Hi everyone. I've never booked a RTW ticket, but have an upcoming trip that I think might be a good candidate.

We are going to Botswana (out of Maun) in April for Safari. We live in Seattle, WA (USA) and want to stop in London for a few days on the way. We'd like to then stop in Australia (Cairns area) on the way home for a week or so.

I'm willing to buy the RTW ticket outside the USA if it isn't too inconvienent (UK or Sweden are good candidates - as we wouldn't mind heading back there later in the year to complete the RTW trip).

While I'd love to go with a DONE4, budget might restrict me to LONE4.

So - my first pass is a LONE4 ex-UK with the following (and adding a trip in the middle to see family in Omaha, NE (OMA):

LHR-JNB-SYD-CRN-SYD-SFO-SEA-ORD-OMA-ORD-SEA-LHR

My questions are:

1. Does this seem reasonable to seasoned RTW travelers? Better routes?
2. Is ex-UK if LONE4 worth it? How difficult is it to book and obtain tickets from the USA?
3. Any brilliant ideas on how to find a way to go DONE4 in a way that I can cost justify to the wife?!?!

Thanks in advance - I apologize if my first post on this forum is rambling...

First, welcome to FT, neighbor.

Your route is doable for the most part - a couple of glitches in your plan (for example, there's no Oneworld member that flies SFO-SEA; AA codeshares on Alaska are ineligible, drat.) But no big deal.

Do you have any mileage plan addictions? RTWs are excellent mileage-earning devices (in business/first more than coach, but still decent) for those who want to adopt the mania. If so, then you'd need to pick a frequent flyer plan, and that might have an impact on your route (e.g. no American Airlines miles on BA flights between the US and UK, such as SEA-LHR.) So that could also influence your decision.

An LONE4 bought in the UK (today) is around $1400 less than if bought in the USA. If the dollar continues to weaken, that gap is likely to narrow, since RTWs are priced in local currency. So the first question is, can you get to the UK and back for under $1400? Not so easy a question, since round trip fares spread out over the better part of a year are typically much more expensive than those with shorter turn-arounds. Two one-ways might gobble up that $1400 without heavy breathing, so the advantage is negated.

Same goes for business class tickets, with the differential slightly more dramatic. In the case of DONExs, the UK is not a cheap place at all; Sweden in Europe is more favorable, and Japan in the other direction, but for a RTW hitting Oz and Africa, you'd be adding a 5th continent to start in Japan.

One big difference in business class v. coach RTWs is the mileage earning gap. In a modest LONE4, you can earn maybe 25-40,000 miles in the AA program. With class and elite bonuses (easier to score using business class) it's not hard to double that total or more with the same route on a DONE4.

And therein lies one of the selling points for D over L. Your $3K extra (let's say) for a well-constructed DONE4 will earn both you and your wife enough miles to take another big trip - possibly another RTW - in business class later, or a couple of nice first-class domestic trips, etc. If the award trips have an aggregate street value of say $5000, then the extra you'd pay for the business class RTW in the first place is worth it if you have an interest in further travel. Of course, a nice side benefit is that you'd travel around the world comfortably the first time, rather than scrunched in the back of a big bus.

Take Africa. Really, really expensive place to get to from North America, especially the west coast. Europe? Not so hard. Solution? Bank a ton of miles with a DONE4, then spend them later on AA's most excellent 75,000 mile business partner award from Europe to Africa. Earn miles flying to Europe, then burn them flying to Africa. Rinse, repeat.

I don't know if this answers any questions. Your itinerary is quite minimal given the power of the Oneworld Explorer - for example you're allowed 6 segments in N. America, so throw in a trip to the Caribbean or Alaska along with OMA.. easy. Or see more of Australia or NZ while you're in the neighborhood. 20 segments is a lot.

Anyway, hope this helps - come back for more any time.

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

Any suggestions on how to get back to SEA from CNS?

Regarding mileage plans - currently just in Alaska's. Sounds like I'd need to join one - given the rough itinerary, are any more favorable than others?

Didn't consider the mileage bonus by going DONE4 vs LONE4 - great input - thanks!

CNS-SYD-JFK-SEA; CNS-SYD-YVR-train (in season); CNS-SYD-LAX and a purchased ticket... and so on. You can burn N. America segments all too easily trying to fly up and down the west coast - SYD-LAX-ORD-SEA for instance.

