Experts,

I've not done a RTW before but does this make sense to do it this way? Lucky for me I have no work thru the end of the year - finally phew!

So with all the destinations I'd like to travel to I thought a oneworld product should be best - but which one?

I was planning on a QM2 NYC - England and then kick in with my RTW (in no particular order) - I wanna visit rome, Dubrovnik, Split, Nice/St Tropez. Cancun, Ixtapa (later in the year I need Tampa) NYC or ALB, LAS and San Diego...in Asia it'd be Shanghai, Lhasa, Hong Kong, Kioto and Tokyo - even considered Auckland once their summer kicks in...Singapore and KUL would be added too if I have the time.
I thought CAI was the city to buy this from for it to be cheap? or are there other cities?

Any thoughts on this would help greatly and be appreciated....perhaps by eoy I could hit a hit plat or exp too with all this. Oh yea I have the unofficial link from here too I've been reading.

With all due respect, read up in this forum, read the FAQs and stickies and such. Those will answer most if not all of your questions.

A RTW has to start and end in the same country. By studying your itenarary(sp?), it seems you're going to need a way home back to NYC. The speadsheet in the aforementioned sticky will tell you which country is the best to start the RTW in, if it's worth the hassle.

Yes, joeytay, there are many options you may start looking. But again, with the cities that you want to go to, the Oneworld alliance may not be of service to you, and you might be better off trying one of the other alliances.

CAI is no longer that cheap anymore.. and besides you didn't say if you want F or J class travel.

Still you're bouncing around Europe too much. Best for you to do all your European sidetrips first (especially the short ones), and then concentrate on the longer routes for the long-haul carriers.

Read on the sticky, plan your routes, then post here for questions AFTER you plan on your destinations/cities. Otherwise use the services of a travel agent who will galdly plan everything out for you.

If you're keen on doing this with oneworld, then the routing will be a little tricky. An ex-UK ticket would be very messy because you'd most likely have to make use of some Aer Lingus (EI) segments at potentially strange times.

I'll take a stab at it for you though. Since you're taking the QM2 and talking about buying a ticket ex-Cairo, I'm going to assume you're flying either J or F. Both oneworld RTW products allow only two stopovers in the continent of origin, so I suggest you start your ticket from one of the destinations on your list; I've picked Nice, but anywhere (outside of the UK) is possible. You will really have too many intracontinental segments for a oneworld Explorer ticket, so here's a possible routing using a Global Explorer 34,000 mile:

0. LHR-NCE (separate ticket)
1. NCE-LGW-SPU (Split) - requires an overnight stay in London; make your own way to Dubrovnik
2. DBV-MAN-LHR-FCO (Rome) - looks like you have to go via Manchester to make the connection to Rome in time
3. FCO-HKG
4. HKG-KUL
5. KUL-HKG-NRT (Tokyo) - no oneworld carrier flies to Kyoto so you would have to make your own way there and back
6. NRT-PVG (Shanghai) - this is possible using JAL
7. PVG-LXA (Lhasa) - no oneworld carrier flies to Lhasa, but you can buy a return ticket out of Shanghai with China Airlines
8. LXA-PVG-NRT-LAX-SAN - ouch!
9. SAN-LAX-LAS
10. LAS-DFW-CUN (Cancun) - again, no oneworld carrier to Ixtapa so you'd have to buy an internal return flight to get there
11. CUN-JFK
12. JFK-CDG (Paris)

The oneworld component of this routing is just over 30,000 miles, and you have 20 segments. Possibly with some more creative routing in Europe you could save a couple of segments and use them to fly HKG-SIN-HKG instead.

Hope this helps!

Er, no, but Osaka (KIX is the usual airport for Kyoto visits). Served by CX from HKG.

oops - duplicate - site access probs]