Planning a world trip - need some help

Vic Diaz

Vic Diaz

Level 2 Member
Hey guys,

My wife and I want to do a 2 month trip and catch as many places as we can around the globe. Has anybody ever done one of these?

My current point break down is as follows:
Chase UR - 272,141
Amex - 105,973
Citi - 32,817

We want to hit the following places if possible, Tahiti, New Zealand, Australia, Tokyo, China, Thailand, Dubai, Cairo, Turkey, and Europe.

Can any of you travel geniuses give me some guidance on how to approach planning for a trip like this? We plan on getting a few more credit cards to continue to build the UR point balance.
 
S

steventravel

Level 2 Member
If your a do it yourselfer and want to learn all about award booking and go through the hassle. Read alot and try it all out.

If not this is the type of award that I would say to pay for. Award Magic is One Mile at a Times booking company they do a good job. Its pricey but time is money. If you have alot of time to figure this out and do it on your own you eventually can. But just one mistake on miles as in booking a 100K flight instead of a 50K flight can pay off on a booking company.

We do it both ways. But the only reason is my wife enjoys finding the flights and figuring out the puzzle. It stresses me out. So if it were up to me I would always use a booking company.
 
K

knick1959

Level 2 Member
I have no experience with this program, but a coworker used this to fly all over with her husband after they finished school and before they found "real jobs". I read about it and made a mental note, but you really have to have quite a bit of time to kill. Which is why I suggest you learn about it.

http://www.staralliance.com/en/book-fly

Other alliances might have round-the-world options. Anyone?

Update: I don't recall if you can do this on points ... since it's generic *A, perhaps not, now that I think about it.

Update to the Update: I see no way to apply miles. It's a cash deal and I'm not sure how aggressively the cash price is. I threw in a coach trip for 2 from CLE to Beijing, Hong Kong, Siem Reep (sp?), London and back to CLE. The tool estimated the price per person at $4500, which I didn't see as very attractive. So, perhaps this wasn't such a good suggestion :).
 
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Matt

Matt

Administrator
Staff member
steventravel said:
If your a do it yourselfer and want to learn all about award booking and go through the hassle. Read alot and try it all out.

If not this is the type of award that I would say to pay for. Award Magic is One Mile at a Times booking company they do a good job. Its pricey but time is money. If you have alot of time to figure this out and do it on your own you eventually can. But just one mistake on miles as in booking a 100K flight instead of a 50K flight can pay off on a booking company.

We do it both ways. But the only reason is my wife enjoys finding the flights and figuring out the puzzle. It stresses me out. So if it were up to me I would always use a booking company.
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I didn't realize that they used AwardMagic, I thought they had their own firm? That said, we also have our own award booking service here :)
 
smittytabb

smittytabb

Moderator
Staff member
I did this back in 1979 before there were even frequent flier programs. They used to have a mileage ticket where you went in the same direction and had a certain number of stops. One World used to have one but discontinued it a couple of years ago to do it with miles. You can still do it for cash.

Not to discourage you, but your balances are not close to what you might need to do this. For example my husband and I just got round trip flights in business on United to Europe and that alone was 230K Chase URs transferred to United and that is the cheapest there is.
 
Lappie

Lappie

Level 2 Member
Matt said:
Very do-able in coach with these balances.
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Ha Ha. We are all so used to Business and First..its hard to imagine sitting in coach.

I did do JFK to MXP on Emirates coach, 2 people, roundtrip, for 80k UR. Coach on Emirates is not that bad.
 
S

SanDiego1K

Level 2 Member
When I first got interested in round the world tickets, there was no FlyerTalk and I had to do a ton of learning on my own. The pioneer in the field was the guy behind this website: https://tripplanner.airtreks.com/#/search He was all about flying in coach and piecing together airfares from low cost carriers. I bought his book and found it fascinating. It's probably worth a couple hours browsing his site, using his trip planning tool, and seeing the proposed routings. Several of them are sure to be on carriers that won't be covered by your points. Try to work out a strategy of where to use points and where to insert paid travel.

I've subsequently done both Star and OneWorld RTW tickets. I've found OneWorld more flexible than Star. Both have forums of their own on FlyerTalk, but I don't see either as being appropriate to what you are currently planning.

The learning is a lot of the fun of the trip. Enjoy!
 
Vic Diaz

Vic Diaz

Level 2 Member
Sorry for going dark you guys, busy times at work. The wife and I want to fly coach and we decided to push back to begin the trip last week of August so we have some time to load up on more sign up bonuses.

I have started reading and it does take a ton of time!

ANA looks like they have a good rtw redemptions and Korean air does as well but they dont have many stopovers. I have a friend who is in the middle of a RTW trip and he has used cruises to reposition if needed for a little cash. Its another approach I hadn't thought of.
 
currid7

currid7

Level 2 Member
Singapore has a round the world chart I believe. Also, TravelisFree did a writeup on a round the world using cheap local companies (Ryanair, et al) to fill the gaps. I'd say instead of doing it all coach with points, do long hauls in Biz and fill the gaps with cheap flights totaling ~$1k would be a fantastic option.
 
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