For mileage plans, I'd join AA's since you can book Alaska miles to AA and v.v. Go to the AA board and read the sticky threads on the Platinum Challenge. Very important if you want to optimize mileage earning in any RTW.

If you want to maximize the xONE ticket a good strategy is to use the 20 coupons for long flights and buy separate round trips. So instead of adding SFO-SEA into the RTW just buy the ticket separate.
Use the coupons for things like LHR-Dubai or Muscat in Europe (Oman is really nice), or NRT-SIN in Asia or in the US Flights to Alaska or LAX-Puerto Rico etc.

Also my recommendation is get a business class ticket and use good airlines. There is a lot of discussion here and different preferences, but in my experience CX and JL are very good, IB, QF and BA (don't use from US to UK - no miles on the AA program) are good, AY is ok, LA depends very much on the seat type, avoid AA.

Then also go over to the Star Alliance board and read about their mileage based RTWs. For some itinaries they are better solutions, NZ and SA have both an excellent business class - which could cover LAX-LHR-CPT-and on to Asia, then NZ back to the US. In the US it would be united. Only in Australia you would need to buy some extra sectors, but they are inexpensive.

In addition to Gardyloo�s excellent advice you might want to consider the following points.

1) In getting back home in the middle by hoping to fly SYD-SFO-SEA you may be in the non-OW mode of trying to find the most direct way between points. Even if this was doable, note that longer routes (such as SYD-JFK-SEA) not only give you more FF miles but also may be on better planes. It does make a big difference though whether you are on a DONE or a LONE.

2) If you have an extra few days in Africa take the BA (Comair) flight JNB-LVI-JNB to see Victoria Falls. You should be there at a good time to see the bigger flow on the Zambian side.

3) If you have a few extra days in Australia, you could go back to SYD from CNS (noting that you spotted the typo in your first post) by way of Uluru or some other interesting place (ie, CNS-AYQ-SYD).

4) While you may want to spend whatever time you have in the harder-to-reach places of Africa and Australia/New Zealand, note that you are not using any of your four possible intra-Europe segments and could use them, as suggested, just for mileage runs even if you did not want to visit places in Europe/Middle East.

vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv

First off - thanks to everyone for your input - very much appreciated.

I started thinking of this as a way to do the primary trip low cost and throw in likely North America (Omaha) trip along the way.

Now I'm thinking more in terms of going DONE4, and optimizing for going on some interesting vacations in business class in addition to the upcoming Botswana trip.

Here is what I'm thinking (basically adding a trip to Costa Rica and later Canary Islands).

1: JNB-SYD: intercontinental
2: SYD-CNS: 1st of 4 (Southwest Pacific)
3: CNS-SYD: 2nd of 4 (Southwest Pacific)
4: SYD-SFO: 1st of 1 (intercontinental entry to North America without immediate transit & departure)
5: SFO-SEA: surface
6: SEA-DFW: 1st of 6 (North America)
7: DFW-SJO: 2nd of 6 (North America)
8: SJO-DFW: 3rd of 6 (North America)
9: DFW-SEA: 4th of 6 (North America)
10: SEA-LHR: intercontinental
11: LHR-LGW: surface
12: LGW-ACE: 1st of 4 (Europe)
13: ACE-LGW: 2nd of 4 (Europe)
14: LGW-LHR: surface
15: LHR-JNB: intercontinental

Possible add-ons would be 1 round-trip in North America and 1 round-trip in Europe.

So - feedback on this proposed itinerary?

Any suggestions on how to actually go about booking the ex-JNB ticket? I've read about contacting local AA office to create the trip and transfering to country of departure. Any other advice?

Thanks all.

A few comments -

First, you should have a look at this thread regarding your proposed flight to the Canaries. GB Airways, who fly this route for BA, have been sold to Easyjet. You may or may not be able to include this route in your RTW.

If you intend to use the AA mileage program, you won't get any mileage credit for the BA SEA-LHR flight, You would get credit, however, on BA's YVR-LHR flight. That said, if you're relying on AA to issue the ticket (and you should in order to save money on fuel surcharges) you probably ought to consider giving AA one of the over-water longhaul segments; SEA-DFW-LGW maybe, or use your available N. America transcon and take CX's YVR-JFK flight and connect to AA in NYC to London or elsewhere in Europe.

You can phone the AA RTW desk and have them put the PNR together then send it off to their GSA in South Africa (in Cape Town actually) for ticketing and pricing.