SoulDaddy

hi to all Flyertalk seniors, miles gurus and travel hackers!

after many attempts to understand how stopovers work as well as RTW ticketing finally have to raise my hands up for help.

Have around 500k miles stashed away and was planning a trip with the missus and her likes/wishlist
- big fan of SQ
- fav countries UK France Italy Japan
- US Europe and Japan are main destinations

I've read how folks have travel hackers and hope some seniors can give advice. TIA

elleana

You need to provide more data - where do you want to start (and end), what class do you want to fly (assume J)? Where else do you want to go?

Assuming you start in SIN, a basic non-exotic RTW itinerary I'd imagine would be something along the lines of:

SIN - MXP - FRA - LHR - EWR - LAX - NRT - SIN, or:
SIN - FCO - MUC - LHR - JFK - SFO - KIX - SIN

Mix of SQ / UA / LH / NH.

If you are ok to cut out the UK (or maybe SIN-LHR-FRA-JFK is a valid RTW itinerary, though I suspect its most definitely backtracking), you can fly SQ almost all the way round: SIN - FRA - JFK [insert UA flight in between] LAX - NRT - SIN


Challenge is finding award availability in J for all legs.........

SoulDaddy

Hi Elleana,

Thanks for the reply!

• Preferably starting in SIN.
• Yes. J class

I believe you are right that J redemption may be challenging. At the same time, after I posted this SOS, my missus has hinted that she would prefer to fly SQ all the way which in a way defeats the whole star alliance RTW concept I guess (not surprising due to previously being an ex-singapore girl). I'm not sure if the suggestion you gave was considered backtracking however would it be better for me to redeem SIN - FRA - JFK bothways and have a lengthy stayover in europe?

Alternatively I may take the boring way of trying to redeem award flights in Suites or Business with Stop-overs.

Thanks so much for your reply!

Separately

TravelwhileyouEat

If you go the RTW route and can find the availability the following should tick a lot of the countries you want to visit:

SIN > HND/NRT on SQ
HND/NRT > LAX on SQ
LAX > EWR/JFK on UA
JFK > FRA on SQ
FRA > LHR on LH
Take the train from London to Paris
CDG > SIN on SQ

This is around 22k miles in distance which is well within the 35k maximum for a RTW ticket, in fact there's even enough miles to insert another sector to SYD to make the itinerary SIN - NRT - LAX - JFK - FRA - LHR // CDG - SYD - SIN.

Only country missing is Italy, which you can probably add as CDG > FCO via FRA on LH if you really want to.

elleana

Depends on where you want to go, really, and how much time you have - availability of flights shouldn't dictate travel plans, though I suspect it does for a lot of people on FT, yours truly included!

If you want to see a lot of Europe and are only willing to fly SQ, then what I'd do - and have done a number of times - is to drive. SIN-FRA, rent a car and drive a loop from FRA: Amsterdam / Paris / London / South of France / Milan / Zurich / back up to FRA where you can continue on to JFK. If you're really ambitious you can then drive cross country across the US and fly home from LAX or SFO

Personally I'd use RTW to visit out of the way destinations which would under usual circumstances be more difficult to fly to. I have grand plans of something like SIN - New Zealand - South Pacific - South America - Caribbean - Europe - SIN on a RTW ticket. Well, maybe when I'm retired...

spk307

Another option to Europe by SQ is via MAN on the way to IAH. J availability should not be a problem on this route.

lingua101

Can this be the rtw ?

SIN - BOM
BOM - FRA
FRA - JFK
JFK - GRU
GRU - SCL
SCL - LAX
LAX - AKL
AKL - NRT
NRT - TPE
TPE - SIN

17cc

Based on your destination preferences, you can consider 2 separate trips with all segments on SQ J/F:

SIN-LHR/CDG/FCO/MXP on J Saver - 170k for 2
LHR/CDG/FCO/MXP-NRT/HND on J Saver - 200k for 2 (you can try building in a stopover in SIN here)
NRT/HND-SIN on F Saver - 130k for 2

Alternatively if you have around 530k you could fly Europe-Japan on F (276k) and then back to SIN on J.

behyx

A question for those who have planned RTW trips before.. To ensure there is availability in the *A network for redemption, is it advisable to sign up as members of the respective FFP, and search for available flights on my preferred date/time before I call SQ to do the booking?

I reckon if I were to call SQ and go through various combinations to trials and errors for award availability, it's wasting both our time.