Rus925

Hey all,

So I'm going to graduate from college this spring, and I was hoping to treat myself to a RTW with miles this summer before my job starts. I have ~260k miles in MP—enough for a RTW in C—but I've heard stories on this board about getting much better deals than that. I also have ~60k LH, 35k BD (which I hope will merge soon), and 50k AF/KL (enough for one TATL C segment or two during Promo @Awards).

I'm really hoping to be able to invite a friend to join me; if I do, I'll have another 300k+ MP miles plus 80k DL miles that belong to my parents from which to draw—they don't want me traveling alone—but I'd rather not use them unless absolutely necessary.

Here's the routing I'm considering:

US (probably NYC)-PEK-HKG-BKK-SIN-BOM-DXB-JNB-IST-wandering through Europe-US

I expect to pay for many of the Asian hops in cash. I want to book long segments in C, partially for comfort, but also largely because this friend has been listening to my airline adventures but has yet to fly in a premium cabin. I really don't care about F, although it might be nice to have one segment of it for him.

First of all, how that itinerary sound, both from a tourism and a redemption standpoint? I've been on FT a while, and I've picked up a few things from the search, mainly that RTW redemptions aren't that great. I was hoping someone could give me some tips and guidelines: are there any special stopover or routing rules I can exploit? How about buying air passes in Europe or East Asia?

Thanks!

kmfdm91

Let me start answering some of these...

First, congrats on graduation - sounds like a great trip...for my college graduation, I 'only' went to Australia, so your trip should be grand.

My recommendations (take them as a post on the Internet ), but try to scrap the concept of the RTW both in terms of cash/award. However, KEEP the RTW in actuality - so basically, fly around the world, but use a combination of awards and paid segments (one-ways) in order to fully circumnavigate the world.

My advice would be to do a one-way award (in C) to Asia then perhaps another one-way to India/Middle East then finally another award down to South Africa and perhaps back to the USA. Here's the kicker - REALLY study the mileage redemption charts and find out the best use for miles and regions. For instance, it is a decent amount cheaper (50K opposed to 60K) to fly from South Africa to Japan in C than it is to either South or North Asia (BKK and ICN, etc). So, even though it doesn't really make sense, the chart really matters in using it best to maximize your trip.

That being said, take a look at paid one-way segments on nice carriers, and especially being young, those segments will be fine in Y and make you appreciate C even more. Also, really get to know the odd *A routes that you can fly (even though it's not in your list - HKG-LHR on NZ or FRA-JFK on SQ) since it could make those one-way trips MUCH nicer than dealing with UA/CO.

Finally, your list of places sounds great - if you haven't been to most of those places, then I feel like you did a good job of selecting, without knowing your personality at all. Without having been to DXB or BOM, I'd probably choose all of those places on a trip as well, with HKG and JNB being some of the best, but all (iStanbul, Beijing are great as well) are very worthy stops. The last thing I can say, although you probably already know this, is that a lot of destinations in continental Europe are very far from each other - further (than when I was in college) I thought...but now, having taken some intercity trips, I realize that train travel can take a while - but obviously, is pretty exciting.

But, good luck hunting and enjoy planning for such a worthy trip...my wife & I's last RTW trip was a combination of an award (DCA-YUL-YTZ-local-YYZ-NRT-HKG) and paid [MR worthy] (HKG-IST-LAX) then cheap o-w (LAX-IAD) and I'd easily recommend this strategy to others, like i'm doing here. In addition, stay afloat on two things: 1: The MR forum for any cheap deals that you can start building part of your itinerary. b: Fun routings/carriers for Award trips (remember you can have < 24 hour 'layovers' on awards), such as a flight from SFO-ICN...transit Seoul...GMP-HND...transit Tokyo...NRT-HKG or something similar.

Enjoy & Congrats again,
jeremy

eponymous_coward

Yes, do look at the chart. Other "values":

North Asia-South Asia: 22.5K one-way
intra-South Asia: 17.5K one-way. If you round-trip, you could potentially do something like this

Also, OP, you do NOT want BD to merge with LH. BD miles can be used with judicious amounts of cash in one-way awards quite productively, and are generally >>>> LH miles (though both will lead to fuel surcharges ).

And my last award was an RTW that was constructed somewhat similar to what you did: combining a US F North America-North Asia award to HKG (FRA stopover) with a CO intra-South Asia award, with some train travel and cheap LCC flights for the intra-Europe travel, and looked like this.

Good luck with your travels!