Critique My Itinerary!
 

Dear Flyertalk Forum:

I am planning a RTW journey starting March 2010. I stumbled across this forum, and everyone here seems to be very helpful and knowledgeable. I would like your input on the following potential itinerary.

My boyfriend is traveling to New Zealand in January 2010 and I will be joining him in March 2010. We will be in New Zealand until late May or early June 2010. We plan on purchasing our ticket in New Zealand. QUESTION ONE: If we do so, we would be charged the rate published for NZ on the OneWorld website, correct? It's much, much lower than the US rate (we are based in the US)--only a little over US$3,000 for six continents, is that even possible?

QUESTION TWO: Since we will (most likely) end our journey in the US, what happens to final, unused segment between the US and NZ? Will we be penalized for not taking all of the segments?

Here is our tentative itinerary:
Auckland, New Zealand
Brisbane, Australia
Manila, Philippines
Bangkok, Thailand
Kathmandu, Nepal
Delhi, India
Istanbul, Turkey
Tel Aviv, Israel
Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania
Capetown, South Africa
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Santiago, Chile
Quito, Equador
Guatemala City, Guatemala
Mexico City, Mexico
New York, US
(Auckland, NZ--we won't actually take this flight)

QUESTION THREE: Are there any obvious mistakes? Do you have any criticisms or suggestions?

QUESTION FOUR: What would you suggest is the best way to go about booking this ticket? If I were going to book it in the US, I would call AA--I remember reading about lower fuel surcharges and fees with AA--but we'll be booking from NZ. Any Kiwis out there?

Many thanks in advance... I look forward to reading your posts!

Welcome to FT and the OW forum, grigriteam!

Let me get the discussion started with answers to some of your questions:

1. Yes, you will be charged the NZ price and it is lower than the US. Also note that there is a 10% off sale on at the moment.

2. Technically, there could be a "penalty", however there has never been a report here were anyone has actually been charged when not using the last segment(s).

3. Your itinerary doesn't work. You need to check whether there are actually flights between the cities you want to go to. Use this map http://www.innovata-llc.com/onw/default.asp?show=MAPto start planning.The problem is that for a lot of the places you want to go to you need to go to the hub cities like HKG etc so you need 2 flights, not one which eats into your total of 16.

What you propose looks like this:

AKL-BNE-MNL-HKG-BKK-HKG-KTM-HKG-DEL-AMM-IST-AMM-TLV-LHR-DAR-LHR-CPT-LHR-EZE-SCL-UIO-MIA-GUA-MIA-MEX-JFK-LAX-AKL

So this is 27 segments in total, you are only allowed 16. You are also having too many segments in Asia and too many entries into Europe.

So how to fix this? You need to drop some locations, pick locations with direct flights or do some of the locations as separate trips. Maybe drop one continent all together? Otherwise, try to use the segments for your long flights.

Here is an example:
AKL-BNE-MNL-HKG-DEL-AMM-IST-LHR-CPT surface segment to DAR-LHR-EZE-SCL-GYE-JFK-LAX-AKL

I have droped KTM, BKK, TLV, GUA and MEX. I have replaced Quito with Guayaquil as this makes it easier flight wise.
Since you are passing through AMM you can easily go to TLV from there so you really don't lose this stop. There are many other variations possible. Try using the OW online booking tool to come up with a plan.

4. You can book using AA when you are in NZ.

Dear DownUnderFlyer:

Your response is so helpful! Thank you for taking the time to consider my itinerary. I understand your responses to questions 1, 2, and 4. Now, about question 3...

I attempted to use oneworld's online interactive planner available through this url. However, it seems like I can't look up flights more than a year in advance, so I wasn't able to validate my itinerary. Otherwise, I would have been able to find the missing connections. QUESTION FIVE: What's the best way to plan a RTW trip that will extend more than a year out? I'm looking at the map in the url that you posted--that looks super helpful. Thanks.

QUESTION SIX: How about this? I'm not great with airport codes, so bear with me... This starts the itinerary in Australia.

[Purchase one way tickets from NYC to Auckland and Auckland to Brisbane]
Brisbane, Australia
Manila, Philippines
Bangkok, Thailand (via Hong Kong; 2 segments)
(side trips to Cambodia, Vietnam, maybe Laos; not included in OW6)
Delhi, India
(side trip to Kathmandu, Nepal; not included in OW6)
Amman, Jordan
(side trips to Turkey, Israel, Egypt; not included in OW6)
Cape Town, South Africa (via London; 2 segments)
(overland to) Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania (1 segment)
Buenos Aires, Argentina (via London; 2 segments)
(overland to) Guayaquil, Equador (1 segment)
San Jose, Costa Rica via Miami (2 segments)
(overland to) Guatemala City, Guatemala (1 segment)
NYC (stop journey here)
Sydney, Australia

Total: 16 segments. Am I missing anything?

QUESTION SEVEN: It seems like the only way to get into/ out of Tanzania and/or South Africa is via London, no? I imagine overland from South Africa to Tanzania might be a bit difficult. Any suggestions?

QUESTION EIGHT: It seems really difficult to get around South and Central Americas and Africa with the OW system. Any hints or insights?

Thanks again for your help!

Before using the oneworld map/tool, you can get a preliminary validation of your routing with "Mileage Monkey", a tool nicely provided by some interested FTers.

Here's the link:
http://slfft.allhyper.com/0.95/award.htm

That's a great tool!

