Care for a Trip Report? I have one.
It is my bold contention that this is the greatest award redemption of all time. I raise the challenge to any blogger, frequent flyer, or foe to prove otherwise.
How did I do it? A ton of points, 1,163,214 to be exact. The feature of which was the American Airlines Explorer Award.
American Airlines used to have a round the world ticket called the Explorer Award which allowed you to fly 50,000 miles on 16 segments so long as the trip was completed in a year all for 230,000 AAdvantage Miles and $275 in taxes. In October of 2013, I spent weeks planning, calling, and booking this lifetime achievement which started in Phoenix and included stops in:
- San Diego, California
- Tokyo, Japan
- Melbourne, Australia
- Wellington, New Zealand
- Sydney, Australia
- Colombo, Sri Lanka
- Maldives
- Saigon, Vietnam
- Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
- Hong Kong
- Cape Town, South Africa
- Knysna, South Africa
- Durban, South Africa
- Mauritius
- Johannesburg, South Africa
- Doha, Qatar
- New York, New York
- Helsinki, Finland
- Tel Aviv, Israel (Was unable to go to Israel.)
- Moscow, Russia (Rescheduled for February 2015.)
- St. Petersburg, Russia (Rescheduled for February 2015.)
- Berlin, Germany (Unable to go due to move to Mongolia.)
- Toronto, Ontario (Unable to go due to move to Mongolia.)
- Los Angeles, California (Unable to go due to move to Mongolia.)
- Phoenix, Arizona
*Note that the American Airlines round the world ticket took me from North America to Asia, Australia, and Africa then back to North America only to return months later to Europe; around the world and back again.
Flight highlights include:
- JAL 787 Dreamliner from San Diego to Tokyo
- Cathay Business Class over and over again
- Maldives Seaplane
- Qatar Business Class (overrated)
- Lufthansa First-Class Lounge and First-Class flight prior to United devaluation (Unable to go due to move to Mongolia)
Hotel highlights include:
- Park Hyatt Sydney
- Conrad Maldives Rangali Island
- St. Regis Mauritius
- W Doha
- Park Hyatt Moscow
- W St. Petersburg
But that’s only a small portion of the itinerary. I spent hours color coding an Excel spreadsheet that showed when I was going, where I was going, how I was getting there, and the costs in points versus the cost out-of-pocket.
I flew most of the 63,000 miles in business class and stayed at some of the world’s best hotels. Retail, this trip goes for over $77,000 but it cost me roughly $5500.
Here’s the complete breakdown:
Now that I’ve thrown down the gauntlet for the best awards redemption of all time, who’s up for the challenge of showing me I’m wrong?
Try this: LGA to DFW on AA. IN COACH.
Seriously, that’s incredible and I don’t think anyone will be able to best it!
I have a lot more admiration for you for surviving what may be the worst airport in the world, LGA.
It sucks that my trip is done. Planning it was so much fun and I thought I had another rtw ready to go after applying for 2 AA exec cards. Then they yanked the program in the middle of the night.
Thanks for the comment!
I think Lucky has you beat though with his trip around the world with his dad. The Emirates First class tickets alone LAX-DXB-SIN in First Class for 2 people retail $40,000 on the EK website. I can’t remember which other flights they’re flying on but I’d say in total they would rival yours. 😉
Nonetheless, great redemption!
I should add another factor should be the value of points per redemption. This was all done before the elimination of AA RTW tickets, before Hyatt devaluation, and United.
For your consideration, how about my Trip to the Far East last December: A380 on JFK-DXB-PVG, Singapore Business in Asia. A380 return from Singapore via Tokyo.
http://thepointsoflife.com/trip-reports/a-trip-to-the-far-east/
My 21 day honeymoon coming up with my wife would price out at roughly $98,000. I made a spreadsheet as well. ParkHyatts in Washington, Abu Dhabi, Maldives, and Sydney. Fairmont Dubai. Intercontinental Sydney and Hong Kong. Etihad First Class, Qantas First Class and Cathay Pacific First Class.
All hail the spreadsheet!
The spreadsheet is amazing & totally something that I would do. My wedding & honeymoon spreadsheets were intense but this is a whole new level.
Sounds like an amazing trip!
Wish I was doing it again!
Here is a solid runner up:http://freeinfreedom.com/the-trip-of-a-million-lifetimes/
That’s definitely a solid showing! No argument from me. Always wanted to go to new caledonia.
I’ll give myself the style points for the colorful excel as the tiebreaker lol.
That’s a solid showing! No argument from me. Always wanted to go to New Caledonia.
I’ll give myself the tiebreaker on style based on the colorful Excel lol.
2003-4 – did OneWorld RTW Explorer (Or whatever it was called then) – unlimited segments.. in business (Though business wasn’t quite what it is today – though British Airways Dubai-LHR did have lie flat)
About 2x as many segments as your trip on one ticket. I have images of the ticket showing all the segments. Though I did not fly the last segments in Europe…for various reasons.
Many separately purchased flights as well on the same trip. Planned it for 1 year in total, ended up being 7 months straight of travel. Mostly hostels and cheap hotels (Though some were very nice, just inexpensive). did stay at the ALILA JAKARTA for $50/night…cheap because of Marriott bombing. This is way before ALILA was bought by Hyatt…and before anyone knew about it per se.
sea-dfw-lax-mel-adl-per-ayq-drw-cns-tsv-bne-syd-tyo-hkg-sin-jkt-sin-bkk-cmb-hkg-bom-dxb-lon-ist-lon-hel-prg-dub-bcn-ath-mad-mia-dfw-sea
put that into GCMAP. That is JUST the OneWorld portion. Like I said many other separate flights. I flew it up to London. Returned to USA on separate ticket for a family matter, then chose not to fly back to Europe to fly the other Europe segments. Was too tired mentally. Just cheap Europe short segments anyway.
TSV – technical stop where got out for a few hours….ticket shows one or two more segments, but i didn’t include it in above. Was just some Qantas routing through Broome – have no memory of that.
Have image of ticket if you like. I did post it on flyertalk in the last couple of years in some thread but can’t seem to find the post.
That’s what it’s all about. I’m pretty sure I maxed out the number of segments allowed or maybe the distance, can’t remember.
And yes, business is so much better now.
maybe because of me (And others?) they added the segment limit. Hahahaha. Also – it was a PAPER ticket wad! Electronic what?
I wonder if back then – people were travel hacking? My miles were just earned by flying. No credit cards, etc (Had an SPG card – maybe got some miles/pts from that)…when did credit card bonuses get bigger?
NPR – How Frequent Fliers Exploit A Government Program To Get Free Trips – 2011 ; talks about US Mint in 2008 due to govt act in 2005. So my trip was before that.
I didn’t start “modern travel hacking” until 2014 – but my impression is blogs started to appear about it around 2009/2010? checking now — Thepointsguy shows 2009 registration date. Frequentmiler shows 1999 – but maybe it was something else then? Million Mile Secrets – 2010. Travel is Free – 2011. Mile Value – 2012. Upgraded Points 2015.
I also recall – “the pudding guy.” (That was around 2000 I just read – never knew the details)