HFP reader Brad dropped me an email with details of a round-the-world itinerary that he has just booked. It is, I have to say, very well put together and takes advantage of a number of ‘sweet spot’ redemptions. I thought it was worth sharing.
This is what Brad is doing:
He is covering 27,717 miles in total! This is how it was booked:
Berlin – Abu Dhabi
12,500 Avios + £31 taxes (airberlin)
Dubai – Hong Kong – Tokyo
30,000 Avios + £26 taxes (Cathay Pacific)
Tokyo – Sydney – Auckland – Fiji
12,500 United Airlines miles + £29 tax (ANA, Air New Zealand)
Fiji – Samoa – Honolulu
25,000 Qantas points + £79 (Fiji Airways)
Honolulu – Kahului – Lihue
12,000 United Airlines miles + £5 (United Airlines)
Lihue – San Jose – Chicago – Manchester
20,000 American Airlines miles + £3 (Alaska, American)
This comes to a total of 112,000 airline miles plus, more importantly, just £173 of taxes and charges! It is an ‘all economy’ itinerary of course but still excellent value. The itinerary is deliberately a little obscure because Brad was keen to see some different cities to places he had been before.
Whilst Head for Points tends to focus on business class redemptions, it is good to show what can be done in economy if you have the time and patience to plan the best routes.
One advantage of spreading the trip across various airlines is that it would be possible to get most of the miles purely from credit card sign-ups – United offers a 12,000 miles bonus on its free UK credit card a couple of times a year, for example. The only part of the above itinerary that would be tricky would be getting the Qantas points given their lack of UK partners – they are not a Starwood Preferred Guest or Amex partner.
Enjoy your trip Brad!
(Want to earn more Avios? Click here to visit our home page for the latest articles on earning and spending your Avios points and click here to see how to earn more Avios from current offers and promotions.)
About Head for Points
Brilliant, absolutely brilliant. I’m constantly amazed by what I don’t know when it comes to airmiles and discount travel. Every time I think I’m becoming knowledgeable, I realise I’m just a beginner.
I thought I knew what I was doing when I took out the BA blue credit card and earned enough points for a RFS.
Then I REALLY thought I knew what I was doing when I combined my Clubcard account with my BAEC account.
Then I thought I was REALLY, REALLY clever when I started generating extra clubcard points through 3v etc, and joining hotel loyalty schemes to earn even more avios.
Then I thought I was SERIOUSLY clever for booking some ex-EU cash flights.
And then people like Brad come along and show what a real expert can do. I think I’ll just have to settle for being a beginner – I can’t imagine the organisation a trip like this requires… and that’s before you get to all the gobbledegook on tricked fares. (and I dare say that there are even levels of expertise beyond that!)
Yes, indeed. I would like to visit New Zealand flying business class (because that length of flight in economy would be horrible) without breaking the bank, and have been thinking that a LHR-SYD using a Lloys upgrade voucher from PE to Club, then SYD to New Zealand, would be the cheapest route. Now I’m seriously wondering what trick I am missing!
In the BMI Diamond Club days we did Singapore-Christchurch and Auckland-Melbourne-Singapore with Singapore Airlines / Air NZ in business class each for £670 plus a 20,000 BMI miles credit card sign-up bonus (the cash element included buying some more miles and for a part cash, part miles redemption – the taxes and fees were a very small part of it).
I thought that was good going….
To be fair it is good going! 🙂
If you have some MR points or SPG points you could convert them to Singapore Airlines Krisflyer for the following redemption from Europe to New Zealand.
AMS-SIN-AKL or AMS-SIN-CHC is just 68,000 Krisflyer miles in business class one-way.
The AMS-SIN leg will also be on A350 come April 2016.
Thanks Joe it means a lot to me. There is no doubt Avios are not only miles available on market and it is possible to do RTW using avios it is good to have different miles in different programs. I think we need more posts like this to show people possible redemptions available using avios and other miles. I do not think it has been mentioned that for instance departures from Brasil and Philippines do not have YQ (fuel surcharges) and there are some excellent redemptions available even with airlines like SQ. I think HFP has to go a bit further and cover other programs and see possible options.People in this country know now how to collect miles but they do not know how to wisely spend them. Seriously BA and using avios for LHR-SYD , where you can use AA instead from HEL.
What about Manchester to Berlin?
Hi is ditching the last segment!!
I expect he is walking that segment!
An amazing itinerary, though probably not quite as amazing as most people assumed from the description of it!
Those are just routings and not destinations. Despite the long list there are only about 6 destinations (maybe a couple more for less than 24hrs if timings worked out). Still a decent deal anyway!
True ! However in this trip my aim was to see Fiji and Hawaii as I saw other places before. Thanks anyway
Great idea, thanks for the tips
OT: apologies! But has anyone else noticed BA pushing Premium Plus Amex on checkout advertising £50 statement credit and 6,000 bonus points? Wondering if the 6,000 was in addition to the current enhanced bonus in which case very lucrative
Solo
Checkout from where?
BA.com when buying a flight (only gets offered if BA.com thinks you are UK based).
Yeah got it from BA site! Never seen it before! Would have took them up but just cancelled my BA card 3 months ago. Will wait and hope it comes up again
Ah right fellers. Wouldn’t surprise me if it were INSTEAD of the 25K deal as they account for 25K points in very different ways to the likes of us. I think they might even count them as low as 0.25p.
So 25K points = £250 to (some of) us, £62.50 to BA.
And £50 + 6000 points = (say) £65 to BA? You get my drift?
Fair play, good playing of the system…
But why would anyone do this? You’re just travelling to an airport and a city for a tiny period – you’re not experiencing anything in the country or the culture within a rigid time frame.
Is just so you can say you have ‘traveled around the world’? .
YES !
First you do it for fun if you don’t get it perhaps you shouldn’t be here 🙂
Second My aim is to see Fiji and Hawaii , I saw other places before and therefore no need to stay there.
By the way if you know other way to get to Fiji and Hawaii(I can stay in this places for as long as I want) for 170GBP I am more than happy to listen you