after discovering that USAir doesn't allow open jaw award travel(thanks usair board) trying to see if the return can be the start of my next RTW.

the star alliance calculator appears to allow me to do:

YYJ-yyz-EWR-sfo-NRT-PVG-SIN-LHR LGW-PHL-den-YVR

it says that there's impossible connection to leg 6, LGW-PHL. can someone pls explain why?

it appears to let me do the backtracking transcontinentally. is this a star alliance calculator screwup or real?

The offline version of the RTWMC seems to have problems in recognizing connections when they are perfectly fine. Try to load your itinerary in the online version http://804.flightlookup.com/rtwmc-web/rtwmc.php, which usually has no bugs regarding the connections.

You can backtrack within one continent as much as you like on a RTW, as long as you follow the rules regarding transfers and stopovers.

If it says an impossible connection for the LGW-PHL flight, then it's very likely that you don't have enough time for the minimum connection time between the SIN-LHR flight and the LGW-PHL flight.

It is perfectly OK to backtrack not only within a continent, but within any of the 3 areas.

You've got a couple thousand extra miles on a 29k RTW routing and plenty of segments to work with. If you have extra time in Europe, you could certainly do some mileage running. Also, unless you're wedded to flying US, you've got lots of alternative trans-Atlantic routings (esp if you're flying in C).

great! music to my ears! btw- i am flying in C.

the YYJ-?-EWR/PHL-?-NRT-PVG-SIN-LHR/LGW is for work. (gotta get back to the states in may anyways)

the rest of the RTW is mine to play with. one of the shortest i've done in a long time.

unfortunatly, this business itinerary won't be finalized until mid-feb. would rather not wait that long til i finalize the yyj-?-ewr/phl (esp since yyj-sea-ewr is $236 right now and don't want to shoot myself in the foot if i pass it up and then can't get from YYJ to EWR/PHL on 1-Mar) oh well...

pricing question. i've never bought RTW in Canada or USA (always fly to denmark to start (i live in the UK)).

Star Alliance- 29000 in C
USA $7650
Canada $8192

SkyTeam- 29000 in C
USA $6600
Canada $6893

Are these prices right?

Where did you get those numbers? All the sources I can see give US$7880 and C$10,079. It's unlikely that prices have gone down.

cheers,

Henry

these are from an excel sheet i've had for a few months. must be old...

RTW fares appear to be identical for SkyTeam & *A from the US and from Canada. In C, $7880+ ex-US and US$10142 ex-Canada.

I don't know SkyTeam's rules well, but I vaguely recall that a C-class RTW on SkyTeam might get you economy seats when traveling within the US. Can anyone confirm or deny?

great- the difference is more than the $236 YYJ-sea-EWR flight. I'll go ahead and book it. i can worry about the RTW starting from PHL or EWR next month. phew! thanks.

slightly befuddled- wideman- in another post you mentioned that canada is the best place for a C RTW. but the ex-USA price is better than the ex-Canada price you quote. can you clarify?

He was just playing silly buggers. Canada can in a sense be seen as the 'best place' to buy a *A RTW ticket because, due to the famous Canadian exception in the Rules, you may buy a ticket in Canada for a trip starting anywhere in the world and pay the same (often, cheaper) fare as if you bought the ticket in the country where you actually start the trip. Everywhere else, if the fare is higher from the country where you buy the ticket compared to the country where you start the trip, you have to pay the higher fare. Catch-22, of course, is that you then have to get to the starting point (and home again at the end of your trip) on your own steam, which may or may not work out cheaper altogether than simply buying the RTW ticket from where you actually are.

cheers,

Henry

got it! unlike canada, i fly to denmark to buy my ticket & start my RTW.

Right. On our last one, we took the little hop from Finland over to Sweden and saved thousands of euros by starting the RTW there. On our next one, an FRWSTAR2 beginning in May, we're going to start from Tokyo; even with the cost of getting-there-and-home-after, we'll again save thousands.

cheers,

Henry

I also had a weird problem trying to create an RTW itinerary offline - it didn't seem to allow me to fly from London to New York without a connection! Much as I love AC I didn't really want to have to go via Canada to get to NYC. I'm gonna try the online version.

I hate to break it to you but there is no direct *A flight between London and New York! UA pulled their flights, US & BD don't fly the route, and until Open Skies no other *A airline had rights.