I’m in the planning stages of booking mt first RTW Oneworld itinerary. I am living in Melbourne and will be travelling with my wife and 12yo son. We are basing the trip around my best friends wedding which will be at the beginning of April 2023. I am hoping to take advantage of 3 x Business Class Rewards (318,000 points each).
My head is somewhat spinning a little and I wouldn’t call myself an experienced traveller. I was hoping to get some advice and guidance on the best way to start trying to structure the trip so that it fits the required criteria whilst making the most of the potential savings / vale.
I’ve pencilled in 8 weeks at this stage as I don’t really know how long we will need. I understand I may need to amend this.
I figured the best way to start would be to break the trip up into continents and select what countries we wanted to travel to. Then figure out what is the best way to structure the trip and work out how far I can actually get on the 35,000 miles and trim or add from there. I can them trim off the fat based on what is more of a priority for this trip and so on.
North America
Canada
Mexico
USA
South America
Argentina
Brazil
Peru
Europe
Greece
Germany
Italy
Malta
Spain
United Kingdom
France
Africa
South Africa (Wedding)
Egypt
Asia
Japan
Vietnam
I would really appreciate any and all time, help and advice you may be able to give me in terms of example itinerary’s to work out how to best structure this RTW Oneworld Reward.
I’ll let you figure out the specific cities you want to go to but a helpful website is the OneWorld RTW planner which lets you see the available flight options. Keep in mind this is for the paid cash RTW trip not the one using points but the rules are very similar so its a good start to visualise your trip. Take a look!
Gday @ruredi, just want to give some tips and hopefully point you in the right direction. As @djtech said, the Oneworld RTW planner is great to find which cities have oneworld connections, and the carriers serving those destinations. One place I would actually 100% recommend if you’re looking for ideas on where to go, or just some further advice on rtw redemptions, is the Point Hacks guide to oneworld RTW redemptions - Fly around the world in Business with Qantas and oneworld - Point Hacks - the example shown would get you to South Africa for the wedding, then onto Europe, North America and Asia. Obviously can tinker with it, but considering the one place that you must go to is South Africa, my suggestion would be to either start or end with that as a destination, as it is far away from any other destination but also has the benefit of Qantas flying to Jo’Burg. Whether you want to start or end with that is up to you of course, but bear in mind the time of year you’re planning to go. If you want to go see things in the winter, maybe skiing or other winter-y activities, then South Africa could be last on the list, and you could go for an itinerary as follows:
Melbourne to Tokyo on Qantas/JAL/Cathay Pacific (CY transit through HKG, if that is possible considering the ‘delicate’ situation there)
Tokyo to New York OR Tokyo to Denver on JAL/American/Alaska (my love for skiing really shining through here lol) - if you travel to Denver, then use an alternate mode of transport to get to NYC.
New York to London on American/BA - London is the start point for Europe, you may just want to see England, you may want to go to the Alps, or the great historical cities of Europe, but up to you. I did a full train through Europe from London to Budapest, stopping in many cities along the way and loved it, but of course each to their own. Note the Mediterranean is pretty ordinary IMO in winter, if you want to go there, see below
Budapest to Jo’Burg on Qatar/BA (Budapest is just an example, but please if you can choose to fly Qatar then fly them)
Jo’Burg to Melbourne on Qantas/Qatar
Alternatively, you could go to Jo’Burg first, and catch the Northern Hemisphere summer:
Melbourne to Jo’Burg on Qantas/Qatar
Jo’Burg to Athens on Qatar/BA
Paris to Los Angeles on BA/American (make your way around the Med between Athens and Paris, stops in Italy, Malta and Barcelona as an example)
Los Angeles to Ho Chi Minh City on JAL/American
Ho Chi Minh City to Melbourne on Qantas/JAL/Cathay/MH
Personally, I love planning trips, so this was great fun for me. Of course if my ideas are garbage in terms of where to visit, then by all means feel free to discard everything . Just a couple things to note though:
Finding 3 business award seats on every flight won’t be the easiest, so be prepared to book well in advance, and have some points over to possibly change flights as more availability is released by carriers.
Use AAdvantage’s calendar search when looking for specific award flights (say, Jo’Burg to Athens). It is much more user-friendly than Qantas’, however, you want to be looking for MileSAAver awards only.
South America is kind of a No Fly Zone as far as Oneworld is concerned, with LATAM’s exit from the alliance. That’s not to say you can’t get there, you definitely can, with Iberia in particular having good connections from Spain. It’s just a bit more difficult to line up flights both in and out, which is why I haven’t touched it.
The most important thing: BE FLEXIBLE!!! There is a very good chance that your preferred dates will not correspond. It’s just part and parcel of this game we play.
I hope that this does help you a little in finding your way forward into the glorious troubles of the Qantas call centre, which you most likely will have to deal with atleast once. Regardless, I hope that this sets you on the path of RTW travel in J.
I’ve had some time to think about this. My wife and I have both been granted long service leave and so we’re going to try and do it all in one hit and maximise our reward. I’m hoping you guys may be able to provide some advice.
I’ve gone through each of the countries we intend to visit and listed the cities that we would like to go. We have 2.5 months to do it in and so I appreciate we may be trying to do too much and it may not even be possible to fit within the limits of a RTW award. I am open to culling this list down so feel free to make some suggestions.
However, I’ve listed them all anyway in hope that you may be able to work out the most worthwhile and efficient routes to take given the available time. I’m not as well travelled as some and you lot sound a lot more travelled than I and so you’d probably know how much time would be required in each place, when the best time’s to go and what places not to bother with. We will be travelling with my 12yo son.
The only place we MUST be on a particular date is in Cape Town on 1st of April 2023. I am part of the wedding party and so I’d like to get there on the 27th March to allow for the bucks party etc, but I am happy to boot off by the 3rd April.
I am really appreciative of any help and advice you may be able to provide in order to help me build a RTW itinerary. Happy to buy you a slap or a meal or similar, please let me know.
North America
Canada - Toronto, Montreal
Mexico - Mexico City, Cancun
USA - Dallas, Austin, Houston, Miami, Orlando, Washington DC, New York, Boston, Chicago
New York is a MUST and one of the cities in Texas at least, either Austin or Dallas.
South America
Argentina - Buenos Ares
Brazil - Rio De Janeiro
Peru - Lima, Machu Picchu
Europe
Greece - Athens, Santorini, Mykonos
Germany - Berlin, Munich, Frankfurt
Italy - Rome, Venice, Florence, Tuscany, Sicily, Naples, Bologna (Perhaps not ALL but at least the main ones are a must)
Malta - Valletta (MUST - I’m from a Maltese background)
Spain - Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia
United Kingdom - London, Belfast Edinburgh, Dublin - London and Dublin or Belfast is a MUST
