Becoming Gold on one RTW trip
Jul 28, 2022, 4:35 am
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Jul 2022
Posts: 4
Becoming Gold on one RTW trip
Hi, I have an idea of becoming Gold on one RTW trip. Do you think it is possible?
I'm located in WAW and I need to visit SFO and TPE, after that back to WAW. TK Miles and smiles requires 40k to get their Elite status, that translates into *G, if I book J tickets for that route I think it should be enough. I'm not yet a member of TK Miles and smiles, so I would start from zero.
What do you think about this plan?
And how to book such a ticket, Star Alliance RTW booking page is really bad, in my case it does not have TPE but some very small TSA airport and does not allow me to choose TPE... There is a direct flight from SFO to TPE and there are many good connections from TPE to WAW but not from Sungshan (TSA) airport.
I'm located in WAW and I need to visit SFO and TPE, after that back to WAW. TK Miles and smiles requires 40k to get their Elite status, that translates into *G, if I book J tickets for that route I think it should be enough. I'm not yet a member of TK Miles and smiles, so I would start from zero.
What do you think about this plan?
And how to book such a ticket, Star Alliance RTW booking page is really bad, in my case it does not have TPE but some very small TSA airport and does not allow me to choose TPE... There is a direct flight from SFO to TPE and there are many good connections from TPE to WAW but not from Sungshan (TSA) airport.
Jul 28, 2022, 10:51 pm
#2
Join Date: Sep 2000
Location: Stuck on this planet - mainly in STR and LAX
Posts: 5,019
I used RTWs in F several times to renew my SEN status. Depending of how many F flights you have inside the ticket and if you already have Status you can do SEN based on 3 x miles for A in one trip. And the cost difference between F and and Biz is reasonable. One midsize RTW every two years does the trick.
The prices differ a lot between where you start the ticket, you need to check - often an RTW from Korea and Japan incl. the positioning flights is cheaper than stating in Europe.
I have an travel agens who know RTW well. He charges some money for his service, but I found it extremely helpful since changes downstream usually just need one email to him instead of hours on the phone with the airline. He also can nest side trip tickets into the same reservation (makes checking luggage thru on different tickets usually easy).
If you buy a J ticket just check how much the booking class of the airlines you are using yiels on the program. There are often surprises. Also the tickets allows 16 sectors, you could maximize a bit. In addition with some clever routing you could add a trip to places in Africa. Problem there is that you cannot stop twice at the same airport.
You could start in WAW for example, do the RTW, but go back to FRA. Buy a separate ticket FRA-WAW-FRA. Then do FRA-CPT-WAW at the end of the RTW.
And welcome to flyertalk.
The prices differ a lot between where you start the ticket, you need to check - often an RTW from Korea and Japan incl. the positioning flights is cheaper than stating in Europe.
I have an travel agens who know RTW well. He charges some money for his service, but I found it extremely helpful since changes downstream usually just need one email to him instead of hours on the phone with the airline. He also can nest side trip tickets into the same reservation (makes checking luggage thru on different tickets usually easy).
If you buy a J ticket just check how much the booking class of the airlines you are using yiels on the program. There are often surprises. Also the tickets allows 16 sectors, you could maximize a bit. In addition with some clever routing you could add a trip to places in Africa. Problem there is that you cannot stop twice at the same airport.
You could start in WAW for example, do the RTW, but go back to FRA. Buy a separate ticket FRA-WAW-FRA. Then do FRA-CPT-WAW at the end of the RTW.
And welcome to flyertalk.
Jul 30, 2022, 3:09 am
#3
Original Poster
Join Date: Jul 2022
Posts: 4
Thank you for this suggestions and inspirations like starting the trip in a different city than I live or adding side trips.
As this "side trip" can be just another trip that I could plan even a few months after finishing the first one. There are some limitations that I noticed while playing around with *A RTW tool, for example I can't go back to the same continent that I visted once, as I tried eg. adding "side trip" to BKK like this:
FRA-SFO-TPE-VIE (as there is a good direct BR flight from TPE to VIE, and it is easy to come back to WAW from VIE too). and than WAW-IST-BKK-DPS-home but it did not allow me to add BKK... Only Africa was available, this is why you suggested CPT?
And I also noticed that I would need to calculate miles very carefully if I want to achieve what I want too.
How is it possible that building the ticket as RTW would be cheaper than doing the normal Round Trips, is it like a special fare or how it works?
And also... I have no idea how to book it, the *A tool is a bit too limited for my case as it does not have one of the airports I need to fly to...
As this "side trip" can be just another trip that I could plan even a few months after finishing the first one. There are some limitations that I noticed while playing around with *A RTW tool, for example I can't go back to the same continent that I visted once, as I tried eg. adding "side trip" to BKK like this:
FRA-SFO-TPE-VIE (as there is a good direct BR flight from TPE to VIE, and it is easy to come back to WAW from VIE too). and than WAW-IST-BKK-DPS-home but it did not allow me to add BKK... Only Africa was available, this is why you suggested CPT?
