Thanks DUF.

1. I do want to optimise for QFF Status purposes.

2. About the only place I need/have to go is BOM. My next trip to BOM will more than likely include a trip to London (just easier to continue on than to come back to Sydney and fly all the way to London!) and I do have plans to visit friends in N. America sometime in the next 18 months, hence toying with the idea of doing a RTW.

3. Starting the RTW in ICN because I understand it is considerably cheaper to start one there than in Sydney.

4. Want to include SYD in the RTW so I can use the last segment to ICN to reposition myself for the next RTW.

5. If I pick up the RTW in Colombo or Lahore (two other considerably cheap starting points for DONE4), I'll use a one way ticket to get to Bombay the first time around, use a part of the RTW to get back to SYD and the remainder to get to BOM and reposition for the next RTW.

With these in mind, if you could suggest an alternative itin. that'd be great!

Price of a DONE4 (in AUD):

South Korea $8912.16
New Zealand $10431.64
Australia $10080.00
Sri Lanka $7649.52
Pakistan $6684.07
South Africa $7745.58 (DONE5)

So lets assume you start in Sri Lanka or Pakistan then you can do

CMB-HKG-BOM-HKG-LHR-MCT-LHR-SFO-MIA-BOS-DFW-ANC-DFW-JFK-SYD-HKG-CMB

16 Segments, 56345 Miles, 2110 SCs (Partner Gold).

Just checked that the price of a DONE4 starting in India is about 200$ more than ex-Sri Lanka. In which case I might just start the RTW in BOM and swap BOM and CMB in the itin. suggested by DownUnderFlyer.

Cheers guys and if there are any more tips, suggestions, crazy ideas, please keep them coming. I'll also read through the other relevant RTW threads.

India has a luxury tax paying on DONEx and AONEx. Did your comparison of fares between India and Sri Lanka factor that in?

Another good thing to do is to fly via HNL. DFW-HNL is a super status credit earner and it is a nice opportunity to visit Hawaii if you don't know the islands. From HNL you must continue either to SYD or Japan.

A slight change
 

now a little bit of a change to the previous itn

waw-lhr-cai-lhr-sin-bom-hkg-dps-hkg-jfk-yvr-mex-yvr-ord-sfo-lhr-waw

Now instead of going to Dallas I thought I would go to Mexico and use the JAL 11/12 which would be at least reasonable seats for 5 hours and earn 100 status credits on QFF also another weird thing was that JFK-YVR and YVR-MEX are according to great circle mapper the same distance 2449 interesting i thought

I noticed AA have brought back ord-yvr which is handy as that was the only reason I was going through dallas before, and LAX is not high on the list it was just to use a segment and I have never been to mexico

now status credits wise fore NA i would get the following

jfk-yvr 100, yvr-mex - 100, yvr-ord - 80, ord-sfo-120 so for the continent 500 not too bad, now I assume if JAL cancel service to mexico they will rerout me through Dallas anyway so I should get some extra status credits that way

The problem is there is no SIN-BOM. In terms of SCs, 500 is not bad but you can get more than 800 SCs in North America if you would optimize for that. The other disadvantage of your itinerary is that you are missing out on a lot of QF bonus points for the CX and JL flights.
The good thing of course is that you have lots of nice flights and go do great places.

Yes there is, QF 51, three times a week.

qf bonus points
 

Well I thought as follows

Europe - BA so bonus on all flights

lhr-sin-bom on QF so bonus
bom-hkg-no bonus unless AA codeshare

hkg-dps-hkg i thought aa codeshared on this flight ? maybe if I link it with JFK flight

hkg-jfk- aa codeshare
jfk-yvr CX maybe has an AA codeshare

yvr-mex JL so no bonus

yvr-ord AA bonus

ord-sfo AA bonus

sfo-lhr-waw - BA bonus

so I was hoping the only flights without bonus would be the two JAL flights
bom-hkg and possible jfk-yvr so 4 out of 16 is not bad

Now re QF51 I noticed this flight starts in BNE so who knows what qantas will do with it by the time I travel as they are always fiddling with Indian flights syd direct via melbourne now via bne

QF51 BNE-BOM via SIN is the longest flight between SWP and ASIA and would get 160 status credits on QFF. Seems to be the only one in this Zone
I guess if I wanted to Add SWP as a continent that would be a good flight for earning points and status credits

Are there any longer that I missed I know akl-hkg is 5688 but not quite zone 7

I was considering adding SWP for a trip home but I dont see it as great value when I could just use points to get there from Asia if I wanted

Sorry, I missed this one. Wasn't showing in the OW map and I lost track as QF changes their India strategy every few weeks.

You have lots of BA/AA/QF flights, I just wanted to point out that this is a potential disadvantage.

And I think you have discovered the longest flight between SWP and Asia. The only disadvantage this flight has is that from BOM you do not have access to the Asian flights >3600 miles which all originate from NRT.

Adding SWP to your trip will cost about AU$1000 more (plus fees) so not too bad considering that QF will charge you a $300 in fees for an award booking on some routes.

What about the carribbean
 

I played around with an itn going from Europe-South America-SWP-ASIA and it came out around 1000 dollars aud more than a three continent including taxes

Longer routes in Asia? I guess the only two i know of are nrt-del and nrt-cgk just over 3600 I have been nrt-del and soon will go nrt-cgk, but I kind of wanted to go some different places I guess. Its very interesting trying to decide.

For NA I was considering maybe the Caribbean but not sure where is good and what flights are good value for status credits etc any suggest greatly appreciated ?

i guess though I find SWP a waste of a continent I say this before experiencing AA domestic in US, but the Qantas flights in Business domestic are pretty average compared to what you can get international in Asia, and really I dont mind sitting in economy for a flight from syd-per as business is not brilliant. I guess SWP would be better value if Air pacific was in oneworld and you could get out to fiji.

Europe is good value because the middle east can be included, asia because of the long routes, South America in my opinion is good value if you get premium business on Lan as you can get some good flight lengths

It sure is interesting comparing continents and fares and just trying to work out good value routes on good equipment.

Those are the only routes over 3600 miles. But there are other long onces just shy of 3600 like NRT-DPS.

Caribbean always books into Business Class. Reliably, there are long flights from SJU like SJU-LAX at 3300 miles but this counts as a trans continental flight. AFAIK nothing over 3600 miles. Occasionally there are some one stop, single flight number services from other islands as well which then are over 2400 miles and make good SC opportunities even so they are in business.
A lot of services are not return flights but either just to an island or from an island so you need to search in both directions. An example for this would be ANU-LAS (AA1906) at just under 3600 miles and not counting as a trans con.

QF Domestic J is much better than AA (unless you compare a QF 734 to an AA 767). Acutally, QF has one of the best domestic business products anywhere especially when you are on an intentional config A330.
And I'd rather sit in QF J than JL or CX J in their regional configuration which is not great for long flights like HKG-BOM.