Feedback on my *A RTW plan using KF points

[Drakecula]

I'm hoping for some guidance with regards to a planned *A RTW award booking in J using KF points. I'm hoping to have enough points for two tickets for a booking for the end of 2019. I know I'm well ahead of myself, but I also know it is important to plan so I'm not caught out. Obviously I'll have to wait until probably January before I can search for award seats, but if I can be as prepared as I can be before that surely I'm in with my best chance.

I've read a whole bunch from this forum and elsewhere and I think my itinerary will meet the rules, but I'd love some feedback on whether it actually does, or if I need to adjust it to make sure I meet the requirements.

I've had a play with the *A RTW tool, and it has told me that the following has 6 stopovers, 13 segments and 26,572 miles. Which I think meets all the SQ rules. Let me know otherwise:

Sydney (start city)
Vancouver
Las Vegas
New York
Berlin (I will make my own way from Berlin to London)
London
Bucharest
Maldives
Sydney

I know there is a rule about only travelling in one direction, so while all the flights I have chosen are going one way, the ground sector is going the other way. Is that allowed? If not I could probably just pick a single Europe point and do a bunch of independent movement to do the things I want to do and stick to the direction rule. (key cities being Berlin, Paris, London and maybe Zurich)

If there are any other tips or tricks you'd like to tell me, please share!

 

[Happy Dude]

Interested to see the wisdom on this one myself.....

 

[cymbolz]

I'm no expert but have booked my own RTW. My aim was to fly on SQ as much as possible.

I am initially flying "west" Melbourne to Hong Kong then the rest of my journey is "east" so there may be some flexibility, but I recall in the fine print it may have stated that any ground sectors must comply with the rules and count as miles as well.

I wasn't able to get any availability in domestic USA, so your Vegas to NY may need to be more creative. I'm flying into LA and out of NY, making my own way slowly from west to east coast. Although when I booked mine, the SQ site only showed their own flights so I relied on what I could see on the UA site for others (thus only found out about lack of US domestic availability when trying to book it all over the phone).

Sounds like you're quite on top of the planning.

 

[potm]

I do not think Berlin to London would be much of a problem, it would be within one zone and it's not a great distance.
Sometimes a little backtracking is just necessary based on positions of cities and where flights go to.

 

[Mattg]

When you plugged the itinerary into the *A RTW tool and selected all the flights, did it show as a "valid" itinerary with a green box? If so, it should be fine. The "no backtracking" rule is mainly about having to cross the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans both exactly once. So something like New York-Berlin-London is fine.

 

[Drakecula]

When you plugged the itinerary into the *A RTW tool and selected all the flights, did it show as a "valid" itinerary with a green box? If so, it should be fine. The "no backtracking" rule is mainly about having to cross the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans both exactly once. So something like New York-Berlin-London is fine.

Yes, it said it was a valid itinerary, so that's good news.

I wasn't able to get any availability in domestic USA, so your Vegas to NY may need to be more creative. I'm flying into LA and out of NY, making my own way slowly from west to east coast. Although when I booked mine, the SQ site only showed their own flights so I relied on what I could see on the UA site for others (thus only found out about lack of US domestic availability when trying to book it all over the phone).

Sounds like you're quite on top of the planning.

Thanks for the heads up. I will jump on booking things as soon as I possibly can so hopefully availability will be more open, but I'll keep that in mind.

 

[cymbolz]

Thanks for the heads up. I will jump on booking things as soon as I possibly can so hopefully availability will be more open, but I'll keep that in mind.

To add, my RTW is in J but there wasn't even Y availability across the US. I was considering adding a few Canadian cities in to make it all happen but decided to make my own way across the US instead. Am flying into LA and out of NY.

 

[mandja]

↑
When you plugged the itinerary into the *A RTW tool and selected all the flights, did it show as a "valid" itinerary with a green box? If so, it should be fine. The "no backtracking" rule is mainly about having to cross the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans both exactly once. So something like New York-Berlin-London is fine.
Yes, it said it was a valid itinerary, so that's good news.

