jaimemayo

I have thought about using my SkyTeam miles to go RTW in biz class. But just the thought of it is too exhausting. Travel is tiring, even in biz class. I don't want to be away from my comfortable home for a long period of time so it would probably mean, like someone said, just a couple of days in each city. And you just can't arrive in a city and know how to get around. I think my miles are better spent on long hauls to Asia.

Very interesting topic. Thanks to the OP for thinking of it!

PH-BDG

For me, it was a great way to fly from Oz to Europe for a family visit, with a short stopover on the way out and back to get some downtime as well.

Plus (BIG! plus) I got to do it in Business Class for about 65% of the price of a "normal" return fare!

RustyC

I once did the "poor man's RTW" by using DL miles on a DL/SQ award to get to SE Asia from ATL over the Atlantic for 70K miles when the Pacific routes looked totally booked. Was able to stop over in AMS for 4 nights in late June (nice!) and make CMB the endpoint, with the return trip starting in BKK. Seemed silly to have to go back the longer way over the Atlantic as well, but if I had come back from BKK over the Pacific it would have counted as an RTW, which would cost far more miles.

I think the cheapest paid RTWs have a Europe stop or two, an Asia stop or two and a U.S. stop or two. Trying to tack on Africa, South America, Polynesia or even sometimes Australia can boost the cost.

aerodark

So, what's the deal here. Is it a once-in-a-lifetime thing for most people, or do folks use it for mileage/status runs or what?[/QUOTE]


I'd always had a fairly romanticised notion of a RTW trip until I started reading FT

"Flying around the world" is a pretty cool concept, conjuring up images of untold exotic delights.
I think it all depends on how you approach travelling:

1. I miss home.

2. You can hop from one hotel to the next, walk down a street downtown or two, and hit up the "fantastic little flower market" in your Acapulburgkistan guidebook.

3. You can also do a tour of one continent (or even one country-- maybe by rail? *gasp*) and get a closer look at one particular place. Maybe there are small regional variations you'd like to notice, and in doing so you'd see that people are people, and just because they're 10,000 miles apart doesn't make them aliens, nor does standing next to each other make them indistinguishable.

My ideal RTW trip would be to travel as #3, but doing that at each place I visited, so as to be able to adjust to each place and get in the groove of the food and the life. Doing that, however, would take many many months or years. After a long or grueling enough trip, though, most people's approach to travel becomes "This is nice, but I'm ready for my own bed again", or as someone already mentioned: "better too short a trip than too long".

However, most of my travel seems to be short-ish trips dependent on where work sends me and where my friends are living, and it's pretty darn hard to do anything other than along the lines of #2. Different people have different ways of approaching short stays, but that's not relevant. Just don't pretend that 2 days gives you any sort of Deep Insight

My actual RTW wound up being determined by living in Europe and having a friend living in India, 5000 miles east of me, and another friend getting married in my hometown 5000 miles west of me. Airfare was simply cheaper if I combined the trips and just flew eastwards (on *A, in coach!).
I spent nearly two weeks visiting my friend in India, a 2-day stopover on the US west coast visiting another friend, 10 days in my hometown, a week on the US east coast visiting yet more friends, and flew home.

Total cost for hotels: 0 ^
Time: 5 weeks
Countries visited outside the US: 1

The miles/status is nice (that was the first time I made low-level elite), but I would happily do another short-ish RTW to see other far-flung friends...

Jaimito Cartero

I understand the being tired portion of it! I did the Skyteam RTW award a couple of years back. What I did is split it up over 11 months. I'd find a semi-cheap RT back from a destination, and then go later in the year to continue the trip. This way, I kept up my elite status, and wasn't burned out from flying 52k in a short amount of time. (Actually about 80k total with connecting flights)

holtju2

Well I did my first RTW when I was 20. And yes I did have lots of fun indeed.

Nowadays I do maybe 3 to 4 RTW's a year, although I don't necessarily book them as a one ticket i.e. I am right now in Rio on my LAX-SFO-YVR-NRT-ICN-MNL-SIN-BKK-HAN-BKK-USM-BKK-SIN-CMB-SIN-BKK-AKL-SYD-SIN-LHR-BCN-ZRH-FRA-GRU-SSA-RIO-SAO-FRA-BCN-MXP-JFK-LAX trip. This is my winter break (5 weeks). Mainly on C and F, although the intra Brazil segments on JJ are in Y because that's the only thing they sell here in Brazil.

Typically I mix and match some "jumbo" fares with on going "good" premium fares and BD cash + miles redemptions F. It is not really that expensive.

hauteboy

I've only done one RTW fare (Oneworld AONE6) so far, had bought two others but wasn't able to use them. By timing it right, it earned two years of Qantas Platinum (oneworld emerald) status. Many segments were flown just as a status run, rather than vacation. However by buying nested tickets, I was able to get vacations in Egypt, Hawaii, Alaska, France, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, and Dubai over the course of a year. I get 4 weeks paid vacation, plus a week at Christmas, plus 5 other paid holidays per year.

* are separately bought tickets
cai-lhr-ord-aus
*aus-lga
jfk-scl-lax-jfk-syd-cns
cns-syd
syd-hba
hba-mel
*mel-hnl (Discovery fare, Oz to Europe via US, allowed 4 stopovers)
*ogg-dfw-aus
*aus-dfw-lhr-nce
*nce-zrh-dfw-aus
*aus-lax-akl
*chc-syd
syd-sin
sin-cmb-hkg
hkg-nrt-hkg-lhr-acc-lhr-dxb

Downunder girl

I used *A RTW Y class (SYD-LAX-JFK-LHR-SIN-SYD) in 2005 and looking at booking another for this year to USA and CDG. As other posters have said, if you are half way around the world already, ie in SYD - its not much more to get the RTW - we are spending around $3000 just to go SYD-LAX-JFK-SYD, so for a little more (and sometimes less) you can add another two stops and go somewhere exotic.

