RTW routing
 

Hello SkyTeam people. I'm a *A guy but helping a friend with some RTW routing. Could you tell me if this is a permissible itin?

IAH-CDG-DXB-FCO-ATH-SVO-DEL-ICN-HKG-NRT-IAH.

The part I'm concerned about is backtracking a bit from Dubai to Athens. Is this allowed? It is in *A but SkyTeam is far from my area of expertise. Thanks in advance.

I'm sure one of the longtimers on the board will correct me if I am wrong, but my understanding of the RTW rules is that backtracking is not allowed unless you are forced to backtrack to make a connection; therefore a voluntary backtrack would not be permissible. You have to pick a direction , east or west, and stick with it. One tool I find helpful to make sure my routing is correct is to use the Great Circle Mapper which will give you the direction of every leg of your trip and make sure you don't backtrack.. I don't have the link with me but google Great Circle Mapper and you will find it.

I cannot tell from the post where you plan to stop versus just connecting. I'm guessing that your stops are in DXB, ATH, DEL and HKG. If this is accurate I'm pretty sure it will not work. It definitely will not for a reward, but there is a small chance it will for a paid RTW. In a paid ticket scenario I'm pretty sure that you just have to travel in a single direction between the regions, not within a region. On a reward ticket the one-way rule applies to all stops, even within a region.

An easy example is that on a paid ticket NYC-ATH-CDG-NRT-NYC is legit for stops, even though ATH is east of CDG. On a reward ticket the same set of stops would not be permissable.

I do not know what region DXB is considered in and how that would affect the rule, but I am guessing it would not be allowed.

You're exactly right on the stops. Thanks for the input.

sbm12 is correct. You need to find out the "region" in which DXB is situated for a Skyteam RTW paid ticket. Within a region (normally a continent) you can backtrack as much as you like. I have flown CDG-SFO-IAH-LAX then onwards to NRT, then NRT-(MXP)-LHR-FCO-ATH-CDG, thus backtracking significantly in both North America and Europe. But I had to be careful that in flying from NRT to LHR (where I then 'stayed' several months -coming back to Paris and returning to London to take up the trip again by train) that I didn't connect via CDG. That would have brought the trip to an end.

As far as I know the "areas" are generally as follows:
Area 1 : North and South America
Area 2 : Europe, Middle East and Africa
Area 3 : Asia and South Pacific

For a paid ticket I know you can backtrack within areas, but not between areas, so the DXB-ATH backtrack is probably legit on a paid ticket. For an award ticket I'm pretty sure no backtracking is allowed, except to make connections.

That said, I booked a westbound SkyTeam RTW award and was able to get away with going AMS (stopover) - LIM (stopover) - MEX - JFK (stopover)
... even though Lima is a few degrees west of New York. So maybe they relax the restrictions sometimes.