Thanks for the info, guys ... I think I'll have a chat with my Travel Agent friend (his company specializes in RTW) to sort out something for next year.

Oh, and Stimpy: the "D" class is a bit of a puzzle: Under the new FB rules "D" on AF and OK earns 150%/200% (long-haul/Europe) but KL don't have a "D" fare (at least, not according to the FB website)!

-- Henry

Well if you are going to pay for a C-RTW, you might as well avoid KL and use AF for the TATL and EMEA segments.

Booking class varies according to ticketed carrier.

Looking at my RTW (ticketed by OK on fare basis IRTWSKY1), I have: CZ D, KE C, AM J, CM D, UX I, OK D and three different classes for AF (longhaul I, shorthaul D, Britair Y).

A bit random really...

Good point! @:-)

Hello. I've passed over the whole thread and found much of useful information. But I have some more doubts and be very grateful if some can confirm/correct them and answer some my questions. I'm planning to get 2 award tickets from AirFrance. Do I understood correctly such facts:
1. There is no miles limit for this ticket
2. there is a limit of 6 stops and no more than 3 stops on each continent.
3. open jaws are allowed on award RTW.
4. I don't have to book all flights at one time?
And some more questions to make it all clear, I'm planning a trip: WAW-JFK-MIA-LAS-AKL-SYD-WAW, those are stops (without transits). I have a problem with finding connetion from AKL to SYD, so probably I'll have to pay for it by myself. LVS to AKL have to be via ICN.
1. Where exactly I have to order RTW ticket? contact flying blue infoline in France? I do not have flying blue desk in Poland.
2. Can I book and receive particular connections with my local AF desk in Poland when I'll receive RTW ticket?
3. Should I book tickets really in advance because of number of award seats for those flights? I have no experience with this, could someone give me more details?
4. There was a lot of discussion about economy and business versions of RTW ticket. The issue is only about flight class/comfort/food or there are other issues according to a RTW ticket problem? (like number of award seats or anything important?)
5. Which connections I can choose? For example Quantas is not in a sky team group, but I can spend miles for Quantas connections within australia, so can I use Quantas within australia for RTW?
6. Flights timetable is available 11 months before, so how early should I book all tickets or at least the first one?
This trip is my dream, so I don't want it to be a disaster, because my AF desk in Poland is one biggggg incompetence, they were giving me a lot of bad information without any doubt from their site.
I'll appreciate any help.

wow adamsmu, that's a fair few questions there.

Let me see what we can help you with.

AFAIK correct

I don't know, but I can't see them allowing you to just hold open segments. I think you have to book them together, and then make changes as required.


Plenty of non-Skyteam options on that route. I flew on AR, an airline which most people wouldn't recommend (though I found them fine), but there's a lot to choose from!

AFAIK, on an award trip, you have to keep flying in the same direction and can't even backtrack for a connection, and AKL is to the East of Korea! Therefore, you probably have to forget about getting to AKL on the RTW and instead fly DL to SYD (good luck finding award space on that!) and buy a roundtrip between SYD and AKL. The good news is that SYD is still to the East of ICN, so you can fly KE to Korea and then SU to WAW without having to add a third connection like you'd have to do flying via CAN.

I am pretty sure you can't fly a non-Skyteam airline.

I've never done an award RTW, but I've done a lot of paid ones and while the rule is you must travel continuously east (or west), they give you leeway when you are jumping up and down to NZ, Oz or Africa or whatever. So in my experience you won't have a problem getting to and from AKL even if you are technically switching directions. I have had agents read through the rules on how this is allowed, but sorry I can't remember the actual text of the rule.

I've contacted with flying blue in france and received such informations for awart RTE:
- LAS-AKL via ICN is permited and not considered as backtracing (ICN-AKL), the backtracking is only considered between stopovers
- max 6 stops on RTW and max 3 per continent
Thans everyone for help.

This is not true. The backtracking rule only applies to actual stops, not connections.

On a reward RTW each stop must actually be in the same direction; on a paid RTW generally backtracking is around within a continent.

They must have went up on the award miles needed for RTW. My wife and I used the SkyTeam RTW 3 years ago for only 150K SkyMiles each. Lisbon-Krakow-Jerusalem-Bangkok-Singapore.

I want to book RTW awards using Flying Blue miles - 6 stopovers, max 3 per continent etc. I have to book by phone or fax.

Is there a RTW calculator which would allow me to create a dummy itinerary with flight numbers, connections etc which I could use to start the phone/fax conversation?

Star Alliance's is very helpful but I've not found one for SkyTeam, including searching on FT.

Roger,

You could try the downloadable timetable ("Travel Desk") from www.skyteam.com. It's not a RTW planner, per se, but you'll get all your flight numbers and it displays the mileage for each leg. And you can put all your trips into one "itinerary" and save/print it.

--Henry

Thanks, Henry. I'll try that.

Welcome to FlyerTalk! Unless you continued East from SIN that wasn't a RTW reward. And, yes, DL raised their redemption prices on RTW rewards in the past year.
Just having flight numbers isn't all that useful for a reward redemption since odds are that reward seats won't be available. Use nwa.com's reward search to find actual award availability and then call those flights in.

Thanks for the tip, sbm12.

A couple of tries produced a 'no available flights' message and I've still to work out how to specify Business. I'll check the NW forum as I'm sure there'll be some help on searching for award availability at nwa.com there.