Flights all booked with Frequent Flyer Points
After spending quite a few hours working out our itinerary and then coordinating it with all the people we plan to stay with, I finally got the flights booked…well, as far as I can at the moment.
We have booked another ‘round-the -world’ trip, this time as part of our ArtCloud adventrue. This is the 4th one we have done on frequent flyer points and I thought some of you might be interested to know how this works.
It takes 140,000 Qantas Points for a round-the-world ticket, which allows you to have 16 segments going one way around the world. Purchasing a round-the-world ticket is by far the most cost effective way of seeing multiple places on one trip. You can choose which way you go and you can choose where to get on and off the plane. For example we are flying into Naples (Italy) then flying from Amsterdam to New York. That is because we will hire a car and drive to Paris then either train or fly to Amsterdam.
You can back track a little in one continent too, for example we are flying from Dubai to London, then London to Naples so going back east when really our trip is going west around the world.
The Sixteen (16) segments do not mean you have 16 places to stay. Many flights change planes making them 2 segments, eg we fly from Sydney to Bali via Hong Kong so that is 2 segments. (Luckily there is a big gap between flights on this one so we can spend the night in Hong Kong, nice little bonus.)
A round-the-world ticket can be used over a one year period so you can go as fast or as slow as you like. Our first trip we did in just under 4 weeks stopping at five destinations.
It is not all free though. You do still have to pay the taxes. Each airport has a different tax and on an average ours worked out at $100 per airport per person, so effectively that is what all our flights cost.
This trip is to the maximum of my segments. I will have to book a separate flight (or train) from Paris to Amsterdam, but I will use either Kayak, WebJet or the budget carrier sites to find the best deal so it should work out cheaper than our average airport cost.
When I plan my trips, I log onto Qantas Frequent Flyer and use their round-the-world flight planner. Once I have worked out the most suitable flights for us, I phone and book it through the Frequent Flyer consultant. It is an extra 6000 points this way but I can re-check every flight and date to make sure it is all possible. I don’t want to end up at the airport and realize I have one of my segments wrong!
This ticket had an extra complication for us as we fly out on 1st November, and as we want to use our maximum 12 months, we will fly back into Australia on 31st October 2017. The only problem is they haven’t released the flights yet for my last 3 destinations. The consultant made note of that on my ticket so I won’t have to pay more fee’s to book the last 3 trips.
Many people also ask me how I get so many points to do this. Well, that’s a way of living. We put everything on our credit cards and pay in full every month. We use the card that gives us the best points at any given time and we grab extra points where we can. It is surprising how quickly you can accumulate your points if you set your mind to it.
For those of you who are interested, our Itinerary is Sydney to Bali, Bali to Dubai, Dubai to London, London to Naples then drive up to Paris, Paris to Amsterdam by train, Amsterdam to New York (for New Years Eve), New York to LA to get our van, Vancouver to New Zealand, New Zealand to Melbourne.