I'm curious as to what is the maximum number of countries outside Europe it's possible to visit on a *A RTW ticket, preferably with no surface sectors. Is it actually possible to get a different country with each coupon, or would there need to be some doubling back? Are there interesting things be done with multiple-stops-on-one-coupon to push that up higher?

Will the answer be different once Continental joins and offers some more interesting trans-Pacific routes?

A little clarification will help in considering your question(s).

First, in your title you say 'non-EU countries' but then in the message it's 'countries outside Europe'. Which is it to be? Also, you talk about countries that are 'possible to visit' but then refer to 'multiple-stops-on-one-coupon'. In your view, does stopping at an airport, or changing planes, count as visiting a country?

cheers,

Henry

Hi Henry,

Thanks for the response. There's no strict answer to the questions, as at this point I'm just exploring what's possible. As the most restrictive version, by non-Europe, I generally mean outside bmi Zones 1 + 2 (, but I'd relax that to allow Armenia/Georgia/Turkey, and anywhere in Russia other than St Petersburg/Moscow. And by a visit, a proper "clear immigation / leave the airport" stop would be preferable, but I'm also curious what number of countries could be pased through if just touching down in the airport also counted.

Thanks.

Looking for stamps in your passport?

Without working too hard, I have a 14 country iterary with 15 coupons. I'm sure
someone else can think of one more stop to add. This has no EU stop at all:
MNL-ICN-PVG-TPE-HKG-BKK-AKL-SYD-JNB-DAK-IAD-EZE-SCL-YYZ-NRT-MNL

Just add a SIN leg either before or after MNL and you have the max.

Chris

Nice. I assume you mean DKR rather than DAK?

I also can't find a direct flight from NRT-MNL (but adding SIN as per Chris' suggestion works OK there). The weird one, though, is TPE-HKG. The only option it gives for that is Thai, which claims to be NonStop but uses 2 coupons. Is this just a glitch with the online cacluator or is there something else going on there?

The biggest problem, however is that it's coming out as 49k miles on the online calculator, which is substantially above the max. Is something being miscounted here, or were you just trying to construct a plausible route that had each stop in a different country, with no regard to distance? If it's the latter then this is definitely a good starting point to work from, so thanks for that! (And if it's the former, better still!)

yes, I did.
You are right - I thought NH flew that route, but I see it is JAL.
So we can switch MNL to KUL, which NH flies as a code-share.
But someone will have to look it up and see if it is an allowable code-share.
I have flown this many times - it is a non-stop, one coupon sector - TG607.
I did not check the mileage to see if it a valid itinerary since the *A web-site
was down when I did this. I was just trying to construct maximum number
of countries without going through EU. I originally had SIN in there ( I am not
sure why I took it out).

OK, the following comes in at 16 coupons - 15 sectors ( due to PVG-TPE arriving at domestic airport, and departure from International airport) and only 36929 miles:

JNB-EZE-SCL-YYZ-ORD-NRT-ICN-PVG-TPE-HKG-SIN-SGN-BKK-AKL-SYD-JNB

I just realized that if the above routing starts/ends in TPE, the extra coupon problem
is solved. So there is room for one for one more stop, and lots of miles to do so, if someone
can suggest one.

Start/end in TPE, and change ...-HKG-SIN-SGN-BKK-AKL-SYD-JNB-... to ...-HKG-SGN-BKK-BLR-SIN-AKL-PER-JNB-... and you've got

TPE-HKG-SGN-BKK-BLR-SIN-AKL-PER-JNB-EZE-SCL-YYZ-ORD-NRT-ICN-PVG-TPE

which is 16 flights and 38 632 miles (GCM).

cheers,

Henry

Well done. So for the original poster, you've got 16 legs, 16 countries without
touching down in Europe. To go back to the original question, I believe
the EZE-SCL-YYZ can be done on one coupon as EZE-YYZ on AC, so
again there may be room to add one stop elsewhere, and end up with 17 countries. When I have some more time, I may try to optimize that.

Excellent. Thanks all.

When I was trying to piece something together myself I was looking at the NZ one-coupon AKL-TBU-APW-LAX for two bonus countries, but couldn't make the rest of it work. There have been a few interesting suggestions here that I might be able to put to good use in that now though...

Just curious - there have been previous requests for routing to avoid the US due to their
visa requirements. Why do you want to avoid Europe?

Well, there are two components to my question, really. Firstly there's the puzzle of working out what would be possible. Secondly, there's actually piecing together a route that I'll take. I'm based in Europe and have already travelled around most of it, so I'd like to maximise the non-Europe parts on a RTW. For the sake of this question, I also expected it would be too simple to come up with a route where every coupon gave a different country by hopping around Europe a lot. Removing Europe from the equation gives some more interesting routes.