Daft Trip Around the World! How this Punk did it!

One of my dreams was to fly first class on an international flight. I did it last year.

Now, I'm completing my next dream of going around the world in First/Business for less than the cost of an economy ticket to Asia or Europe.

Do we have your attention yet?



I have spent at least 20 hours of this past week putting this itinerary together, and I had Daft Punk's new album on repeat the whole time. In my last post, I mentioned that I had booked the first leg of my around the world itinerary, and this post will explain how I finished booking the epic trip.

I'll be flying 23,702 miles—just 1,199 miles shy of Earth's circumference—ALL FOR $850 USD IN FIRST/BUSINESS CLASS!

 

Setting Trip Parameters

This trip only had one priority: Round The World (RTW) in premium class. To help me stay on track of completing the goal during planning, I set a two guidelines that somewhat overlap

•  Keep heading west for the next destination no matter where it was.
•  Find places I know nothing about and go.

Of course I had a few places/people in mind that I wanted to visit, but most people who plan these trips book flights 331 days ahead of time (when award seats first get released). As most of you know, David and I tend to procrastinate. And with it being only 45 days away from departure (I already booked my ticket to Incheon, S. Korea), I was very limited on award availability.

Places I wanted to go:

• S. Korea
• Taipei, Taiwan
• South Africa
• South America

 

Picking Destinations

As covered in my last post, I had my First class flight to Incheon, S. Korea booked. To complete my goal of RTW, I needed to keep heading west. Honestly I've been eying Taipei, Taiwan for a long while so that was my next destination.

After Taipei, my guidelines really helped me out. I need to go west and be open minded about my destinations. Using Google Maps—it's been awhile since my last geography lesson—I looked in the general vacinity west of Taipei and saw a small island at the southern tip of India. After some Google Image searches my next destination was found: Colombo, Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka being somewhat of a remote destination means that direct flights are hard to come by, but I wanted to keep to my guidelines. The next big hub west turned out to be Amman, Jordan. The flight would route me through Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, which I know nothing about, so that qualified for a stop too! I actually ended up switching the dates of Sri Lanka and Malaysia so I could take a more direct flight path shown in the map.

Further proving the rustiness of my geographical knowledge,  I thought Moscow, Russia was way more east than it really is. Thanks to Google Maps, I saw that it is almost directly north of Amman, Jordan. I've always wanted to visit, so that was an easy decision to make even though I did wince a bit at the $150 entry visa for just two days.

At that point I started worrying about my transatlantic flight back to the states. From the Flyer-talk forums people were complaining that there was no availability for the summer, and anyone looking was pretty much a dumbass. After extensive searching, I found a direct flight from Berlin to LAX that morning, and if I was going to leave from Berlin, I might as well stop in Dussledorf, Germany and visit my second cousins!

While planning the trip, I was making sure I kept a log

With my whole trip planned, out I called AA customer service to book my trip.

Booking

Booking award seats for a RTW adventure isn't as simple as redeeming points on a website. I would need to call customer service representatives who specifically handle RTW trips. To make sure I made the call knowing what was available, I used award seat search websites such as Award Nexus and Expert Flyer and kept track of flight options in a Word doc that included:

• Dates
• Times
• Flight numbers
• Approximate tax costs
• Alternative Routes

Having everything on a single document made the information easily accessible while I book the flights over the phone.

My first two calls were failures. I was hung up on both times at the mere mention of planning a RTW trip. I suppose it makes sense: they're not for the faint of hearts.

However, my third call got me connected to one of the best customer service representitives I have ever spoken to. All of my flights were being booked except for my last leg of Berlin to LA. In the span of two hours (just two hours!) of searching and finding the flight to being connected to a capable representative, the seat was no longer available. This just goes to show how fast award space gets booked this summer.

This may be a generalization, but from my experience, customer service representatives are there to book flights that you have found and nothing more. This outstanding rep spent 2 hours with me searching for every gateway city in Europe to any gateway city in North America. I eventually found a London (LHR) to Washington D.C. (IAD) flight and she booked me through to LAX from there. I was so impressed that I asked to speak with a supervisor to compliment her!

 

Leaving Out South Africa and South America

I originally had planned to skip Europe all together (I spent 2 summers there) and head to South Africa instead. After extensive searching, availability of award flights was becoming too difficult. I came to the conclusion that South Africa deserved a trip of its own.

I also really wanted to practice my Spanish and South America was on this list to get to. Multiple flights are flown from Madrid, Spain to multiple destinations. As a similar story for South Africa, availability was dry as (enter explicit phrase here).

Even after depleting my AA account on my first major trip, I still have enough points to go to these places on a whim, and damn does that feel good to know!

 

What I Learned

As you can see from my experience, the only reason I was able to book this RTW trip was because of my flexibility. I wanted to visit those places that were off the beaten path where people normally don't go. I didn't really have specific places in mind and was ok with going where award space took me. If you want to plan specific destinations, you will have to be searching as soon as award seats become available: 331 days out.

 

The Numbers

Booking this trip cost me 192.5k AA miles and about $850 USD (taxes, surcharges, and $25 phone booking fee), and many hours of my time (although I find it fun trying to piece together the puzzle of an itinerary).

My miles/points came from:

• 2 Citi AAdvantage personal credit card bonus's 50k+75k  AA miles
• 1 Citi AAdvantage Business card bonus +50k AA miles
• Miles earned through normal/manufactured spend and promotions ~45k AA miles

Total miles = about 235 AA miles

Admittedly I am somewhat scared traveling completely by myself for the first time. At least I'll have friends in Korea and Taiwan to warm me up to the challenge. Can't learn anything unless I step out of my comfort zone right?