jerry a. laska

Why not start with the oneworld explorer itinerary planner?
http://oneworldrtw.innosked.com/

Gardyloo

Hi and welcome, KTP -

RTW fares certainly do exist, and it sounds like one would work well for your proposed trip.

As for "where to start," you ought to look at this great new tool, http://www.wandr.me/RTW_Fares.aspx/ - which gives you a graphical/map interface with which to look for cheap origin points, depending on your chosen fare category (economy, business, first). It sounds like a 4-continent trip would work well for you. Note there are a lot of rules with this ticket, so use the link provided in the fare search tool to see specific rules, and by all means PLEASE go through the FAQ and sticky threads here for guidance on how to use the ticket, get the best deal, set up reasonable routes, etc.

You can purchase Oneworld Explorer RTWs online through the Oneworld website - http://www.oneworld.com/ow/air-trave...inerary-online - so while a travel agent may be useful, they're not strictly necessary.

As for your proposed stops in South America, why not? But note that there are other South American destinations that have great appeal to many RTW users, since the tickets bought "outside" the RTW are rather expensive, but of course included within the base cost of the RTW IF you have sufficient segments (read the FAQ for that - it's important.) Those other destinations include the Galapagos Islands, Easter Island, and other more remote destinations. However, Oneworld also has a very affordable South America "air pass" program which you could buy in addition to the RTW if you wanted more flights than would be allowed within the RTW limits.

Happy planning! Oh, and congratulations!

Sagy

I'm working on updating the fare data in the spreadsheet thanks to help from sbm12, I'm post here when I'm done (hopefully today).

You might also want to checkout http://www.wandr.me/RTW_Fares.aspx/ and Comparing Round-the-World (RTW) fares and options.

og

HKG has very good Circle Pacific fares in Business and First class. So if class of travel is important, how about changing your trip to fit CircPac rules? You can go down to Australia, across to Chile and neighbouring countries up to almost anywhere in North America then back to HKG via Japan or direct for about US$7000 in business booked through AA. Save Europe for the next trip.

Sagy

I uploaded version 0.9.8d. The major difference is that fare data is now downloaded from sbm12 website.

If you run into issues, please report them here.

Thanks,

Sagy

headinclouds

Several starting points for OW from sbm12's website have no OW service. I hope that you removed those possibilities to cut down on the number of inquires about starting from the Seychilles, Djibouti, etc...

Sagy

Yes, I did my best to remove these. If I missed any please let me know.

Thanks,

Sagy

ktp28

Thank you! Everyone has been very helpful and insightful. I really appreciate it.

There's a promotion now from HKG to SYD on CX which I'm hoping to capitalize on.

I took OG's advice and skipped Europe. So, we're not going for the RTW fare and will skip Europe altogether.

The route is HKG - SYD - Santiago - Lima - Cuzco - Lima - Ecuador - Galapagos - Ecuador - Santiago - Buenos Aires - NYC - LAX - HKG. The total miles is over 34,000 and now I'm wondering which one to do

1) Circle Explorer Pass for the entire trip
2) Circle Explorer Pass + S. America Air Pass

I'm thinking Option 2 will be the best, but just wanted to hear your advice.

I'm looking forward to going through the past forums to see what is good to do in these various destinations. Thanks again for your support. My wife and I really appreciate all the FT'ers.

og

Big backtracks eat up miles. Get a South America airpass for LIM-CUZ-UIO (or GYE) & Galapagos flights since these most likely will be on LAN A320s with no Business Class. Check the LA aircraft type if you want Business class seating (not on the A320s). You might be best off heading up to NYC from Ecuador (via MIA) and use the airpass to get to EZE/AEP.

If using Great Circle Mapper to get mileage, be aware it is not 100% the same as used by airlines.

You could do a SYD-AKL-SCL flight if you want to visit New Zealand - it makes a nice break in the LA SYD-SCL flight (but QF starts SYD-SCL non stop next year).

To maximise mileage, you could do some zig zags in the USA through DFW or ORD - but that depends on the FF program you are crediting to.

pandaperth

Have you read the rules of the Circle Pacific Explorer ticket? (they are here)

They are significantly different from the OneWorld Explorer rules - in particular the ticket is mileage based and the number of stopovers in each region is more restricted - see rules 4(a) and 8

So might have to take your option 2