Another bonus, if you book a *A RTW, it books into H class, one of the classes needed to get upgrades with miles on UA ex SYD ^.

On my last RTW, I got an op-up to UA C class SYD-LAX ^. Plus I qualified for UA 2P in 1 trip - nice bonus . Gives lots of miles .

One drawback for me is I dont have a lot of travel time, so my last RTW was done in 25 days - just a bit too rushed for the number of cities we visited and 4 out of 5 flights were overnights of considerable length (not easy with children).

P.S: I also used a RTW in 1995 - I think it was *A then too as I flew LH, SQ etc. But I am not 100% sure about that. We flew SYD-CDG-(Train to LHR rtn)-CDG-(car through France, Italy, Germany, back to CDG)-AMS-Athens-SIN-SYD. Fantastic trip spread over 2 months (pre-child days ).

BigLar

Good Lord!!

I did a "segment run" once, getting 5 segs out of what could have been a non-stop r/t.

I did nothing!!!

Well, I have neither the time (no paid vacations), the (excess) money, nor familial understanding -- when I'm not on the road, She Who Must Be Obeyed wants my a$$ at home.

As far as being "not that expensive", I almost never take leisure trips unless it's with miles. I have a lot better things to do with a few thousand bucks than jaunt around the world. Given the miles, though ...

mikeyg619

Hi All

I have been reading the forums and I have been getting alot of info. I am hoping that one of you experienced FTers could help me with my RTW itinerary. My wife and I are currently working in Singapore. Our contracts are up this coming June. We would like to do a RTW on our way home to Canada. We are going to stretch this RTW out over 12 months (Travel from July 12/08 - Aug. 05/08 then go back to work at home in Canada Travel for 1 week around Christmas then back to work then travel again for 1 week in March then back to work then travel summer of 2009). The following is what we would like to do.

Singapore - Beijing - Tokyo - Toronto - (work until Christmas) Miami - Toronto - (back to work until March) Las Vegas - Detroit - (back to work til Summer 2009) London UK - Dubai - Singapore

I would appreciate any help with this itineray (if it is possible? best way of doing it? how many miles you think it will require? how is the easiest way to book it?)

P.S. We would like to do this with Skyteam because we have Silver Elite status and would like to earn as many miles as we can. Thanks and i look forward to your reply

Kiwi Flyer

Welcome to Flyer Talk mikeyg619

I'm not sure if you're wanting a paid RTW ("earn as many miles as we can") or an award ("how many miles you think it will require"). If it is an award, asking a TravelBuzz moderator to move your post to the forum of your frequent flyer program will help get the best answers for you (you'll need to let us know what program that is). If it is a paid RTW then moving your post to the Sky Team forum will probably get the best answers for you.

Fraser

My wife and I are taking an AONE4 in May & June. For us it is a one time we feel we'll get a proper stab at it...until the kids get shipped off to boarding school The company I work for is moving across the country and I've decided to pass on it so have some time off. My wife and I are 25 and 24 respectively and before we have kids we'd love to take this opportunity to see a number of places we haven't seen together. We are doing it almost as a lot of combined city breaks with some extended visits to Japan, New Zealand and Alaska along the way.

We can't wait but the planning how much time we need to spend in each place is something of a nightmare as we don't want to skimp on places but also would like to leave some things to return to some other time in the future...It is like booking eleven holidays all at once!

I don't know how some of you guys plan a years worth, or all of your travel on these tickets and stay sane!

As for the miles aspect, I haven't worked it out how many miles we will get but the trip is about 58k miles flown so I'm guessing around 100,000 miles earned each, plus it works out quite nicely that I'll be retaining BA Gold and getting a Gold Upgrade Vouchers for two as well!

graraps

For the routes you are doing, you may find Star Alliance to be a lot more convenient.
Obviously, convenient is the exact opposite of "earning most miles", so clearly there is a benefit to sticking with Skyteam for this tkt.
Also, doing all these trips within N. America is just a waste of your mileage allowance, as these flights can be bought separately for relatively little money. Plus there may be a limit of 3 stopovers per continent and not visiting the same city twice (except connection). Unfortunately, most ST flyers on these fora (myself included) tend to have a heavy preference for their home carrier and aren't totally aware of alliance-wide matters, so the experience on the boards is nowhere near that for *A or even the much smaller oneworld.

Possible itin: SIN-CAN-PEK-ICN-NRT-LAX-ATL-YYZ-DTW-AMS-LCY-AMS-DXB-CAN-SIN.

Well under 29000.
You can either add a couple more destinations in Europe (really, is London the only place you want to see in Europe or have you been everywhere else already?) or maybe Africa, or simply pad your flights like:

SIN-CAN-PEK-ICN-NRT-PVG-DTW-YYZ-DTW-AMS-LCY-ZRH-FCO-CAI-DXB-ICN-SIN

and still remain below 29000...

Choice is yours

Jaimito Cartero

Not too many sane people around here.

Kiwi Flyer

Keeping track of what is included on which ticket when you have multiple booked is an annoyance. Having to change them all because plans have changed can be hard work.

As for sane ... no comment.