My first RTW - LONE4
 

Hello

I've been reading this amazing site for almost year and now I want to do my
first own rtw :) Yes, I want to do all those hotel searching things and everything ...and hopefully find something else than roaches or some other nasty surprises :) It will be LONE4 and I will use maybe 6 months or more to complete this trip.

Maybe some of you experts here can help and check my first plan if it is even
near legal? :confused:

Should I think of any miles or anything since it's LONE? Maybe AA?

Is it wise to use any segments to DFW-PNS? Or maybe buy separate ticket, drive or something? I will be staying most of my time in USA in northwest Florida.

Is Honolulu very overcrowded in January? Is Cozumel any good choice?

All advices are highly appreciated! Thank you!

HEL-ZRC AY
ZRC-DFW AA
DFW-PNS AA
MIA-SFO AA
DFW-CZM AA
CZM-DFW AA
PNS-DFW AA
DFW-HNL AA
HNL-SYD AA?
SYD-CHC QF
AKL-SYD QF
SYD-ASP QF
ASP-PER QF
PER-SIN QF
BKK-HKG CX
HKG-NRT CX
NRT-HEL AY

It looks OK to me. I guess you know you have 3 unused segments of which you could take up to 2 in Asia and 1-3 in Europe (but only with two stopovers in Europe in total).

Zurich is ZRH by the way.

Maybe not -very- overcrowded, but certainly more expensive than the rest of the year (except Xmas). Budget accommodation however is not that hard to get, if you plan well ahead, so don't let the peak season hassles stop you from visiting.

Oh yes, sorry :) I meant ZRH

Thanks guys

...oh and is there some nice destination that I could add to my Asia segments? Mumbai maybe?

For mileage earning purposes, you'll probably be best with AA, so long as you do the following:

1) Be sure that as many of your flights as possible are sold with AA flight numbers (for example, HEL-ZRH, HNL-SYD or HKG-NRT, operated by AY, QF and CX respectively, but also marketed by AA under a codeshare agreement). You'll earn many more miles/points that way.

2) Sign up for a "platinum challenge". Provided you won't be spending too much time in Florida at the beginning of your trip, you should be enjoying elite benefits (such as lounge access) quite quickly.

Enjoy the trip...

Depending on what you want to do/see consider DEL (as a base to do the standard triangle of Delhi-Agra-Jaipur), CMB (and perhaps up to the hill country, Kandy etc.), DPS for the Bali experience, BOM for southern India, ...

As the OP is based in Finland, I suspect he/she may choose to sign up to AY so the advice re AA's programme may not help.

Even though the OP lives in Finland, I'd still recommend using AAdvantage for mileage accrual... on average, it's easier to accrue miles, and redemption levels for AA awards are lower. Furthermore, with the OneWorld saphire status that the Platinum Challenge will afford the OP, he'll earn even more miles (100% bonus) than would ever be possible for a similar trip under the AY programme.

When I lived in the states (pre July-2003), I accumulated my miles with BA. Now that I'm based in France (and BA has changed mileage accrual levels), I earn with AA. Many people do the same... in particular, many Australian friends of mine started earning with AA after the QF program changes. But this is getting a bit OT.

All very valid points, but remember that L class does not credit to quite a few programmes. L on EI & CX under the AA programme don't accrue miles and L credits on most other OW carriers credits at a very very low level.

AY's and QF's programmes are the most generous when it comes to L fares.

Does anyone know if consolidators are still a good thing to recommend when budget RTW's come up here? I did a lot of those in my youth, and they were always significantly cheaper than any airline fares I was aware of. In those pre-alliance days they were more flexible, too, but that's changed.

About a year ago I inventoried the various RTW products (non-consolidator) and stopped at 30 -- there were more. For visiting specific cities one of those products is always cheaper than the generic RTWs, and consolidators can also build up point-to-point RTW that is cheaper. But the limitations are obvious: fewer miles traveled (sometimes less than half of the OWE mileage), little or no rerouting, sometimes little date flexibility and most importantly, many do not earn FF miles. So it is the classic tradeoff (cost vs. convenience and capability). The most interesting was EK/NZ/UA but it allows no backtracking within continents (so you cannot fly LAX-LAS-SFO for example as that is backtracking). In fact 90% of these products do not allow backtracking within continents, and some even make it impossible to fly into and out of certain cities (the return flight is considered a backtrack to the hub and not permitted!). In general the OWE is by far the best product and with the most reasonable and simple rules (despite all the moaning about the rules that we do here).

But it is the old story -- what is a mile worth? Quite different across the various FF plans, and QF miles are generally worth less than 1/2 of AA miles. So earning 2000 QF miles is worse than earning 1500 AA miles. Optimizing earn/burn rates is one of the great arbitrage possibilities and doesn't have a simple answer. The Plat challenge does distort things significantly in AA's favour, however.

only CX is going to be an issue on this itinery for zero earning.

booking HNL-SYD, SYD-CHC and AKL-SYD on the AA flight codeshares will ensure full mileage earning on those sectors

SYD-ASP-PER-SIN on Qf will earn 50% miles, this is true, though consider by crediting to AA and taking a platinum challenge, the passenger will already have platinum status and so would get 100% mileage bonus bringing the earning up to 100% which is all he'd get on another scheme

The zero miles earned on CX ( 2889) is more than offset by the 17,774 platinum bonus miles earned by being platinum on AA

Total earning for the trip would be approximately 50,000 and is more , I suggest, that could be earned on another scheme plus AA does have a very generous redemption cost. plus , having J check in after DFW-CZM and lounge accesss at HNL onwards would definately seem worth steering AA way

If he were to credit to QF, then the AA sectors would only earn 50% miles as would the CX sectors. the QF and AY sectors would earn 100% . Total mileage earning would be significantly less


Dave

I did a little grid on another thread that shows "L" class benefits on various carriers sorted by FFP memberhsip. Here it is:

Booking Class L - Redeemable miles/km per mile/km flown
* No AA credit on BA US-LON, no BA credit on AA US-LON and v.v.
** Most plans exclude AY "Excursion" (Y-only) flt nos.
*Pts - FFP uses distance-based points; No./pct varies by class/distance

At sub-elite level it looks like AY's might be more generous that AA's; however redemption requirements are extremely important, as is specific itinerary. It does look, though, like the OP could hit Platinum somewhere around Cozumel using the challenge, in which case AA would probably be the preferable plan.

Nice useful lookup table. Indeed, yhe flight to Cozumel will get platinum using the challenge. Using AA, it looks like the earning would be 100% for the whole itinery, which to a non Plat-Challenger would be good

I worked out , using AA, that

HEL-...-SFO would earn 100% . The next sector completes the challenge, so
DFW-...-SYD-CHC/AKL-SYD would earn 200% (subject to using AA codeshares on the QF flights)
SYD-ASP-PER-SIN would earn 100% ( 50% base plus platinum bonus )
BKK-HKG-NRT earns zero
NRT-HEL earns 200%

Dave