mjs

If you have the time you can fly cheaply between BKK and KUL and SIN

jacketwatch

Well looking for biz class however.
Thank you

jacketwatch

Just looked, didn’t realize that’s such a short flight so now that’s in play.
Thank you

mjs

Also a cheap way of racking up PQP if you need United Premier status

mrwunrfl

February, it would be $4700 ORD-IST-SIN, KUL-IST-ORD on TK
i think both trips had 9 hr connections

or about $4600 on ANA, SFO-TYO-SIN-TYO-SFO
the two SIN legs op by Air Japan

how long is your trip? am looking at 10-14 days in Feb on ita

jacketwatch

Twice I saw Asiana biz SFO-SIN for Feb. 1 return Feb. 15 at around $4166.00
I am sure we can get a local SIN-KUL RT for a reasonable cost.
I began working on the AA site and am getting some very high prices. I probably need to play with it more.
Turkish has one of the best rated lounges in the world however two 9 hr. connections is a lot. I wish they could be much longer so we had reasonable times to get to an airport hotel to chill out.

jacketwatch

I must say this travel around the world has have me completely confused. Just today for February I put in a trip in business class from Chicago to Qatar and then on to Singapore and then back to Chicago. The total time was about two weeks I may be a bit more. And price for two people it’s over $20,000. It also said that I have a bunch of segments left as this was only six so what does that mean? Does that mean I can take other segments With no extra charges? And how much time do you have with that? It’s pretty confusing to me now.

Gardyloo

I'll try to explain.

Here's what I said when I brought the subject up: The base price for a three-continent Oneworld RTW that starts and ends in the US is US$10,426 per person. The base price for the same trip beginning and ending in Canada is $7776. The same trip beginning and ending in Japan is $4559, $5223 in Norway, and in Hungary $5117. That's why I'm talking about traveling on your own dime to one of those places and having the actual RTW ticket start there. Even counting the cost of a separate flight to Oslo, or Budapest, maybe even Tokyo, it's still hugely cheaper to do the trip starting from there than it is from Chicago. I know that doesn't make much sense, but that's the way these weird products work.

The airlines don't advertise these fares because of federal (and British and EU) rules that require that airfares be advertised including taxes and fees, i.e. "bottom line." This is impossible with RTW fares because every ticket will be priced differently, owing to different airport taxes, fuel surcharges, entry fees, etc. - that vary according to where you land and who you're flying with. Since using the RTW allows you to fly to hundreds of different places in dozens of countries worldwide, those taxes and fees are going to be different - maybe just a little, maybe a lot - so the "bottom line" for one traveler is going to be different from the next.

The RTW tickets are good for up to 16 flights over 12 months. Now of course you can decide to only use it for a few flights or a few weeks, but my point in recommending you investigate it is that even if the trip to Singapore and KL only takes a couple of weeks, if you flew back to Chicago after SE Asia but didn't return right away to Norway or Hungary, you could use Chicago as simply one of the stopovers allowed (out of up to 16) by the ticket. But the ticket is good for 12 months from the first flight, and you've only used a few of the 16 allowed segments, so maybe you're not done. Maybe sometime in the spring or summer you want to take a trip to the west coast, or to the Caribbean or Central America. You use some of the remaining segments to go there - maybe Alaska, maybe Mexico... wherever. Then back home for another "stopover" until it's time to return to Europe to end the trip where you began.

The $4K, $5K or $6K you would have spent for a round trip to Singapore alone has to be compared with a RTW ticket that maybe cost $5K or $6K to begin with, but has been leveraged to pay for a few thousand dollars' additional business class travel that you don't need to shell out for under any other scenario. Does that make sense?

Imagine this timetable.

Pre-February 2023 (any time from now on) - purchase the ticket - use the American Airlines round the world desk at (800) 247-3247 (I think that's still good.)
February 2023 - fly using your own money or miles to the ticket "origination" point - say Oslo or Budapest.
February 2023 - fly to Singapore, then to KL for your visits.
February/March 2023 - fly home to Chicago, via Japan if you want, or Hong Kong, or someplace else in Asia, your call. Stop over or not.

