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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

dubai-asia-routes

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)

  1. Bangkok
  2. Hong Kong
  3. Seoul
  4. Tokyo
  5. 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”

alaska-airlines-checking-offers-route-map

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)

round-the-world

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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