How do you know if all that "valid itinerary" can be done on points?
I do understand using the *A tool to map out the required flights, not backtracking , ensuring the required (J) class etc
Once you have the itinerary, I assume you need to phone KF? They then book, right? What happens if on any leg, there is no saver flights?

 

[Drakecula]

↑
Once you have the itinerary, I assume you need to phone KF? They then book, right? What happens if on any leg, there is no saver flights?

That's what I'm assuming too. My plan is to check vigorously, all possible combinations, maybe even if I have to do some ground travel (like within the US, or Europe) to get to another airport where a saver flight exists, to ensure that there is a saver flight I can book. Then once I have something that's valid and there's availability, I'll call up and give them all the details. I hope that's enough. The plans are relatively flexible, there's only one thing that's tied by a date, so I'm going to work around that and hope I can find what I need.

 

[Mattg]

How do you know if all that "valid itinerary" can be done on points?
I do understand using the *A tool to map out the required flights, not backtracking , ensuring the required (J) class etc
Once you have the itinerary, I assume you need to phone KF? They then book, right? What happens if on any leg, there is no saver flights?

The *A RTW tool only tells you if you have a valid routing with no backtracking. Keep in mind though that the stopover allowance is more restrictive with the SQ award (max 7 stopovers). It doesn't tell you whether the flights have Saver award seats available. You'd need to use the United/Aeroplan/ANA/SQ website and/or call SQ to check for award availability.

Once you have a valid itinerary where there is award availability on each flight, just call SQ to book.

 

[Drakecula]

Okay so after a bit of a rethink on locations, and seeing what's actually available, I think I've got it. I've mostly used the United website to search for award seats and it looks like there's availability in J for all this.

4 Nov SYD-LAX-YVR
8 Nov YVR-MEX
12 Nov MEX-YYZ-LHR
(lots of faffing about between various cities on our own)
6 Dec CDG-ARN-KRN (Northern Lights!!)
11 Dec KRN-ARN-ADD
12 Dec ADD-DEL-BLR-MLE
19 Dec MLE-SIN-SYD-CBR

I haven't called up SQ yet, but the *A tool says it's a vaild itinerary with 13 segments and 6 stopovers (though I count 7) and a total of 31,027 miles. Which squeaks in to the SQ RTW rules of 16 segments, 7 stopovers and maximum of 35,000 miles.
Hats off to people who do this more regularly than me - this is my first giant trip and first award booking. The struggle of finding connections with availability, goodness me. I never would have thought to go to Addis Ababa, but after checking out 'flightsfrom dot com' I could see where the direct flights were from locations and tried putting them into the search to find availability.

The last part of the trip is a shambles with so many connections, but I'm hoping 6 nights in the Maldives will be the cure we need after the mammoth effort of getting there. And then we'll be home in time for Christmas and more time to recover from our epic journey.

Any tips or suggestions would be most welcome. I will be calling probably this afternoon to see if this will actually work.

 

[Mattg]

Looks pretty good to me @Drakecula ! The only problem that you *may* come across is the overly complex routing used from KRN to MLE - especially if you're staying less than 24 hours in Addis Ababa. They may say that it's not allowed because it's not the most direct routing available.

If you're staying >24 hours in ADD and this then counts as a stopover, then they might let it through.

Also, note that there is more availability on Singapore Airlines' own flights released to KrisFlyer members than United members. So you might want to check the SQ website to see if there are any more direct options available on SQ metal if that is at all helpful to you on any of the flights. (Although, backtracking through SIN when travelling from Europe to MLE is probably not allowed or possible.)

 

[Drakecula]

Looks pretty good to me @Drakecula ! The only problem that you *may* come across is the overly complex routing used from KRN to MLE - especially if you're staying less than 24 hours in Addis Ababa.

Spot on Matt - haha. I phoned up last night and it was a no go, even though I explained the only reason I had ADD there was to try and find a way to MLE. I had already decided in the back of my mind that if they couldn't make it work, I'd not worry, and instead go back to HKT for our week in the sun to finish off the trip. So that's what we're going to do instead.

