Where do we start ??
 

My wife and i are thinking of travelling for a year - to places we'd loved to see or places we don't even know about lol

We'd like to travel Biz-class or 1st if we could push the boat out.

So what ticket would be best for us ?

India - Dubai - China - Japan - Russia - US/CAN - Pacific islands - Aus/NZ - Africa


Next question with Biz-class or 1st can we use any lounge or just whatever airline is on our next leg of the trip ?


How far in advance do you have to book - do you have to book all your travel plans in advance or can you do it as you go along ?


I'm sure that will do for starters - thanks everyone !!

Pretty much same as millionmiler with a few extra comments:
* Lounge - Flying business or first does not always imply you can get lounge access, e.g., AA within North America.
* It is not always easy booking a flight you like to take. You may need to be flexible. In addition, it is quite difficult to book RTW in first class without OW status. Seats are very limited.

Here's a great place to start:
http://www.innovata-llc.com/onw/rtw/...t.asp?show=RTW
Also, find SLF's mileage monkey to confirm possible routings and to show which flights have first and business class.
Here's the thread, follow link in SLF's signature.
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showt...=401874&page=7

For such a long trip I think the best would be to have a "backbone" of the trip with business- or first-class RTW ticket in combination with other flights, using various Visit XXX Passes and other options available.

As the number of flights on the RTW ticket is limited to 16 and First class is not available that widely, especially on short-haul flights, the RTW ticket alone may not give you all the destinations you want to visit.

For example in our DONE5 we will extend the trip in South America with LAN's Visit South America Pass and in Asia our DONE5 will take us to Singapore, wherefrom we'll take other flights for Vietnam, Kambodia and Thailand.

Agree that you should build a backbone with the RTW (long and expensive flights) and then add short flight with seperate tickets.
You did not say much about your budget for hotels etc.

Places i have been and i would highly recommend going to are:

South America: Easter Island, Maccu Piccu
Africa: Capetown + Garden Route, Kenya - Mesai Mara (Little Governors Camp)
Middle East: Dubai (2 days are enough), Oman, Cairo and Egypt (is it in the middle east?)
Europe: Rome, Florence, Athens, Paris, Barcelona, Swiss Alps, Munich, Berlin
Asia: Vietnam, China, Myanmar, North Korea (if you can get a visa), Cambodia (Angkor Wat)

For a Oneworld Global Explorer, the DONE4 is a business class four continent round the world product. Your continents would be Europe, Asia, South Pacific and North America. It's hard to include Africa because there aren't many flights without an African carrier in the alliance.

You could save money if you purchase a DONE4 ticket and start in Cape Town. You can then choose to end your travels in Tanzania and make your way home from there. That is what I am doing.

For a sample 16 segment itinerary that is valid from London: LHR-DME-AMM-DXB-BOM-HKG-NRT-PEK-PVG-MEL-AKL-LAX-DFW-YVR-MIA-JFK-LHR.

That is London to Moscow, to Amman, to Dubai, to Mumbai, to Hong Kong, to Tokyo, to Beijing, to Shanghai, to Melbourne, to Auckland, to Los Angeles, Dallas, to Vancouver, to Miami, to New York, to London.

Do St Petersburg on seperate ticket.
See Petra and Wadi Rum while in Jordan.

Internal Australian flights are cheap at the moment with three budget carriers. Suggest you fly to Melbourne (my home), cheap flight to Adelaide, train to Alice Springs, fly to Cairns, tour down the coast all the way back to Sydney via Whitsundays, Fraser Island, Gold Coast, Byron Bay then back to Melbourne to continue your RTW.

I think you need to get a circle pacific or some kind of other pass to visit pacific islands, it's more Air NZ thing than Qantas, and that's star alliance or check out the Air NZ or Virgin Blue website.

Just to minimize confusion, the DONE4 that you describe is NOT a Oneworld Global Explorer (that is a mileage based ticket: DGLOBxx where xx is the maximum mileage). a DONE4 is a Oneworld Explorer ticket.

WOW great info - thanks everyone.

So best to do Biz-class for long flights to major cities - use the global explorer !!

Then use local carriers - which airlines have good passes for internal flights ?

What airline is best for pacific flights ( passes )


Could you explain DONE - is it biz-clas per Continent ?



zan5hin why wouls starting in SA cost less - roughly how much of a saying ? ( and how would i book it - via BA ?? )



Thanks everyone

Some good advice here already. I'd advise starting with the list of places you'd most like to visit. Then work from there in building your itinerary.

I'd also suggest strongly considering Star Alliance (*A) rather than One World (OW) . It has many more member airlines, which would give you more flexibility. For instance, if you decide you want to travel within Africa you'd have South African Airways, as opposed to (I believe) no OW members.

Another reason I'd suggest *A is that it includes Singapore Air, possibly the best airline in the world, especially if you can get flights including its new business or first class seats. On the other hand, OW member British Air is arguably the best European carrier in business or first class. And OW member LAN Chile is probably your best quality option for S. American travel.