Option 1
Say June or July 2023 - use the RTW ticket to travel to Alaska for a vacation or a cruise. Or to California. Or to some national park in the Rockies. Or maybe Montreal and Quebec City. Do your trip then fly home to Chicago.

By February 2024 - use the RTW ticket to return to the origin country. You could use some remaining segments to visit someplace else in Europe or the Middle East before ending in Norway or Hungary. This could be done in the summer or autumn of 2023, or in the winter of 2023/2024, your choice.

Option 2
Say November or December 2023 - use the RTW ticket to travel to Costa Rica, or Barbados, or Puerto Vallarta, or a cruise out of Miami... whatever. Then back to Chicago.

Then by February of 2024, return to Europe as above.

Does that make sense? You're leveraging your $5K - $6K travel investment to include lots more travel than the simple round trip to Singapore and Malaysia. Even given the cost of the "positioning" flights you're still thousands ahead of what the same travel would cost if you bought the tickets for travel starting in the US.

mrwunrfl

about the 9hr layover on TK

Turkish Airlines has offered a free stopover in Istanbul in the past. They have 2 daily IST-SIN

mjs

Two free nights in a 5 star hotel in Istanbul if on business class

jacketwatch

The 800 number worked though it took around 40 minutes with an agent to try to figure this out and even she could not understand the apparent glitch about starting in Norway. Finally after a very long hold time I hung up.
Will try again but not today.
Thank you!

Gardyloo

The RTW desk used to be the gold standard for booking these trips but AA has degraded the quality of the personnel who staff it. Covid I guess.

Frankly I wouldn't go there until you have a detailed itinerary worked out with dates for all the flights you'd like to take. If you'd like I can help; send me a PM with as much detail as you can come up with.

The itinerary can be changed after booking for (at most) a $125 change fee.

jacketwatch

Could be. The agent was nice enough but seemed a bit unsure. I did mention about starting in Oslo and she could not figure out why this was not working. Then after say at least 10 minutes on hold and a total of at least 30 minutes it was time to table this for another day.
I will send you a PM asap and as always thank you.
I do appreciate all the help you are giving me and so many others here.

mrwunrfl

FWIW, flytertalk premium fare deals has a great price for NYC-CGK (Jakarta). Would be $2,666 for EWR-TYO--CGK-TYO-JFK or EWR. First leg on UA, middle two ANA, Last on ANA or UA. I think ANA has their fanciest business class on NYC-TYO, called "The Room".

and $5200 from ORD or from SFO $4500 on Asiana

those fares are for Feb

jacketwatch

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jacketwatch

Finally got around to call AA for this. Wow! very confusing for me. She said I could not start in Oslo, that you had to include three continents and two oceans spanned. her suggested itinerary was ORD-HND, HND-SIN, SIN-Doha vie KUL, Doha-Oslo or some where else in Europe and from there back to ORD. Yikes! Too much for me and way too much for my better half. . She wouls kill me if I did that and then can't go anywhere. .

February is out now anyway unfortunately but another idea is to get two one ways on biz using miles which we both have enough for then pay for two one ways biz back home. Saw one ways in Feb. for around $2800 so thats another option.
Thank you again for all your help!

Gardyloo

I'm so sorry you encountered one of the inexperienced (clueless, actually) agents on the AA RTW desk. I can assure you that the agent was completely wrong; you can purchase an RTW ticket for an itinerary beginning anywhere using any of the Oneworld airlines as the selling party. I've bought RTW tickets starting in Japan, South Africa, Turkey and Sweden (actually a couple of tickets in a couple of those countries) and I'm aware of people who've recently (in the past two weeks) ticketed - using those same people - for RTW trips starting in Norway and Iceland. It's just as I said earlier, AA has assigned some very untrained and unskilled people to those phone pools, and the sort of experience you've encountered has been reported repeatedly, including by people that know how to work this system. The old rule for this is "HUCA" - hang up, call again - but with long wait times and a lack of experience in dealing with know-nothing agents, it can become very frustrating. I'd be happy to intercede if you'd like; send me a PM.

If you can use miles for the trip, then I'd probably go with that unless you are a glutton for punishment.

Again, best of luck!

jacketwatch

I will send pm asap! Thank tou!
Larry