We are hoping to book the RTW trip, and currently playing around with our itinerary to try to make the most of the layovers we have- by dropping into Iceland.
Unfortunately there is only one flight in and out of Iceland by a Oneworld airline (British Airlines) from London Heathrow which is exactly 24 hours apart, and then we are planning to fly out of London ASAP to ensure this isn’t counted as a stopover-
London - Iceland: arrive 11.30am 05/11/22
Iceland - London: depart 11.30am 05/11/22
London - New York: depart 8.25am 06/11/22
Could someone please let me know if this could technically be counted as a “layover”.
Also- would our stops in London then classify as the “transit through each city twice on one booking”- therefore we won’t be able to transit through London before or after the trip?
If the above ends up classifying as a “stopover” then we may end up booking the flight on our own separate from Qantas Oneworld reward.
Also one more question- when trying to play with the itineraries to ensure our planned trips stay within the rules, I’ve come across Qantas website error #7130 (the error cause because multi city booking is capped at 6 flights). Is there any way that I can add the full itinerary and check how much taxes are, that that it stays within the rules and is capped at 318000 points (without having to call up Qantas and risk being on hold for hours)
I don’t know the answer to your question but I do have a quick thought…
Keflavik airport is an hour out from Reykjavik. At best, a 24-hour stop in Iceland will give you time to visit the Blue Lagoon, spend a few hours in Reykjavik and try to get lucky with seeing the Northern Lights at your first attempt (it took me four). For the privilege, you’ll be paying for an overnight stay as well as the taxes/surcharges for the flights. I’m worried that you won’t really be getting value-for-money.
If you have the time to spare, I think you should take the option you mentioned of booking economy flights separate from the Oneworld award, and take the time to spend a few extra days in Iceland.
Depending on the day of the week, you could also fly out to Helsinki with Finnair and get a connection to the USA from there. It might appear to be a step backwards, but it may reduce the number of London layovers.
Like other responses I too would be advising staying longer than 24 hours in Iceland and make it a proper stop - you’re allowed 5 stops in all, along with a total of 16 flight legs!
Thanks Andrew, I did originally try to add in the Iceland trip by making the return journey Iceland > New York via London! However slightly tweaked our plans to skip Iceland.
We finally booked the trip in Business Class using our Qantas points. We have the Perisher Epic Season Pass for use in Australia, so thought we would instead add in Tokyo and Vancouver because we are able to use the pass in Hakuba and Whistler also.
We wanted to squeeze in somewhere warm and relaxing in between Europe and the snows- and Mexico was the best place we could find in between!
Our flights for anyone interested (We are sitting at around 32500 miles, 15 segments of travel)-
Sydney > Brisbane > Hong Kong (12 hour layover) > Doha > Dubai (3 days in Dubai)
Dubai > Doha > Athens (1 month travel around Europe)
London > New York (20 hour layover) > Charlotte > Cancun (1 week in Cancun)
Cancun > Seattle > Vancouver (10 days in Whistler)
Vancouver > Los Angeles (20 hour layover) > Osaka > Tokyo (10 days in Tokyo)
Tokyo > Sydney
We were able to book it in with 10 flights in business class, but 5 ended up being in economy based on the rewards availability