Other things I learned - you can't travel through the same airport twice. Now I knew that, but completely forgot that to get to KRN you have to go through ARN (to and from) so that was a no go after all. So instead I'll just organise our own way to KRN from ARN, shouldn't be too hard.
Also, this was against what I had read, but they didn't allow me to choose to leave from say SYD and return to CBR, it had to be the same. I argued a little bit against that, but it's a minor thing so whatever.

My biggest problem is getting from SYD or even MEL (we looked at both) to YVR in J. Everything else is available in J, just not that leg. So might have to suck it up and hope that seats become available between now and then. At least it's the first leg and we can get it out of the way.
I'll be calling back today to lock things in.

 

[luxury-lizard]

4 Nov SYD-LAX-YVR
8 Nov YVR-MEX
12 Nov MEX-YYZ-LHR
(lots of faffing about between various cities on our own)
6 Dec CDG-ARN-KRN (Northern Lights!!)
11 Dec KRN-ARN-ADD
12 Dec ADD-DEL-BLR-MLE
19 Dec MLE-SIN-SYD-CBR

Here's a suggestion to get from KRN-MLE

On Dec 10 there is availability in J ARN-FRA-IST (arriving 01:10 the following am)
then Dec 11 there is availability in J IST-MLE departing at 04:10am

A very long day but AFAIK a valid routing.

 

[Drakecula]

Here's a suggestion to get from KRN-MLE

On Dec 10 there is availability in J ARN-FRA-IST (arriving 01:10 the following am)
then Dec 11 there is availability in J IST-MLE departing at 04:10am

A very long day but AFAIK a valid routing.

Hmmm, I'll take a look. Thanks for that.

 

[Mattg]

My biggest problem is getting from SYD or even MEL (we looked at both) to YVR in J. Everything else is available in J, just not that leg. So might have to suck it up and hope that seats become available between now and then. At least it's the first leg and we can get it out of the way.
I'll be calling back today to lock things in.

I would not book an incomplete journey now in the hope that more seats are released later - they probably won't be! In any case, there does appear to be availability on SYD-LAX in J with UA on the date you want, with a connecting AC LAX-YVR flight available in J in the evening (albeit with a long LAX stopover). Or just book as far as LAX.

Also, could the problem with returning to CBR at the end of the trip be that you have to pass through SYD where you started? I don't think you'd be allowed to continue flying after passing through your origin point. (Although it's not clear to me whether SQ288 would be considered as stopping in SYD since it's only a technical stop.)

 

[Drakecula]

Oh no, yes I meant I'd book it with the Y leg and hope J seats came later and we could change - apparently it's only a $50 USD fee to do so.

And yes - I could see that availability too, but for whatever reason the person I spoke to at SQ couldn't see it. I wonder why that may be? I kept pointing that out, but alas.

Perhaps you're right with going through SYD twice if we wanted to end in CBR. At any rate, we're used to travelling to SYD for some international flights so it's not a big deal. Ye olde Murray's bus does the trick

 

[Mr H]

Could you do

CDG-ARN-KRN//KRN-UME-GOT-IST-MLE

to get around the backtracking issue?

 

[Drakecula]

Could you do

CDG-ARN-KRN//KRN-UME-GOT-IST-MLE

to get around the backtracking issue?

I can't see that option - and I know I did discuss the issue with the call centre person last night, and they looked at other options to get to MLE, but I guess nothing that they could route for me. I tried via IST, DME, ADD, CAI to no avail. I'm quite okay with HKT as the back up, I'll get my MLE fix another time I'm sure

 

[Mr H]

Your problem is not how to get into MLE - it is how to get out of KRN without going through ARN again. The other option from KRN is UME - and according to Wikipedia, the found of all truth, that only offers options to ARN (backtracking) or a seasonal flight to GOT. If you can get to GOT then you have a heap of options available to get to MLE.