe to visit family. Everything else is a bonus that costs effectively nothing in airfares so we can afford to target it quite precisely.

Being able to pass through the point of origin more than once would be handy - saves stupid MEL-SYD trips.

Visiting F lounges isn't vital, by the way!

Thanks for your suggested routings - I'll have a play with them.

Audrey

You can actually go back to your point of origin now (rules changed about 6 months ago) so long as you don't leave Australia - so you can leave from BNE, come back to BNE and then do DRW and PER and back to BNE again.

Edited: Sorry, I see this has been done already.