jarinzfin

thanks Jacob for a wonderful report! ^

Flying Lawyer

This is not ignorance but it is the outflow of your experience with some wunderful airlines in the US. YES: Food and drink is free more or less on all carriers' lounges all around the globe with the well known exceptions of the Star* US carrieres in the US....

Flying Lawyer

Thanks again for this, this was really fantastic. Would you mind to upload the full story eg as PDF to the net? I would really love to have it without any remarks in between as pure food for reading. Thanks!

Jensine

How much did the ticket cost? Maybe you have mentioned it, but I could not find it. Great report! Very interesting.

peter777

Really excellent report : well written, informative and detailed. Nice pictures, too! This report will no doubt make many readers dream about a similar trip. I for one wish o be able to have a similar trip on Star Alliance, especially on SQ with their new seats. By the way, what was the cost of your ticket?

jacob_m

I got a private message two days ago from an FTer who asked me if I could post a photo of the amenity kit on Swiss in F.
This has been done, and the photo is available in the HKG-ZRH instalment.

If you just want to read the story without the comments you can go to the first page of the report where I have created a table of contents.
Just click on whatever you want to read and the instalment will open in a new window, without any comments.
It should be pretty easy to print it from there for example.
I'll have a look if anything else can be done.

The fare for FRWSTAR2 (34000 miles) ex-Sweden was 73690 SEK which equals roughly 10800 USD with today's exchange rate.
On top of that I had to pay around 8000 SEK in taxes and charges (1180 USD).
Quite a lot in taxes, but in all fairness I had 22 segments included in the itinerary.

Unfortunately they raised all the RTW prices just a few weeks before I made the booking, but Sweden is still one of the cheapest countries for RTW tickets and this was by no means a bad deal.

view

I'm almost a bit sad to see your magnificent journey come to an end, because that means the report is finished too. An excellent effort, very much appreciated, but I guess you have already discovered that.

Thank you ^

dsimon

jacob_m,

Thank you for taking the time to put together this report.

One question that I do have of this picture of the LX 343 cabin is whether there is walking space in front of seats 1D and G and the bulkhead. From the picture, it is difficult to tell whether the front end of the suites run up to the bulkhead with the water bottles and display. If there is walking space, did you (I realize that you were in 2K) find that people used that to cross the cabin very much as opposed to going through the galley? Are seats 1D and G okay, in your opinion?

Thanks for your response.

jacob_m

Yes, there is walking space between row 1 and the small "bar", maybe one meter, so no problem passing there.
There is only one lavatory in F on the A340 though and it's in front of seat 1A, so from my seat 2K I had to pass the bar (and seat 1D and 1G) every time I wanted to use the lavatory, not once did I go through the galley where the curtains were mostly closed.

If your question is related to seat preference in F I very much liked 2K since basically nobody had to pass my seat during the entire flight and 2G was also empty on my flight. Fabulous! Lots of privacy!
If F is full there is a slight chance you might find it disturbing to be in 1D or 1G since all people sitting on the right side (1G, 1K, 2G, 2K) have to pass you to get to and from the lavatory.
If you are travelling alone I think 2A or 2K are the best choices.

dsimon

Thanks for your prompt response.

I guess what I meant to ask was is, is the walking space on the other side of the small knee-height partition? I sort of imagine it would have to be, otherwise people would be walking on (your) seat side of the ottoman.

Can you confirm that? Thank you.

jacob_m

Yes the partition is between the ottoman and the walking space, nobody will walk over you or accidently touch your feet if they want to go to the lavatory in the middle of the night while you're sleeping, that's probably why the partition is there.
Still 1D and 1G are not the most private seats onboard, but definitely don't worry!

dsimon

Thanks again for the follow-up.

jacob_m

There was recently a thread in the Star Alliance forum where someone asked if RTW tickets in F are really worth it since so many airlines do not offer F anymore and others only on selected routes.
The simple answer is that it really depends, a RTW ticket in F can either be a complete waste of money or a real bargain. In my case there is no doubt my itinerary falls under the second category.
I actually checked the published fares for my trip for fun, and I would estimate that my itinerary bought as single tickets with the lowest possible fare in the flown class of travel would have cost between 3-4 times more than the price I paid for my RTW ticket.
That’s some pretty decent savings!

