The Qantas Oneworld Award is an extremely popular use of points. 280,000 Qantas points is all it costs to fly around the world in Business class, with up to 5 stopovers! The Oneworld Award permits travel on all Oneworld airlines, and you can fly up to 35,000 miles in total. That provides plenty of flexibility to create your dream round-the-world trip!
Our member yld200 recently flew around the world on a Oneworld Award. Their itinerary saw them travel to Dubai, Ankara, London, New York and Tokyo over six weeks! The trip included a mixture of flights on Qantas, Cathay Pacific, Royal Jordanian, British Airways, American and Japan Airlines. There were also a couple of extra flights on Turkish Airlines thrown in, due to a lack of Oneworld airlines flying to the Turkish capital of Ankara.
To do all of this travel in Business class for under $1,000 is a testament to the value of frequent flyer points.
All the planning for this trip started around early last year after learning a bit more about the OW 280K J award fares – that was my points target, fly around the world in business class!
All flights except the TK flight were booked using QF points at 280K point /pax and taxes came to $980 /pax.
The first stopover was in Dubai. Our member flew there on Cathay Pacific. The Hong Kong-based airline’s Business class product left a good impression. The reverse herringbone seats are spacious and lay flat, with plenty of storage available. But our member felt the service was slightly lacking.
Meal service started shortly after take off and it felt like it took an eternity. Drinks were served, then entrees, then mains and deserts. It all felt very robotic and forced. It was all done with a smile but just felt all wrong.
After catching up with family in Dubai, the next stop was Ankara. This was another family visit; as yld200 explains, there aren’t many other reasons to visit Ankara. But there are some sights worth seeing in the city of five million. The Ankara Castle provides great views over the city, and the scale of the Ataturk Mausoleum (Anitkabir) is seriously impressive. The resting place of Kemal Mustafa Ataturk, this site also features a comprehensive museum. Naturally, there’s also no shortage of delicious Turksih food in Ankara!
An easy day trip from Ankara was the town of Beypazari…
On one of our days we did a trip to a town 100km west of Ankara called Beypazari. It’s a small town with many little small shops in the city centre on cobblestone streets which was cool to see. It’s off the main path so you don’t get many tourists here but there are some nice shops specialising in making little copper and silver coffee pots, cups, trays, etc.
Dubai and Ankara were just the start of an exciting round-the-world trip. The next stop was London, where yld200 picked up a Renault and began a drive through the European continent.
Follow the full trip report HERE.
