Hi All,
I am busy planning a Business Class RTW trip with my Qantas points. I intend to do a lot of travel around Europe – mainly with trains & local airlines – and want to fly Business for the long haul flights.
My questions are:
I know the round the world ticket limits you to 5 stopovers. Do the stopovers in cities count if you’re flying with local airlines or using ground transport?
does the connection between cities count towards your total mileage if you reach those cities with local airlines or ground transport.
Below is my preliminary itinerary. Maybe someone can let me know if it’s possible with this Points Hack or if I’m misunderstanding something? This itinerary currently only has 3 Stops in Business with Qantas/partners, so I could potentially change 2 local flights to Business. I know Emirates isn’t part of the round the alliance, but I’m determined to stop over in Dubai. I’ll be staying 4 nights min. In each destination below.
Sydney → Dubai (Stop) Business
Dubai → London (Stop) Business
London → Dublin – local flight
Dublin → Edinburgh – local flight
Edinburgh → Amsterdam – local flight
Amsterdam → Copenhagen – train
Copenhagen → Oslo – train
Oslo → Stockholm – train
Stockholm → Helsinki – local flight
Helsinki → Ivalo – local flight
Ivalo → Helsink → Warsaw – local flight
Warsaw → Katowice – train
Katowice → Prague – train
Prague → Munich – train
Munich → Zurich – train
Zurich → Singapore (Stop) Business
Singapore → Sydney (Business)
Your time & feedback is greatly appreciated.
Kind Regards,
Andreas Britz
Hi Andreas, thanks for sharing!
While you can theoretically book that itinerary, with the Emirates flights included the system simply won’t allow you to price the reward at the capped price of 318,000 Qantas Points as per our article on this hack.
If you really want to include Dubai in the trip and stay at 318,000 Qantas Points, you’ll need to fly there indirectly with oneworld airlines. E.g. Consider Sri Lankan Airlines via Colombo. At least with Dubai to London you can fly with British Airways directly.
You certainly can change two more local flights to include as Business Class segments in your award. I’d suggest London-Dublin since BA is in oneworld, and one of the Helsinki legs with Finnair. Ivalo-Helsinki-Warsaw would be great to include, but Qantas doesn’t seem to allow Ivalo in the flight search.
The distance between cities on the itinerary do count towards the total mileage of 35,000 miles.
So here is a plan that could work:
1. Sydney → Colombo → Dubai (Stop #1) Sri Lankan Business
2. Dubai → London (Stop #2) British Airways Business
3. London → Dublin (Stop #3) British Airways Business
Dublin → Edinburgh – local flight
Edinburgh → Amsterdam – local flight
Amsterdam → Copenhagen – train
Copenhagen → Oslo – train
Oslo → Stockholm – train
4. Stockholm → Helsinki (Stop #4) Finnair Business
Helsinki → Ivalo – local flight
Ivalo → Helsinki → Warsaw – local flight
Warsaw → Katowice – train
Katowice → Prague – train
Prague → Munich – train
Munich → Zurich – train
5. Zurich → Doha → Singapore (Stop #5) Qatar Airways Business
6. Singapore → Sydney Qantas Business
That plan comes in at 24,113 miles including the ‘ground sectors’ between Dublin/Stockholm and Helsinki/Zurich in yellow.
So you have plenty of mileage left if you wanted to take out one of the short European sectors (like London-Dublin) and see more of Asia on the way home – such as Singapore-Tokyo (stop) and Tokyo-Sydney both on Japan Airlines [now 27,949 miles]
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Hi Brandon,
Thanks so much for your input, I really appreciate the time you took to clarify a lot of this for me. You have given me a few options to think about 
My 2 cents. I try to avoid BA cause their products are not that great plus they have huge Fuel Surcharge bloating the taxes u need to pay.
For Oneworld - JAL, Cathay, Finnair, AA has lower taxes. I dont mind paying higher taxes on Qatar as their product is far superior to many airlines.