But on yet the third hand (??), if you're traveling in F with your wife you wouldn't need the greater privacy that BA seats give you and *A member Lufthansa is very nice in F and you'd have access to its unique, stellar First Class Terminal if passing through Frankfurt.

As for places to go--if you're not necessarily limited to the places you list in your post--I'd highly recommend Cape Town and the Western Cape province in which it's located. Also, New Zealand is wonderful. Paris and Venice are the two most romantic cities we've ever been, with Prague being a close third. Being a native New Yorker who now lives near San Francisco, I'm thoroughly biased but recommend those as the two top spots to visit in the United States (with lots of scenic splendor in California and other parts of the Western U.S., though the best way to see much of that would involve renting a car). Buenos Aires (though be prepared for a huge, sprawling city) and many parts of Argentina are fun. If you want to get to the Caribbean, Virgin Gorda in the British Virgin Islands is very nice.

One big factor you might take into account is what the weather will be like in various places in your itinerary at a given time of year. You'd want to be in New Zealand and Australia in November-March and China in May, rather than vice versa, for instance.

Anyway, sounds like a great way to spend a year!

Thanks Thunderroad ^

A DONE4 is a four continent oneworld explorer ticket in business class (D). There are also LONE (economy) and AONE (first) and the you can have 3,4,5,6 depending on the number of continents, so the cheapest is a LONE3 and the most expensive is an AONE6.

If you search this forum there is more info on starting in South Africa, essentially you would book through the Mindpearl, the AA agent in Cape Town. AA doesn't charge for taxes and surcharges on non-AA flights so it's cheaper than booking through BA. Please use the search facility for more info on Mindpearl or prices for tickets in different countries. With currency fluctuation I don't know how much of a saving it is in GBP. One way tickets to Sth Africa also expensive probably.

Many of the major routes still have FC. I would still go for that.

I want to go back to your initial post and make a couple of comments.

In my opinion, starting with the air ticket product is not the best way to go about planning a year-long journey. Obviously this is FT, and the Oneworld forum, so people are inclined to tweak itineraries and talk about how your trip fits into Oneworld's menu. However, you might be better served by thinking about where you want to travel and when, and then see which air travel product works best for you, rather then bending your plans to meet the routing or rules imposed by an airline marketing alliance.

For example, in your wish list you include "Pacific islands." Well, the Oneworld Explorer is downright terrible in permitting access to Fiji, Tahiti, the Cook Islands or other island groups in the Pacific (nearly impossible, in fact.) Star Alliance, on the other hand, offer's Air New Zealand's very comprehensive coverage of the South Pacific, so that might work better for you. But then, Star's coverage within South America, or internally within Australia, is miserable. Tradeoffs.

You've already been told about the problems with OW and Africa, i.e. no connections between southern Africa and other parts of the continent.

You also need to know that you have to keep moving in a generally eastward or westward direction, between the three "regions" designated by the airlines - Americas (Region I), Europe/Africa (II) and Asia/SW Pacific (III). You can't go from Region II to Region III and then back to Region II before going to Region I, and so on. These rules hold for all RTW products, not just Oneworld's, so you need to think about the order of places, because doubling back is generally not allowed.

Think about when you want to go to places, too. Take South Africa: August is great for safaris because it's the dry season, cool, and the animals are easier to spot with all the foliage down. On the other hand, Cape Town is wet and dismal. In December Cape Town is great, but it's rainy, buggy, and hot in the north. Same goes for Queensland v. Melbourne, and so on.

So with a year of proposed travels, I'd recommend a fair old bit of homework on the destinations, then go shopping for air (and land) arrangements to fit your plans. Keeping the RTW ticket as a "backbone" is the only way to do it with plans like yours, but be aware that like all things these products change - rules are modified, routes and destinations added or dropped, prices change - both in absolute terms and relative ones as currencies float around and "cheap" origin points like South Africa or Korea are replaced by the flavor of the day...

Planning is great fun and these products can be fabulous bargains, so don't dream small. But keep the cart and the horse in the proper order.

Oh, one other thing - do NOT overlook the frequent flyer mileage earning opportunities RTWs represent. It's not terribly difficult to leverage a second premium-cabin RTW journey out of a paid one - that's right, a twofer - if you play your cards right. Your travels may represent a great year-long experience, but you'll probably want to travel again down the road, so try to help offset those subsequent trips by bulking up your mileage accounts with your present plans.

Good post Gardyloo, I agree with all of that.

I was originally going to start my DONE4 in November, that got push to New Years Eve and now due to work opportunity I'm not leaving until March or May. This has thrown my booked route into chaos as instead of an Indian winter I am faced with a summer fireball or a re-ticketing......

Three great sites for information on weather around the world:
http://www.worldreviewer.com/world-weather/
http://www.travelika.com/when_to_travel.php
http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/world/c...?show=c_guides

In regards to FF miles you can earn a lot of you read up about AAdvantage Platinum challenge and Live Search Club in the S.P.A.M. forum. I have 35k miles just from playing games and will earn another 90k from my DONE4, enough to get halfway around the world again.