Around the World

American Airlines is in an alliance with seven other airlines called oneworld. American Airlines AAdvantage miles can be used for award tickets on the oneworld carriers. A business class ticket that allows 25,001-35,000 miles of travel requires 190,000 AAdvantage miles. By this time next year I will have enough miles for this award. I have started to plan an itinerary. It is going to take a year for me to digest all the rules that cover this award. You can have a maximum of 16 flight segments. The map shows one of my first attempts at an itinerary. The route has 15 flight segments and covers 30,400 miles. The oneworld website Oneworld has a schedule feature and useful information on baggage limitations. I have been able to get mileage between cities from sites such as Expedia. American can book award travel eleven months in advance. If I do make this trip, it will most likely be in the spring of 2007. It will take a great deal of planning. It will be fall in the southern hemisphere. Moscow and Helsinki will still be very cold in the spring. Hong Kong and Bangkok will be very warm. It will be difficult to choose a wardrobe that will provide for all the different climates.

In 2001 I made a trip to Australia and New Zealand that had the following itinerary bpt-dfw-lax-syd-mel-akl-lax-bpt. This was a first class ticket on American and Qantas. I made the trip 3 weeks after 9/11. It was my initiation into the in and outs of planning a major trip using frequent flyer miles. The next year I made another first class trip that went bpt-iah-dfw-yvr-hkg-syd-hkg-lax-dfw-iah-bpt on Continental, American and Cathy Pacific. I was able to book this trip with much less difficulty. With the knowledge I acquired from those trips I think I am prepared to tackle the RTW (round the world) trip, but there are many new rules to consider.