I enteredAnd it returns the result "Invalid." But that's it. I have no idea why it's invalid. Insight?

Also, I'd love to know why it's so difficult to get around Africa and South/ Central America on this ticket... the other two alliances are more expensive, but with the amount that we might pay for overland/ in-region flights, it might work out to be the same. Sigh.

I'm embarrassed--I didn't scroll down the page far enough. Looks like there are no flights from Guatemala to NYC. No problem, I'll just travel farther north to Mexico City and go to NYC from there. But wait... I try Mexico City in the validation tool and it still says that there are no routes. It works if I put in Cancun.

Is the OneWorld map up-to-date, or is there a bug in the validation tool?

Also, I'm still interested in suggestions for my other questions. Thanks so much! :-)

For question 6 it looks ok. I didn't check if you are right on what direct flights are available, but in terms of number of segments in a continent, entering continents, etc. it looks fine.

Your second entry to Europe on the flight from Tanzania to Buenos Aires is allowed only because of the Kenya/Tanzania/whatever exception you see in the FAQ here. Just a FYI on that if the agent tries to deny it. Also it must just be a transit (less than 24 hour). If you want to see Europe you must do it on your way from Amman to South Africa.

The JFK-MEX flights are probably coming up in the OW tool because as a Mexicana flight, it is allowed in some of the OW travel products but not the specific one you are interested in (OW Explorer). Mexicana is expected to fully join OW alliance by the end of the year, so that would clear up that problem if you don't have to book until after January. At least we're hoping they join by then ;-)

Yes, I understand! Thanks! I will be skipping Europe on this trip, for several reasons. First, I am extremely lucky in that my family is Italian and I have already been to the Mediterranean region twice. I am less interested in the other regions of Europe at the moment (never had an itch to visit England/ Scotland/ Ireland, Scandinavia, Central Europe, Eastern Europe... nope). Also, I am looking to maximize my time on the road, which will require sticking to lower cost countries. I may be more interested in visiting "easier" countries when I'm older (and have more disposable income).

Ding ding ding, we have a winner! Thanks malcolmkettering. I will be booking this ticket in April/ May 2010, so hopefully Mexicana will have joined by then.

One final question... QUESTION NINE: Can I purchase the ticket in Country A with an itinerary to start in Country B? For example, can I purchase the ticket in New Zealand but begin the itinerary in Australia?

Even after all of these questions, there's a good chance that I am going to scrap the entire idea of a RTW ticket and make my way across the globe using one-ways. I imagine that it will be a little (a lot?) more expensive, but I won't be limited to 12 months and I can get much more creative in my trip planning. I tend to wander, a lot... for that reason, the other RTW tickets with their mileage limitations just aren't cost effective. But the time limitation might get me in the end, anyway.

The answer is "yes, but..."
If you use the online tool to purchase the ticket, then you will pay the fare for the country from which the journey starts - in your example Australia

If you purchase the ticket through an airline or a travel agent, then you pay the HIGHER of the two fares - the fare for the country where the airline office/travel agent is located and the fare for the country where the journey starts - in your example the higher of the NZ and AUS fares, which will be the AUS fare

See Rule15 in the Rules. There are exceptions if you buy the ticket in either Canada or Europe.

If you have the time, then you can do a lot of the world travelling overland and only buy the (relatively) expensive one-way plane tickets where you have to. Way back in the 70's I took two years to travel overland from UK to Aus and fly one-way from Sydney back to the UK via the Pacific and Atlantic. The plane ticket cost a whole A$800, had unlimited stopovers, any airline, and a maximum permitted miles of just over 15,000. Wonder what such a ticket would cost today:eek:

A$7444 with an MPM of 13,237

Question 5: Firstly, you can just but in dummy dates. Those can then be changed free of charge later. The other possibility is to book some segments as open segments. This means it will say LHR-MIA in the ticket but doesn't state date, airline or flight number. This will be confirmed later.
In general it is advisable to look flights in as early as possible especially in Economy. The reason for this is that economy books into a very low booking class which sells out early on some routes.

Question 6: Yes this look okay. In addition to what malcolmkettering has said, the MEX-JFK flight is actually not coming up in the OW tool (just the codeshare). I have put it into my proposal for you because I assumed that by the time you ticket the flight will be available.
By starting in Australia, you obviously free up 2 segments which you can use elsewhere. But you will pay a few hundred $$$ more for this privilege so you need to do the math to see whether it is better to start in NZ and buy an separate ticket or start in Australia and pay a higher price. And you need money to go to Australia when you are in NZ anyway.


Questions 7: Actually, there is one other way: CX flies from HKG to South Africa. But this is not really helpful in your case I guess. Unless you change other things.

Questions 8: Actually, getting around in South America with OW is the best of any alliance (until TAM joins Star Alliance). But the problem in Africa and Central America is that there is just no airline in this region which is with OW. Each of the three alliances has gaps and holes somewhere. But OW is just the smallest of the alliances so the holes are a bit bigger.

Question 9: I think that has been answered already.

EEK:eek::eek:

Let's see - average weekly pay in Australia back in '74 was say ~$160
Now - average weekly pay ~$1,000

So then the ticket cost ~5 weeks pay
Now the ticket costs ~7½ weeks pay - but with a lower MPM

Hmmm

... (OT: ) of course it books into Full Y ....

Is that something where FT members have actually not completed RTW tickets and not been charged any additional money? Or is it just that nobody has heard of it happening?