Making the most of airline miles

In many conversations with friends about the trip's logistics, we were asked if we booked Around-the-World tickets for the flights. It would seems to make sense given the route of our trip, but no, we did not, and I've been wondering why anyone would want to do that.

While the idea of one fixed-price ticket to travel one-way around the world sounds great, there are some many downsides to Around-the-World tickets:

• You are limited to one airline network: the three main airline alliances that offer then are Star Alliance, SkyTeam, and OneWorld. Star Alliance probably has the most extensive network, but still, you're probably limited on where you can fly (on our trip, for example, they would not have had any domestic flights in Argentina). Plus, some smaller airlines that serve regional markets are not part of airline alliances, so these trips would have to be purchased in addition to your Around-the World ticket (for example, our flights to Lukla in Nepal). 
• You have to go in one direction around the world: this is harder than you think, especially if you're also going North and South (hitting South America or Africa?). Instead of optimizing for longitude, we optimized for distance flown and weather :)
• Finding availability on the flights you want may be difficult: want to go from NYC to Paris on your first leg on Delta or AirFrance? You mostly certainly will not find availability unless you book well in advance, defeating the purpose of flexible booking with Around-the-World tickets. You may end up spending a ton of time figuring out which routes you can actually fly. Plus, it's hard to do a lot of that research online, which means spending a lot of time on the phone with booking agents - particularly difficult if you're on the road. 
• Plus, it's not all that cheap! Tickets start at ~$2000, but prices quickly go up once you add mileage and stopovers. 

There are upsides, too, to around-the-world ticket. Booking is fairly flexible, so you don't have to plan your route way ahead of time; it can be a great deal if you're going to some expensive destinations; and you earn a bunch of miles on one airline. Since we didn't use them, though, let's not dwell on these points too much.

The real deal in airline travel, we thought, was using airline miles for some long-haul flights and taking advantage of award tickets' outdated systems and loopholes. Delta, for example, allows one stopover, one layover, and one open jaw on each award ticket. So we booked a round-trip ticket with the first leg from NYC to Nice, and the return leg from Sydney (open jaw) to Buenos Aires (with a 2-week stopover) and through Miami (24 hour layover) to NYC. All these flight cost 80,000 miles per person. By comparison, the Sydney to Buenos Aires flight alone would have cost over $1,000 if we paid for it. There are some truly amazing deals out there if you look hard enough.

Then, we found some really good deals on shorter-haul flights, by purchasing most tickets well ahead of time, using miles for the most expensive routes, and flying a couple of low-cost airlines where necessary. I bought most tickets before we left for the trip. Used AA miles for the Quantas flight from Cairns to Ayers Rock (10,000 miles for a $600 flight) and Delta miles for flights between Buenos Aires and El Calafate (25,000 miles for 2 flights around $300 each). Overall, we did pretty well:

It's a steal considering we never had to take a detour, make unnecessary layovers, or fly many low-cost airlines. Also, we opted to fly whenever it made sense, instead of taking long-distance buses and trains, or driving excessive distances.

What to pack for a six-month trip

This is the first of a series of posts with travel tips from around the world. I hope you find parts of it useful, or at least somewhat entertaining. 

When Dave and I decided to go on a six-month trip around the world, we didn't think too much about the logistics. We committed to the trip as soon as we knew that it was feasible with work, since it was something we've always dreamed about. The packing, though, was not easy.

It was particularly complicated by the fact that we are seeing cities and the outdoors, traveling to extremely cold and extremely warm places, and wanted to backpack and car camp for parts of the trip. Plus, we knew that we only wanted to go around the world once (i.e. we didn't want to backtrack to NYC). I did some quick research on shipping supplies overseas with no luck. So we had to take everything we needed with us on the plane.

Now that we are two-thirds of the way into the trip, how did we do with all of our luggage?

What we packed:
We ended up taking two large suitcases (about 25kg each), two carry-on suitcases (about 12kg each), two day-packs, and one large camping backpack. We were luck enough that my relatives, who attended our wedding in New York, were able to bring another camping backpack with them to Shanghai with some additional supplies. Most of our extra weight came from our camping and hiking gear, as well as electronics and camera equipment.

Even though we tried so hard to pack light, we definitely took a few things we wished we hadn't - two heavy flashlights, dress shoes for Dave, and a few extra dresses for me. It was a lot of  weight to be carrying around the world! It was difficult for us to take public transit with our bags, so we mostly rented rented cars or took taxis to and from the airport. My advice? Really only take bare essentials. You’d be amazed to see how much of your wardrobe you can live without!

Packing for flights:
Now that we have our gear for the trip, an equally hard challenge is figuring out how we are going to pack everything up for the 29 flights we’re taking without shelling out for crazy excess luggage fees. Each airline has different weight limits, by number of pieces, weight of each piece, carry-on limits, etc.

Luckily, Dave is Platinum on Delta Airlines (SkyTeam) and got status match with Turkish Airlines (Star Alliance). This meant that we got extra checked baggage allowance on most of the flights that we took (and got to use airport lounges for those flights). For most of the remaining flights, I was able to prepay for extra baggage at a reasonable price.

So far, we've only had to pay for excess baggage fees at the airport counter twice. The first time with SAS because we were silly enough to ask how many bags we’re allowed to check, prompting the agent to question our carry-on weight. The second time, we had to abandon our plans to fly to Nairobi through Cairo on Star Alliance and SkyTeam flights, and had to book a flight with Qatar Airways (OneWorld). Of course, Qatar diligently weighted everyone’s checked bags and carry-ons, and charged for excess baggage at 19 euros per kilogram. Let’s hope that was the last time we whip out our credit cards at check-in.