I was intrigued by a post by MileValue that I saw on Twitter this morning – EXAMPLE OF SIX STOP RTW TRIP YOU CAN BOOK FOR $111 PLUS FIVE CREDIT CARD SIGN UPS (all caps in the original). Since my wife and I recently got back from Europe, I thought it was about time to start planning our next trip.
Round the world trip
One of the things on my travel bucket list is a round the world trip. It doesn’t have to be non-stop, but instead I was imagining something with some stopovers so that we could experience 2-3 cities for 2-3 days each.
My initial thought was to do it in first-class style, by using 100,000 Alaska miles to fly Emirates first class from North America via Dubai to somewhere in Southeast Asia
Then I’d pick up the award in Asia, using 67,500 American miles to fly Cathay Pacific first class back home. Total would be 167,500 miles (per person), plus nominal taxes and fuel surcharges
Using 100,000 Alaska miles to fly Emirates
You can fly from North America to Dubai in Emirates first class for 90,000 miles, but for only another 10,000 miles, you can go all the way to Asia. Here’s a screenshot from Airline Route Mapper (one of my Top 10 miles and points tools) of the Asia routes from Dubai
I have not been anywhere in Asia, so I’m open to really any of those destinations. I guess my Top 5 would be (in no particular order)
- Bangkok
- Hong Kong
- Seoul
- Tokyo
- Singapore
All of those would probably be super interesting and amazing. Any suggestions?
Heading home using American miles on Cathay Pacific
Cathay Pacific awards from North America to “Asia 2” (Bhutan, Brunei, Cambodia, China, Guam, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Saipan, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam) are only 67,500 American miles.
Cathay Pacific has a very highly-rated First Class service, so they were my thought on the best way to get back home from Asia.
The problem booking an Alaska award
One problem I’m having booking an Alaska Airlines award is that you can only use 1 partner (along with Alaska itself). Since I live in the Alaska Airlines “dead zone”
I’d pretty much need to get to an Alaska-served airport (likely Chicago, Washington or New York) before flying my Emirates flight. Something like
- Cincinnati to Chicago on American
- Chicago to Dubai on Emirates
Would NOT be a valid Alaska Airlines award.
So, one possible itinerary would look something like this (3 separate awards)
What do you think? Any suggestions or improvements? I don’t feel like this HAS to be an all first class trip, but in a lot of cases the premium for first class over business class is not that much (it’s 55,000 American miles for Business Class vs. 67,500 in First Class)
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
Alaska flies into Detroit so only 255 miles north of you in Cincinnati. If you can drive to Toledo to go Amtrak…you can drive to dtw for emirates. Only 45 minutes mote.
That’s a good idea. I guess it will depend on which Emirates routes have availability. The other annoying thing would be having to round trip back to DTW instead of Cincinnati. Might be worth 4500 Avios to avoid a 3 hour drive twice (because with an AA / Cathay award, I COULD go right into CVG)
Tokyo (and the rest of Japan) is one of my favorite destinations. My third visit is over Thanksgiving and can’t wait. Kyoto is much more of a cultural and scenic destination, if that’s an option.
Hong Kong is also a great place, spent 3 weeks there a few years ago for a rock climbing trip with friends. HK has a tremendous amount of green space, more that most expect.
Singapore was blah IMHO, unless you like shopping. I spent a week there a couple years ago and I would have been satisfied if it were just a weekend trip.
My experience with Seoul is limited, only spent a night during a long layover in the city drinking with expats and locals late into the night.
Haven’t been to Bangkok yet.
Wendy makes some good sense. If you had the Alaska miles, any chance of flying back with an extra stop? Maybe YVR, or something more exotic in Asia. It’s 50,000 in J or 70,000 in F on Cathay. The obvious disadvantage would be that pesky dead zone (I live there too). My wife and I just returned from our first trip to Asia. We did Bali and Seoul. Seoul is fun, and a great place for a few days. Great food, culture, subway system. Glad we went and love to go back. Bali is simply amazing, but more of a week or more destination. Spiritual, visually stunning, wonderful food, history, culture, beaches, English very widely spoken, all for cheap.
I thought this was Points With a Crew? Where’s the crew? Or are you finding eight award seats on these flights and dropping way over a million miles? THAT would be worth the read.
LOL – I like to mix up my trips with getaways with just the Mrs. and I as well as trips with the whole family.
We have something similar booked. Last March we flew back from Dubai using AS miles on EK. We used the free stopover at home (PDX) then then are continuing that ticket to Maui in Jan. We start the next AS award by coming back from Maui to PDX (another stopover) then a month later PDX/SFO to Bali on EK business for 75k miles. We are then using Air Asia (cash) to fly to BKK where we start our return trip on Cathay business, with the free stopover in HongKong. Since Hawaii is the same zone per EK as the rest of the US, we are getting a free trip to Maui out of the two EK award trips.
For a first trip to Asia I would see Japan and Thailand and use the free stopover to spend a few days in Dubai.
