I did a search and didn't find much for sample RTW itins. My wife and I are planning a trip and would love to see some routes that other people have done. I want to hit all continents but the leg into South Africa is putting me over the 39k limit. Looking into NRT, AUK, and LON for a start because of the fare differences. We are planning on taking about a year to complete the travel and will probably just bum around asia and europe on train or bus, in each for about 4 months (we have lots of friends in Europe and living in Asia is cheap...)

Also, I thought I read about a way to upgrade with miles from the economy fare, but can't seem to find anything on the rules about it. Is it possible? Is it worth it? I've decided that buying a ticket with miles isn't, but maybe upgrading is... It might be a nice change of pace from the cheap life we'll be living for that year...

Thanks!

Cor blimey, man. 'Sample RTW itins'??? The permutations are, in fact, endless, and without giving us some idea of what/where you want you're really asking for the moon. (Having said that, I recommend that you head toute suite to the 'Trip Reports' forum and read jacob_m's world-champion narrative of what he recently accomplished.)

AUK? I've never heard of anyone starting an RTW in Alakanuk, Alaska but hei -- why not? Price will be the same as anywhere else in the USA, though. (And providing that a *A carrier goes there.)

With an RTW in sardine class, your opportunities for upgrading individual flight sectors would be about the same as with an ordinary economy ticket. That is, it depends on the carrier involved and in which FFP you have the points you want to spend. Almost half of the *A carriers are now allowing upgrades from other members' programmes, and more are supposed to come on board next year. The cost of such upgrades, however, is not cheap, compared to each programme's own.

I personally don't see why anyone would want to take an RTW 'for fun' in sardine class -- because on the long trans-oceanic flights it just wouldn't be, you know, fun; however, last time I checked LON was a comparatively good place, price-wise, to start such a trip. Check out the *A RTWMC, online or downloadable, which will give you the price for any itinerary you plug in.

cheers,

Henry

I'm not asking for people to make some up, I'm asking to see what other people have done in the past. I'm sure there are a lot of people have worked the routes for maximum variance in routing.

I meant Aukland, NZ, not Alaska. My bad.

There seem to be two groups of people on this board who buy RTW. ONe group does the RTW to see all the different F or C cabins of each airline. They maybe spend a day in each city, but it's more about the airline experience then anything else.

The other group (less of this group) buy the RTW ticket to actually see the destinations. We are planning on traveling for a year and the flights themselves are less important to where we're going. The RTW fare is a great value to us when we might have a total of 40k to spend all year long.

I should add that I've used the excel RTW for fares and the trip planner extensively. That's why australia, new zealand, japan, and london are probably my choices for starting points. However, the devil is in the details. taxes, best routings, carriers to look for are all good information.

jacob_m has written some wonderful reports. Just looking for more, especially from people that are more bumming it around.

Here are a few *A RTWs (plus side trips) I've done trip reports on.

NZ, US, Europe, Asia

NZ, Asia, Canada, US, Europe, Asia again

NZ, Alaska, US, Europe, Africa, Asia

Read some of your stories with enjoyment. It appears that you're combining a lot of side trips with your RTW fares, correct?

Some to varying degrees. It should be reasonably obvious from the trip reports which bits done as side trip and which as part of the RTW.

You'll find oodles of RTWs on the Trip Reports forum. Here's mine:

From the Heart of Africa to the Top of the World: SIN-LLW-LYR-YOW-PUS-SIN in C

This is a 'pure' RTW, with only the JNB-LLW-JNB flown on a separate ticket (and these days you could squeeze that in too, as SAA is now a *A member).

I have done a RTW trip 5 years ago. We did aar-cph-yyt, yqb-yyc, yvr-sfo, sfo-apw, apw-nrt, kix-dac, del-aar.

This year we are doing aar-mex, gua-rar, rar-syd, bne-del, del-sin, sin-ist, esb-aar. Just below 34.000 miles. Sidetrips bought seperatly to ait and ayq.

I have not done a trip report, but it may give you some inspiration. It is/was all done in Y. We are doing it for the countries that we visit; the transport is just means to an end.

There is a third group:
Business people who realize they can often get a RTW fare cheaper that a round trip in J to a single destination who then "lump" several trips in to one to maximize their travel budget. For example, if you have business in Europe and Asia rather than booking several round trips you combine them and do one RTW itinerary.

I can contribute that one:


BKG - Hong Kong - FRA - CGN - FRA - CPT - FRA - CPH - Stavanger - BER - OSL - ARN - CPH - HAM - DUS - YVR - SFO - SYD - MEL - BKG

Veryyy close to 39.000

OK, fair enough.

We have done five so far : all for recreation (as opposed to business), all in C and all designed to (a) take us in comfort to (b) widely-separated destinations. The first two were in the early-mid '90s, on the old SingaporeAir-SwissAir-Delta combination and the others on *A. (lower case = transfers; UPPER CASE = stops > 24 hrs; bold = major destinations; // = surface sector; off-RTW side-trips not noted)

1. DHA-ist-ZRH-ORD//SFO-hkg-SIN-BWN-sin-DHA

2. DHA-sin-BWN-sin-hkg-SFO//OAK-slc-ORD-zrh-TXL-zrh-RUH

3. TMP-arn-cph-yyz-MKE-den-lax-AKL//WLG-bne-CNS//SYD-sin-DXB-fra-HEL

4. TMP-arn-lhr-YYZ-yvr-icn-SYD//PER-SIN-MCT-dxb-fra-VIE-HEL

5. ARN-got-cph-CDG-osl-hel//TMP-cph-dus-ord-MKE-ord-lax-akl-SYD-sin-bkk-cph-txl-hel-VAA-ARN

cheers,

Henry

Or business people who realize a RTW is cheaper than C to a single destination and decide to fly the extra miles "for the hell of it". If my company decides to send me to PVG in C, this will be my situation.

As an interloper from the other side (but possibly just the other side of town) I might mention that the Oneworld Explorer RTW doesn't have any mileage limits, just segment count and per-continent limits. It might work better for you given you'd like to do some surface segments or a bunch of open-jaws.

One other element to consider about a premium-class ticket instead of coach is the ability to accrue a ton of miles for future use. On the OWE for instance, with elite bonuses, the lack of a mileage limit means you can usually leverage an award RTW out of a paid one. Probably hard to achieve the same on a Star, Skyteam or single/multi-line RTW (like UA/EK) but the cost/benefit ratio is still worth considering when you think about spreading the cost differential (between Y and J) over the course of a year's travels.

Thanks for that!

That RTW trip was actually a combination of both "categories", i.e. both a good variation of countries that I really wanted to visit and an attempt to maximise my rather expensive ticket and try include as many airlines as possible in first class.

I know good RTW itineraries are quite tricky to create, there are no shortcuts I'm afraid, I worked on mine for almost two months before the booking was made and arranging everything else (accommodation, transfers, visas etc) took probably another two months.
Have you downloaded the Star Alliance RTW mileage calculator? A very useful tool and a very good start!

I understand you are interested in getting some ideas from previous RTW itineraries, but keep in mind that every trip is unique and some itineraries may not be relevant to you, we all have our own preferences.
Best way to start is to take a piece of paper and write down the countries/cities/regions/islands you want to visit before looking at routes and flights.
As already pointed out the opportunities are almost endless as you have access to the entire network of 15 airlines (or is it even more?) around the world if you fly Star Alliance .
The best thing is to start with a simple itinerary based on the destinations you want to visit and then modify it as you find out one airline is better than another, one flight more convenient than another, different ways to reduce the mileage used etc.