Max Tier Points on RTW
 

Greetings Everyone,

Im planning a RTW trip in J next month and would like your expert advice. My BA gold is coming up for renewal and would like to maximise my tier points on this trip.
I would like to start my trip from Mumbai and my list of cities to visit are as follows:
Dubai
London
Frankfurt
Madrid
Zurich
New York
Chicago
Laredo
Las Vegas
Los Angeles
Hong Kong
Singapore
Jakarta
Mumbai

Im flexible with dates and I can travel either direction. All your expert help is really appreciated.

Thanks in advance

I don't know what the current situation is but be aware there have been reports here of extra tax payable on ex-India tickets in J/F.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=640570

Another downside to starting your trip in Asia is that you are only allowed 2 'stopovers' (more than 24 hours) in the continent of origin. You must then nominate one of Hong Kong, Singapore & Jakarta for a visit of less than 24 hours. (The itinerary below also has you passing through Tokyo, which will also need to be < 24 hours.)

Take a look at this suggested itinerary.
(This link is to a tailored version of the MileageMonkey tool, which is fabulous for this kind of thing, thanks to hauteboy and SLF.) You should tick in the "Ignore Errors" box in "OneWorld Explorer Validator (and click the adjacent Go button. Also make sure the BA button is selected in the box "Earning Preference", which is just above.) This shows a possible itinerary incorporating your requested cities. I've added Tokyo after Jakarta, as this will boost the TP earnings a bit, but you can change this to a second HKG visit if you like. You could also fly trans-pacific from LAX into NRT, but you lose about 100TPs if you do that (but fly a bit less).

You should note that this itinerary keeps you to just a DONE3, but you will have to buy two extra segments, one each in Europe and Asia, which puts the price up a bit. (This is always an issue with xONE3 itineraries close to 20 segments.) If you think that there is a good chance that you will fly your trip as (finally) reserved, you should probably go for a paper ticket, as e-tickets can't exceed 16 segments. There are ways round this, but see other posts in this forum on this topic.

At the bottom of the Mileage Monkey page you should see a summary of the Tier Points earned on each segment, as well as a total. You may already know a DONEx ticket entitles you to fly in F on 2-class flights in the US if there is A-bucket inventory. If there's no inventory, you fly in coach & I think you only get Y-class TPs, but I can't remember the rules on this point. Suffice it to say that the TPs in the US are going to depend on what reservations you can get. Of course, some flights are coach-only, so you won't get a choice.

Hope this helps, and you might like to play with the tool yourself & see what happens if you make a change or two.

perhaps not a good idea - your suggested itinerary requires extra segments to be purchased

Thanks a lot. I really appreciate all your help. Im messing around with mileage monkey to see what i can do. Actually I can even buy the ticket from Dubai. But its about $1000 more than Mumbai and since i have a ticket to Mumbai I was trying to buy it from there. Do you think i should stick to Dubai instead of Mumbai???


Thanks

Same problem as buying in Asia: only two stopovers, which means three of your five wanted stops in Europe would have to go. Well, actually, DXB being your starting point means that only two would need to go; still a decision only you can make, however.

Actually I just found out that Doha, Qatar is about $1200 cheaper than Dubai but I can seem to find a ow carrier besides Ba flying there. Can I take a surface sector from Dxb to Doh although i wont need it.

Yes, you can start in DOH and finish in DXB, and that last 'hidden' surface segment DOH//DXB will not count towards the 20.

DXB is classified as Europe, so the same problem would ensue - only two stopovers allowed in origination continent.

For optimum TPs I would look at more long segments in A in North America, and consider using separate tickets or the train for short European hops that don't yield much in tier points or redeemable miles. For example NRT-HNL-DFW-ANC-DFW-JFK-LAS-LAX-LHR is worth something like 1100 TPs alone, making renewal really easy. Places like Laredo or Frankfurt are easy to get to without burning expensive (and comparatively low-value in TP terms) OWE coupons.

1: DOH-LHR: 1st of 4 (Europe)
2: LHR-FRA: 2nd of 4 (Europe)
3: FRA-MAD: 3rd of 4 (Europe)
4: MAD-LHR: 4th of 4 (Europe)
5: LHR-LAX: 1st of 1 (intercontinental entry to North America without immediate transit & departure)
6: LAX-EWR: 1st of 1 (North America Transcon)
*6: LAX-EWR: 1st of 6 (North America)
7: EWR-ORD: 2nd of 6 (North America)
8: ORD-DFW: 3rd of 6 (North America)
9: DFW-LRD: 4th of 6 (North America)
10: LRD-DFW: 5th of 6 (North America)
11: DFW-JFK: 6th of 6 (North America)
12: JFK-HKG: 1st of 1 (intercontinental entry to Asia without immediate transit & departure)
13: HKG-CGK: 1st of 4 (Asia)
14: CGK-HKG: 2nd of 4 (Asia)
15: HKG-DXB: intercontinental
16: DXB-BAH: 5th of 4 (Europe)
17: BAH-DOH: 6th of 4 (Europe)

This is what I have and according to mileagemonkey its valid and I earn 1240 Tier Points.
What do you guys think????

Note there's no first class on DFW-LRD so Y tier points.

I think that it is not valid, because of the 6 segments in Europe/ME, but even if it was valid I can't see the sense in buying two extra segments in a continent where I can have only two stopovers, as noted before.

And while you are in the middle east you could do a BAH-DOH or AUH-MCT tier points run in A on a separate ticket for additional tier points.
See, e.g.,
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showt...h+run+bah+tier
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showt...ht=doh+run+bah
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showt...ht=doh+run+bah
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showt...ht=bah+doh+run
among many threads on the BA about this.

You'll have to pay extra for the DXB-BAH & BAH-DOH segments as they exceed the 4 segments in "Europe" that are included. As you're entitled to 4 in Asia & are only using 2, I'd add HKG-SIN-HKG before departing for the HKG-DXB. If you commence from DOH, terminating in DXB is perfectly OK.

You are not allowed to buy extra segments in the continent of origin.