Planning RTW trip, need tips...
 

I'm planning a RTW trip with my wife for Feb/Mar 2018, so I'm looking at similar flights for Feb/Mar 2017 to try to gauge the price (in dollars or points) for the trip. Figuring it out in points is tough, and I'd appreciate any tips to help. Apologies if there is a more appropriate forum, but I didn't see a RTW dedicated one...

My trip is SJC-NRT-PVG-HKG-CDG-MCO-SNA-SJC, and we plan to fly in Business. I put together a potential itinerary with same day-of-week flights on http://www.staralliance.com/en/book-fly, and the trip shows as around $20,000 total for both passengers.

I checked a bunch of the RTW point redemption pages, and it seems like different airlines have vastly different charges.

On ANA, for my flight, based on 23516 miles of travel, their redemption page says I can fly business for 145,000 miles each, which seems like quite a bargain! However, I have read around that ANA charges significantly higher taxes and surcharges than most. But I can't figure out how to check what I would actually be charged on ANA's website, and can't even book the identical itinerary there.

According to PointsGuy, Air Canada's Aeroplan would charge me more than double the miles, at 300,000 per passenger for business. Lufthansa is even more, 325,000. Singapore is 240,000. But all of these accept point transfers from AmEx, so I'm open for whatever would end up best.

How does one go about determining the complete cost of these packages? And if I find an itinerary on staralliance.com, can I book that itinerary on any Star Alliance partner airline?

Thanks...

Award RTW rules vary wildly from each other and from revenue RTW awards. The itinerary you've posted would not be valid as a UA award, for example.

Starting in Japan would be cheaper cash-wise but you'd be missing that first segment. Could redeem just that as an award and then do the RTW from there and have an extra segment back to Japan to use eventually but that might not be worth it.

What about this route would be invalid on UA? And is there any place online to check validity by carrier?

United allows a maximum of five stopovers. MCO-SNA-SJC may also violate the one-direction rule, though I don't know how strict they are on that. And note that United charges 350,000 miles for a Business Class RTW (450,000 if any segment is in three-class First).

http://thepointsguy.com/2014/10/roun...ill-book-them/ has some good information.

Well sounds like United is out, and more expensive anyhow...

Since ANA sounds like it is the fewest points at least, how would I go about figuring out what they would charge in taxes and surcharges?

And should any itinerary I was able to generate on staralliance.com be bookable through ANA? Or are some partner airlines not allowed? (In my search, on staralliance there was a Lufthansa flight offered, but on ANA's multi-city route planner, I could never get that flight to show...)

You'd have to make a dummy booking, either online or over the phone. (ed: their website specifically states you have to call to book RTW awards.)

OK. I was hoping to figure it out without wasting their customer support dollars, but if I have to! :-)

Thanks.

You could get some sense by pulling up each segment on ITA and looking at the YQ (fuel surcharge) and the taxes/fee (e.g., US departure tax, CDG premium passenger fee, etc.) in the fare breakdown and that would give you a rough estimate though only calling would get you the actual estimate

TravelCodex (FT Scottrick has a more general write-up on calculating fuel surcharges / taxes / fees across the board and briefly mentions ANA in it:

http://www.travelcodex.com/2015/07/w...award-tickets/

You are confusing reward RTW and revenue RTW. They are completely different
creatures.

For reward ( points) RTW, you have to have your points in the programme that you
want to redeem. If you are looking at Mileage Plus rewards, you must have mileage
plus points. If you are looking at ANA rewards, you must have ANA points. Most
reward RTWs have a maximum of 5 stops, which is very restrictive.

For revenue RTW's, you can have up to 16 flight segments, and 15 stops. Price will
vary according to mileage bands - 29,000, 34,000, or 39,000. These are very expensive
to buy if the origin is USA/Canada, but quite inexpensive if you start/end in Japan.
The positioning flights will pay for themselves. Only the revenue RTW can be booked
on the staralliance.com website.

UA is spectacularly strict on the backtracking rule and it is by stop on awards, not by region as it typically is with revenue RTWs.

In what way am I confusing them? I believe I'm following the proper rules. From ANA's reward page, they say:
My itinerary has 6 stopovers, goes strickly Westbound (MCO-SNA-SJC is also Westbound**), and has only one stopover in Europe and one in Japan, and the trip is (much) longer than 10 days. And I have sufficient AmEx points, which are transferable to ANA Points.

So I *think* I'm doing everything right for a reward RTW. Is there anything specific you see me doing wrong?

** In addition to MCO-SNA-SJC being Westbound, I'm likely going to chose to just end the trip in SNA, since SNA-SJC requires a connection on Star Alliance and turns into a 5+ hour flight, where I'd rather spend $59 extra for a direct Southwest flight...

An update, I called ANA, and (after 40 minutes on hold...) spoke with them and got a quote for the flight. They didn't complain about the itinerary, and said it would be 125000 miles and $855 per person! Seems like quite the comparative bargain.

Hopefully their redemption rules don't change in the next 12 months, and I can book this then for 2018!

Thanks for the help everyone.

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One interesting/amusing/unfortunate thing with this itinerary... Since I'm looking at Business class, and United calls their domestic flights "First", I get downgraded to Economy on the MCO-SNA-SJC legs... If I switch the ticket class to First, I'll get First on those legs, but the only other flight that has First is HKG-FRA on the HKG-CDG leg. Every other flight is two-class. Not worth 50% more miles for two flights!

Who is telling you this?? It should not be the case. UA publishes that award inventory in the "I" bucket which is business class. Make sure the ANA rep is booking it in the correct bucket.