And I also noticed that I would need to calculate miles very carefully if I want to achieve what I want too.
How is it possible that building the ticket as RTW would be cheaper than doing the normal Round Trips, is it like a special fare or how it works?
And also... I have no idea how to book it, the *A tool is a bit too limited for my case as it does not have one of the airports I need to fly to...
Jul 31, 2022, 1:45 am
#4
Join Date: Sep 2000
Location: Stuck on this planet - mainly in STR and LAX
Posts: 5,019
First of all there are some limitations of what you can do. Europe-Africa, The Americas, Asie/Australia are 3 groups. You can cross the border between these only once. You can go westward or eastward. So Europe-US-Asia-Europe works, same as Europe-Africa-Europe-US-Asia-Australia-Asie-Europe. But Europe-US-Asia-Europe-Asia is not possible. In certein situations you can go back to a continent.
Then you need to make sure you don;t exceed the mileage limit of the ticket. The website 'Great Circle Mappe' is very helpful for determining the distance.
You can change fright dates free of charge, you can change the routing (except first flight(s)) downstream as often as you like. Very helpful, just book a dummy routing first and then deceide where you want to go later. The ticket is valid for one year after the first flight.
You can add side trips into the RTW itself (just check the rules, jou cannot stop twice in the same place, one of the two has to be a connection, not a stopover. Or you can make a stop somewhere with the RTW and add extra tickets. A travel agent can do this in the same reservation, checking luggage thru becomes easy then.
There are some hardcore masochist here who book RTWs with the airline. My recommendation is to find a real Travel Agent (not the online versions) who is experienced in RTWs. They charge a few hundret USD for their service, but especially when you change the ticket a few times, add side trips etc it is money well spent in my opinion.
Then you need to make sure you don;t exceed the mileage limit of the ticket. The website 'Great Circle Mappe' is very helpful for determining the distance.
You can change fright dates free of charge, you can change the routing (except first flight(s)) downstream as often as you like. Very helpful, just book a dummy routing first and then deceide where you want to go later. The ticket is valid for one year after the first flight.
You can add side trips into the RTW itself (just check the rules, jou cannot stop twice in the same place, one of the two has to be a connection, not a stopover. Or you can make a stop somewhere with the RTW and add extra tickets. A travel agent can do this in the same reservation, checking luggage thru becomes easy then.
There are some hardcore masochist here who book RTWs with the airline. My recommendation is to find a real Travel Agent (not the online versions) who is experienced in RTWs. They charge a few hundret USD for their service, but especially when you change the ticket a few times, add side trips etc it is money well spent in my opinion.
Last edited by Unterwegs; Jul 31, 2022 at 9:13 am
Aug 11, 2022, 7:27 am
#5
Join Date: Mar 2019
Posts: 220
I also noticed that TPE was not an option in the Star Alliance tool. Odd because that pretty much excludes all of EVA Air's long-haul routes. Turkish Airlines, Air New Zealand and United all fly long-haul routes to TPE as well.
However, I noticed that TPE is a transfer option -- for example, you can search BKK to BNE and it will give EVA as a flight option with a transfer in TPE.
However, I noticed that TPE is a transfer option -- for example, you can search BKK to BNE and it will give EVA as a flight option with a transfer in TPE.
Last edited by claimui; Aug 11, 2022 at 7:36 am
Aug 12, 2022, 12:32 am
#6
Moderator, Air Canada; FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Feb 2015
Location: YYC
Programs: AC SE MM, FB Plat, WS Plat, BA Silver, DL GM, Marriott Plat, Hilton Gold, Accor Silver
Posts: 16,774
They've either made some recent changes to the tool that have rendered it even more useless or introduced a lot of bizarre routing rules. For instance, AKL-TPE not selectable. But if you're coming from TYO, sure, TPE is allowed as a destination. TPE-BKK not selectable. TPE-SIN not selectable. And so on.
I spent a lot of time just before COVID working on trying to build one of these tickets, but the lack of transparency around availability and some of the peculiarities like SQ's blocking or surcharges to fly their metal on certain routes already rendered it somewhat unattractive, and it only appears to be worse now.
I spent a lot of time just before COVID working on trying to build one of these tickets, but the lack of transparency around availability and some of the peculiarities like SQ's blocking or surcharges to fly their metal on certain routes already rendered it somewhat unattractive, and it only appears to be worse now.
Aug 12, 2022, 12:40 am
#7
Join Date: Mar 2019
Posts: 220
As mentioned, the problem is that the website does not actually allow you to select TPE (Taoyuan Airport), but only allows you to select "Taipei" which is actually TSA (Songshan Airport). Tokyo to Taipei works because EVA operates a flight from HND to TSA (as does ANA). But flights to BKK, SIN, and all long haul flights are out of TPE and thus they don't show up.