Mary views RTW travel as one Atlantic crossing, one Pacific
crossing, and many stops along the way.
Something like New York to Africa to Europe to India to Southern Asia to
New Zealand to Polynesia, then back home.
Airline alliances sell tickets for these travels (Star Alliance,
oneworld, Sky Team) that give you a certain number of segments and miles flown for
a fixed price. They can be a very good
value, especially if you are going on some expensive flights. The websites are also a fun way to play at
work. Airlines also offer RTW tickets
with miles, but they offer far less.
United for example allows 5 stops (but unlimited segments) and 24,000
miles flown on their RTW ticket. The pricing
is also steep, 200,000 miles in coach, 300,000 in business, and 400,000 in
first. There are award seat limitations like a normal round trip. Depending
on your trip, it may be cheaper to assemble a collection of one way award
tickets. The ease, flight availability,
and value provided from the Star Alliance RTW ticket makes paying cash look
very tempting.
My view of RTW travel is based on the International Air Sports Federation, FAI, the final authority on setting aviation records. They define Round the World as a course
beginning and ending in the same location, the course must be a minimum
distance of 27,000 kilometers (16,778 miles), and the course must cross all
meridians. I can accomplish that in a few days using a
few airline miles, 90,000 US Airways Dividend Miles for business class actually. Mary decided she would not want to travel in
my style and lost interest in my idea, but not before laughing after thinking
of me as an aviation pioneer, wearing goggles flying over a corn field.
US Airways charges 90,000 miles to fly business class from
North America to North Asia (Japan, China, Korea, and some -stan countries). They will let you fly via the Atlantic on one
leg and Pacific on the other. You also
get a free stopover at a Star Alliance hub.
This award will meet the FAI requirements, be a fun way to see two
cities, and a chance to experience different business class products.
I’m thinking of Tokyo and Warsaw can be my stops. I was booked to go to Tokyo last year, but
my trip was to start the morning after the earthquake, so I took United’s
refund offer (the ticket was only $700 round trip from Denver through ORD,
unmatched since). My second stop has to be
a Star Alliance hub and I’d like it to be in Europe (Star’s Europe hubs are Ljubljana,
Athens, Thessaloniki, Heraklion, Rhodes, Larnaca, Vienna, Helsinki, London
Heathrow, Brussels, Zagreb, Warsaw, Frankfurt, Munich, Duesseldorf, Copenhagen,
Oslo, Stockholm, Zurich, Geneva, Basel, Lisbon, Porto, Istanbul, Ankara). I’ve already seen a few of the cities listed
and want to go somewhere new. Warsaw works
well because LOT has quite a few flights into North America with outstanding business
class availability. Austrian Airlines
has good availability from Japan and to North America, but I’ve already been to
Vienna (It’s amazing and I recommend it to all). Istanbul is tempting too with almost 100%
business class availability from NRT to IST, but almost nothing onward to North
America (United announced a new EWR-IST flight, but no business awards yet).
I’m using Continental’s website to find availability and
piece this trip together. Once I find
the flights, I’ll need to call up US Airways to book it. I’ve heard that I should allot an hour for that
call. I’ll let you know how it goes.
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