I’ve been lurking on this board for a while now, absorbing the rules and ideas before we book a year long honeymoon/gap-year starting in July 07. The DONE5 ex GIB appears to be the best value for the ticket and AAAdvantage the most suitable FF Programme.

I think this route is allowable as it passes the MilageMonkey (0.95008) test but I thought I’d post it here for comments.

GIB-LGW,
ZRH-JFK,
YUL-DFW-YVR,
SEA-ORD,
LAS-MIA-SJO,
MEX-LIM-GRU,
GIG-SCL-AKL,
WLG-SYD-AYQ-CNS-NRT,
ICN-HKG-BOM-DXB-LHR,
LGW-GIB

The trip includes month long stops in Vancouver, Wellington, Sydney and India so that we can get to know some of these places rather than rush around like crazy tourists which is normally the case.

There’s also some nice overland segments planned including New York – Montreal by road, Chicago-Denver by Amtrak and San Jose-Mexico City by local airline.

We’ll sign up for the Platinum Challenge at the end of June and buy the DONE5 tickets with a new Citibank card.

Have I really thought of everything?

FWIW seasonally there's LAX-SJO-JFK.

If I didn't need to be in YUL, I'd work at flying JFK-YVR on Cathay.

A couple points:

* The base fare from GIB is better than most, but note GIB means BA, and BA means heavy fuel surcharges when compared with AA.

* Finding two D seats SCL-AKL on the right date is going to be a little hard, so try to book this asap.

What are the details of that SJO-JFK flight?

I can't see any SJO-JFK or v.v. in the OW schedule, but I can see a (one directional) LGA-SJO stopping ("through") flight some days in the winter. I haven't looked exhaustively either, so if it's there, apologies.

I would also look at originating in ZRH as a possibility. Three or four hundred dollars more than originating in GIB, but in addition to saving potentially a lot in BA fuel charges (since AA can issue the ticket) it also saves two Europe coupons that could be used for other routes than shuttling to and from GIB.

SJO-DFW-JFK sometimes operates as a single flight number. Can someone please remind me the dates that LAX-SJO operates? conhill - apologies for the tangent.

Last flight this spring: 29APR; first flight next winter unknown (schedule not loaded yet).

Thanks for the comments, they've made me revisit the schedule.

Our last LGW-GIB leg will be combined with a visit to the (future) inlaws in Andalucia so that's not so much of a burden.

Starting in ZRH and avoiding punative BA fuel surcharges is worth researching. I'm going to contact TA's in both locations and get comparitive quotes.

As for the SCL-AKL leg, glad you pointed this out. I'll book up early.

There has been a 60% increase in SCL-AKL capacity in the past few years (from 3/week to 5/week), which has made it a lot easier to get seats on this route, except for key dates. As long as you have some flexibility in travel dates and Emerald status, it is no problem any more (no idea what it is like without status as it generally takes a request to LAN to release seats).

number_6 LA now flies 6 a week SCL-AKL.