I'm just getting started on thinking ahead to a OW award using AA miles. I intend to make this a round the world trip that looks (very, very loosely) like the following:

JFK > CDG > IST > BKK > SYD > PPT > JFK

Or thereabouts. A once in a lifetime round the world jaunt, staying in each place for about 4-5 days. Very flexible on the intermediate stops -- ie when I say CDG above it could just as easily be "great euro capital" and for IST it means "historic middle eastern tinged city" and PPT means "south pacific paradise" and so on. Like I said, very loose. The only thing tight will be that it will all need to be completed in about 3 weeks, so travel dates won't be all that flexible. Cities will. It's a whirlwind RTW thing.

I'm ballparking this as a 130k award in J using AA miles. I might be able to bump that up to F if miles earning continues as quickly as it has been. Hard to say, but I already have over 260k banked plus more coming very soon, so that's plausible.

Which brings me to my question. I want to do this somewhere in the Dec '07-Feb '08 window. How soon should I start looking to book flights, and how realistic is it to ticket the above itin, for example, with maybe 1-2 city substitutions, given that I'm going to have very strict requirements for which day I fly on to the next city in order to keep the trip short enough. Is this realistic -- and is there anything I can be doing now (in advance of the 330 day window) to prepare?

I know that's vague, and I've done tons of reading of the FAQ's, but any real-world advice (ie "you'll never find seats for that, change plans now, you're going to want to combine individual awards, do something else, etc") would be so appreciated.

Couple of items: I think your proposed route is closer to 25,000 miles and thus would not be a OW130 award -- that bucket is 14,000 - 20,000 miles.

Also, if you are using AA miles, the award travel must be on OneWorld metal and not partner metal -- thus PPT is not possible as I think the actual route is flown by Air Tahiti and is a codeshare with QF

Using the great circle mapper (http://gc.kls2.com/) your current route comes out to 24453 mi.

Unless I am missing something a J award would cost 150K miles and depending on any reroutes or how the actual mileage is calculated it may go up.

Based on your flexibility of cities I would say this route is pretty managable but you will need some connections as OW does not fly direct on some of these routes (e.g. SYD-PPT). PPT is expecially difficult as you would have to go through SCL to get there. Also the SYD-SCL route availability is very difficult to get.

Hope this helps as I am planning a similar thing now but pretty much a novice like you.

Thanks for the help, and yes I think I misposted, it would be 150k based on the above, still within bounds for the miles I have to work with.

Sounds like PPT is out then for a OW award then? Experimenting with the OW map interactive makes it look like there are ample connections from SYD and on to JFK.

Edit - I see what you mean, no QF flights, as it's not QF metal and the map shows them but am I being confused as those are actually TN planes. Thanks!

Looks like fun. In general, flights between your destinations are operated on a daily basis, so building a reasonable itinerary should be easy. The hard part will be getting the longhaul seats that you want, CX and QF are known to be difficult. You'll probably want to try to reserve 330 days in advance.

Istanbul can be reached on OW only via LHR or BCN (MAD connecting plus a ns once/week), so it will require a transfer from any European city other than those two. From IST to BKK on OW requires going back to LHR, a lot of extra miles. You might consider a cheap flight from IST to someplace like DBX, and then continuing your OW itin from there.

PPT is not served by OW metal except the LA flight to Easter Island, just codeshares, so I don't think it's an option. There's Noumea once a week. My suggestion would be Bali.

Yes, it is out.

dfw consultant's comment about getting to PPT via SCL is valid. LAN has a flight from SCL to PPT. Not sure of the award availability, but getting from SYD-SCL is very difficult as was pointed out. Back in early August, I tried to get this route for a trip next June and was not able to find any seats. Even if you can get both legs (SYD-SCL and then SCL-PPT) you are looking at 27 hours in the air for what is a 7 hour flight direct from SYD-PPT

OW pushes the codeshares for purchase but you can't use those flights for a OW award.

You are going to have great trouble getting a J class award out of Australia headed toward North America even booking a year out. Getting a PPT to SCL J award seat is also more or less out of the question.

I know that this is a downer. Other posters will likely relate how they were successful, but its really rare.

Your best bet to get across the Pacific would be to fly AA through NRT somehow.

Thanks, I've read about difficulties from Oz many times on FT. I'm going to make some valiant efforts and perhaps give up eventually. Given the time of year I'd like to find something in the southern hemisphere to end the trip with, some beach, etc. Bali suggestion is helpful, thanks! Might try to sub out India for BKK if I did that then.

I will have to disagree with some here.

I did a OW award last year to NZ, OZ, and Asia. Had no problems getting the flights/dates I wanted with CX and QF.

I did another OW award to South America this year and had no problems getting to Easter Island with LAN (the same flight continues to PPT).

I'm sure there are some dates that are not possible, but if the OP has a flexible schedule and is willing to fly some extra segments, getting to PPT is NOT impossible on a OW award. The OP would have to fly through SCL to get to PPT, but IMHO, that is not such a bad thing.....

I think we'd skip it then. And Tahiti is so mind bogglingly expensive I wouldn't care much. Was attracted at the prospect of a direct shot home in J after a few days on the beach, without that it's not as appealing.

Are there any other recommendations for OW friendly spots in the south pacific? I see Christmas island and quite a few other things down there of interest on the OW or QF or CX maps and so on. Any magical islands for a OW guy?

Thanks for the encouragement on Australia. I'd be OK with basically any city in Oz or NZ, and could slot it in various places during the trip, so I'll keep some faith.

You don't specify above -- did you have success in J or F? I've heard Y awards aren't too hard... were you in a premium cabin?

I booked a OW130 J-award back in August for next June. After trying for two weeks to get my preferred routing home (CHC-AKL-LAX-DFW), I gave up and ended up with CHC-SYD-HNL-DFW. I made HNL a stopover for 24 hours since I had room on the award.

Amazingly enough, the QF/JetConnect announcement for flights from SYD-HNL impacted me and for the past couple of weeks, AA and QF have been reworking my itinerary. As of this morning, I have my J award ticketed for CHC-AKL-LAX-DFW. I don't think this was a case of reward tickets opening up, rather it was driven by the schedule change.

Unfortunately there aren't many islands in the SP served by OW. Most of the destinations you see on the maps are codeshares, and not available for your OW award ticket. As far as I can tell, the only SP island served (other than Easter Island and PPT from SA) is New Caladonia (Noumea). NZ, not QF, is the carrier with good connections to the SP.

There's Hawaii, the Australian islands, and Southeast Asia to choose from on OW. Of these, Bali would be my choice. There's also a growing network of LCC's in Asia, so you might choose to go outside of OW for a leg or two. BKK, KUL, and SIN are all good bases for these flights. Phuket or Phi Phi island might be what you're looking for. Or a taxi and boat ride from BKK gets you to a less developed island.

Thanks, super helpful. You guys are great.

You could still do a Oneworld award with this and open-jaw between SYD/AKL and PPT.
JFK-CDG-IST-BKK-SYD-AKL/PPT-JFK

then you could buy a separate AKL-PPT ticket.
You would then still have another ~3000 miles to play around with in the 25k zone. You could get an extra trip to the Caribbean (or stops in South America/Africa).