I hope that my trip report can give some ideas and inspiration to people thinking of or already planning a RTW trip of what can be done.
It can be surprisingly difficult to create a good RTW itinerary, I for one know that, I changed my itinerary many many times before I was completely satisfied with the flights and the routing.
I think that my itinerary is a good example of how to make the most out of a RTW ticket in F and how to make the ticket a good deal rather than a waste of money.

Maps

The full RTW itinerary included three airline tickets (RTW ticket, Star Alliance Pacific award ticket, and US domestic ticket) and train tickets in three countries (Montreal-Quebec City in Canada, Hong Kong-Guangzhou in China, and a Japan rail pass with various short trips in Japan).

Map of my full RTW itinerary

I bought a Star Alliance RTW ticket in F and went for the second options called Star2 which gave me 34000 miles to use. Of those I used 33959 miles based on Star Alliance calculations, that’s pretty close, only 41 miles left.

Map of my FRWSTAR2 itinerary, officially it’s 33959 miles per Star Alliance calculations

Airlines flown
AC, BD, CL, LH, LX, NH, NZ, SK, SQ, TG, UA (=11)

Airports visited
AKL, ARN, BKK, BRU, CHC, CPH, DEN, DFW, FRA, HAM, HKG, HND, JFK, ITM, KIX, KUL, LAX, LGA, LHR, NRT, PPT, RAR, SEA, SFO, SIN, SYD, WLG, YUL, YYZ, ZRH (=30)

Aircrafts flown
A300, A319, A320, A330, A340, ARJ100, B737, B747, B757, B767, B777, CRJ-700, DASH8, MD80

Lounges visited
AC: YUL (Transborder), YYZ
BD: BRU
CX: HKG (C & F)
JL: KIX (F)
LH: FRA (FCT, FCL), HAM (SEN)
LX: ZRH (F & Arrrival)
NH: HND, LAX, NRT (Dom)
NZ: AKL (Dom & Intl), CHC (Intl), RAR, SYD, WLG (Dom)
SK: ARN (*G), CPH (*G), LHR
SQ: HKG (F), KUL (F), LAX (F), LHR (C), SIN (F), SYD (F)
TG: BKK (F), HKG (F), KUL, SIN
UA: DEN, DFW, JFK (F), LAX, SEA, SFO
Common: PPT
*A: ZRH (F)

Total flight time
Roughly 113 hours

Flights
First: 10
Business: 15
Economy plus: 5
Economy: 4
In total: 34

Countries visited
Australia, Belgium, Canada, China, Denmark, France (French Polynesia), Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Macau, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland, Thailand, UK, USA

Not sure if Cook Islands could be regarded as a country, administratively it’s part of New Zealand, but I did pass “The parliament of the Cook Islands” on my island tour.


As already mentioned I am also planning to post a short comparison of the premium products I have tried (check-in, lounges, cabin, seats, meals, service etc), after all I managed to cover as many as 10 airlines, of which 6 in F.
I will be going away over the weekend and the beginning of next week (yes, more flying) so the comparison won’t be posted until later next week.
It’s nice to take a little break in the report writing as well

Steady-EDI

The trip of trips and the report of reports ^ Can it really be over? jacob_m, your amazing report has kept me always looking out for the next instalment for the last couple of weeks.

Many thanks for all your work. Believe me, I know the amount of effort involved in putting something like this together!

PhilH

jacob_m, can I say again, now that you've finished recounting your trip, what a great pleasure it has been to follow you on your way around the world. This is a fantastic trip report, almost perfect in terms of construction, style and use of photos. A wonderful effort. Thank you again! ^