That sounds like a great trip! I’ve been having trouble getting a free stopover in my home city, since Alaska doesn’t fly there. I might have to call in, or take my stopover in a hub city
Hong Kong Hong Kong Hong Kong! My favorite city anywhere in East Asia for food or culture or nightlife or nature or a host of others. If you’ve never been, that’s the one. Plus that would obviously set you up perfectly for the Cathay award to get home.
Also keep in mind, if you do pick HKG, that it’s within the 4500 Avios zone of Taipei so you could easily build that one in too and then start the Cathay award from there instead.
One of my thoughts would be to take my Emirates flight to somewhere beside Hong Kong, and then fly to Hong Kong for a few days (one of the things on my travel bucket list is to visit the tallest swimming pool in the world, which is in the Marriott Hong kong)
Thailand is my favorite place in the entire world. 🙂 I highly recommend it!
We were there last year and visited Chiangmai , Bangkok, Khao Lak, Phi Phi and Phuket. All on miles and points. I paid $563 out of pocket for air and hotels for a 3 week trip.
Anyway … We flew around the world on that trip using United miles.
Cincinnati to Stockholm on SAS. Stockholm wasn’t a place I would have normally visited but since the best routing that came up went through there, we took advantage of it and explored a city we likely never would have.
Stockholm to Chiangmai on Thai Airways.
Coming home:
Phuket to Seoul on Asiana
Seoul to Cincinnati (via ORD) on Korean.
I also added a “free one way” on the end of that to fly CVG to LAX a couple months after we got back from Thailand. So we also got a week in Disneyland on that ticket.
It was a fantastic trip and I hope to go back to Thailand in a few years. Australia is next in 2016! I’m not going around the world for that but I am burning up my Delta miles to fly Virgin Australia business class!
You should definitely go to the Philippines. 😉
More proof that these things are so very individualistic. I just returned from a trip to Asia — HK, Bali, Singapore. Unlike Arthur, I really disliked HK. Pushy touts everywhere you go, everyone is trying to rip you off (guide books say prices shown are 2-4 times what you should pay), and nothing you can’t find in NYC. But I fell in love with Bali and Singapore. I agree with Christian that Bali is better for a full week, but Singapore is great for 2 or 3 days. Clean, easy to navigate via metro, lots of stunning parks, incredible diversity of cultures, and everyone speaks English (not true in HK).
So figure out your priorities and what you enjoy, then plan accordingly. I have not been to the other cities on your list, but Thailand is high on my list, as is Tokyo. Can’t wait to hear about your plans and the trip!
I’ll have to agree wholeheartedly on Bali, loved it!! I’m actually going back for my second time THIS year.
Any of these recommendations sound good to me. I like Hong Kong best of the Asian cities and Tokyo I find best for adventurous dining. The only fly-in-the-ointment might be the idea that you seem to take it for granted that you can easily redeem miles for an award (two per trip actually). I’ve never been able to redeem for my preferred dates, e.g., matching them to a cruise sailing, but I’ve been able to find AAdvantage awards on CX and JAL for land only visits. Good luck.
You’re right that finding award availability will be tricky, but I’m hopeful that if I’m flexible on my dates and locations (which I am), then I should be able to find 2 seats. It’s the Truth of the Traveler’s Triangle!
Great post! Hoping to do something similar in a few years, so keep us posted on what you put together!
Dude, GO TO HO CHI MINH CITY!!! The energy there is off the charts! I was there in March and April and I loved, loved, LOVED it!
I cannot wait to go back!
CVG to ORD is really cheap on avios. Easy gateway to get to along with JFK/EWR.
CX F is a nice product, so is CX J. I flew RT CVG/SIN last month in both. Worth trying especially for that 15+ hour flight to HKG. CX lounges are super nice for J and F (cabana).
My “crew” has done several RTWs from CVG. One we did CVG->LHR chunnel to CDG -> SIN. Then SIN -> MLE RT and back to the US. Last year we did CVG -> CDG, then to VCE, train to FCO to SIN then on to MEL, CNS, SYD before the world’s longest flight back SYD -> DFW -> CVG.
Next year we’ve booked CVG -> SIN, SIN -> MLE RT, then SIN -> NRT, then NRT -> CVG to try the JAL dreamliner sky suites instead of CX.
The Asian cities you’ve picked have many similarities but can be oh so different. I’d group SIN and HKG as an either or, Seoul and Tokyo as an either or, with Bangkok being different. 2-3 days might seem like a lot in each place, but it’s really not. Especially since you’re going to be jet-lagged.
Yes – while we don’t have a ton of direct flights anywhere (anymore), we are at least well positioned with Avios. For 4500 Avios you can get to ORD, JFK, DCA, PHL, or CLT, and 7500 Avios to MIA/DFW
I advise going west rather than east. I’ve done two RTW like this. You walk up early and have the full day no jet lag. Enjoy! ✈️
That is our current plan. We’ll see how it goes!