Head East or Head West?

[DCThunder]

I have booked a cruise RT from Singapore through Indonesia and Northern Australia in 2025.  I live on the east coast of the US.  It appears that it's about equidistant to fly to Singapore via Dubai/Abu Dhabi heading eastbound from the US or westbound across the Pacific and into Singapore.

 

Does anyone who's done this flight have any preference as to which way to go?  I'm leaning towards going eastbound because I'll be returning home from Tokyo, so I'll do a circumnavigation by air and ship, but am open to suggestions/experiences.  I have a long time to decide, but I'd appreciate any thoughts.

[Zach1213]

Personally, I don't find a whole lot of difference. It's a long ways no matter what, and having done both many times, I feel like one good night of sleep gets me in tune with the local time whether I've gotten there through Hong Kong or through, say, London or Dubai. 

 

Depending on any airline/alliance loyalties you may have, it may be worth looking at Delta for your neck of the woods. Not sure which airport you would use as origin and destination on your end, but you could do ATL-CDG/AMS-SIN on the way out, and HND-ATL on the way back. 

[the mice]

We are doing a cruise next February from Bangkok to Seoul and live on the east coast.  Here's what we (well, me, since I do all the travel planning) decided:

 

We wanted to use frequent flyer miles for our tickets in business class with only one stop en  route, so that was the primary gating factor for us   Plus given the uncertainties of travel these days, we wanted to book using our United or American miles which would revert back to those accounts should we need to cancel and/or change flights and/or plans.   We did not want to transfer points (which we have with Chase and Amex) to an airline like Singapore where they would be "stuck" once transferred, with a 3 year expiration.    We had previously booked this Asia cruise which was Covid-canceled a couple of times.   Back then I easily found transpacific award flights at saver mileage levels.   So I thought this would be a similar exercise.

 

I did some reading and some people prefer flying west to avoid jet lag.  Others didn't have a preference.  However, given the parameters outlined above, I found transpacific awards were slim pickings, often inmixed cabins, and at exorbitant miles.  And lots of flights routed through Chicago - not in February, thank you.

 

I ended up booking the outbound flight with UA miles on Swiss and Thai with 1 stop in Zurich to Bangkok.   For the return from Seoul, I managed to use AA miles to book Qatar Qsuites from Seoul via Doha back to NY.   Very reasonable miles for business class.   We arrive days before and leave days after our cruise so should be OK.  It took some time but I am satisfied with what we have booked.

 

Hopefully I have given you some things to consider.   Have a great time planning your travel.

[DCThunder]

1 hour ago, Zach1213 said:

Personally, I don't find a whole lot of difference. It's a long ways no matter what, and having done both many times, I feel like one good night of sleep gets me in tune with the local time whether I've gotten there through Hong Kong or through, say, London or Dubai. 

 

Depending on any airline/alliance loyalties you may have, it may be worth looking at Delta for your neck of the woods. Not sure which airport you would use as origin and destination on your end, but you could do ATL-CDG/AMS-SIN on the way out, and HND-ATL on the way back. 

Thanks.  My airline status is with American and to a lesser extent United, and I usually fly out of Charlotte.  

[DCThunder]

1 hour ago, the mice said:

We are doing a cruise next February from Bangkok to Seoul and live on the east coast.  Here's what we (well, me, since I do all the travel planning) decided:

 

We wanted to use frequent flyer miles for our tickets in business class with only one stop en  route, so that was the primary gating factor for us   Plus given the uncertainties of travel these days, we wanted to book using our United or American miles which would revert back to those accounts should we need to cancel and/or change flights and/or plans.   We did not want to transfer points (which we have with Chase and Amex) to an airline like Singapore where they would be "stuck" once transferred, with a 3 year expiration.    We had previously booked this Asia cruise which was Covid-canceled a couple of times.   Back then I easily found transpacific award flights at saver mileage levels.   So I thought this would be a similar exercise.

 

I did some reading and some people prefer flying west to avoid jet lag.  Others didn't have a preference.  However, given the parameters outlined above, I found transpacific awards were slim pickings, often inmixed cabins, and at exorbitant miles.  And lots of flights routed through Chicago - not in February, thank you.

 

I ended up booking the outbound flight with UA miles on Swiss and Thai with 1 stop in Zurich to Bangkok.   For the return from Seoul, I managed to use AA miles to book Qatar Qsuites from Seoul via Doha back to NY.   Very reasonable miles for business class.   We arrive days before and leave days after our cruise so should be OK.  It took some time but I am satisfied with what we have booked.

 

Hopefully I have given you some things to consider.   Have a great time planning your travel.

Thanks, this is very helpful.  AA is who I have the most status with, and I've seen AA/Qatar flights from JFK to Singapore through Doha.  But your comments give me some things to consider over the next six months before I can book anything.

[Zach1213]

3 minutes ago, DCThunder said:

Thanks.  My airline status is with American and to a lesser extent United, and I usually fly out of Charlotte.  

 

Sticking to OneWorld, you can minimize stops by doing CLT-LHR-SIN (AA/BA) on the way out, with Tokyo (HND or NRT) to Charlotte via ORD, DFW, or JFK on the way back. That would make for a fairly easy trip, relatively, in my mind. 

 

The partnership with Qatar is handy, but does add an extra step (i.e. CLT-JFK-DOH-SIN or CLT-LHR-DOH-SIN) which, in my opinion, isn't worth it. 

[DCThunder]

1 minute ago, Zach1213 said:

 

Sticking to OneWorld, you can minimize stops by doing CLT-LHR-SIN (AA/BA) on the way out, with Tokyo (HND or NRT) to Charlotte via ORD, DFW, or JFK on the way back. That would make for a fairly easy trip, relatively, in my mind. 

 

The partnership with Qatar is handy, but does add an extra step (i.e. CLT-JFK-DOH-SIN or CLT-LHR-DOH-SIN) which, in my opinion, isn't worth it. 

Thank you!  This is very helpful.

[the mice]

6 hours ago, DCThunder said:

Thanks.  My airline status is with American and to a lesser extent United, and I usually fly out of Charlotte.  

You didn't mention if you will be paying $$ or trying to book with miles.  If the latter, be aware that it may require diligence, patience and perseverance on your part.  I found that many ideal flight routings did not have award seats available.  I didn't pay for any tools like Expert Flyer, and I didn't use an award booking service like Points Pros, but it took me weeks to find award seats on the routing I mentioned in post #3.  .  

[FlyerTalker]

The time difference will be the same either way.  So that's a wash.

 

One consideration is that you would qualify for open-jaw pricing if you fly over the same ocean both ways.  But if you fly to SIN over the Atlantic and return from Japan over the Pacific, many open-jaw fares won't apply due to the two ocean restriction.  OTOH, perhaps a RTW fare may be a better option, but that would require some diligence in your research.

 

You don't mention if this is in business or coach.  If business, flights on QR through Doha would be my choice -- wonderful inflight product, and the lounges at DOH are excellent experiences.

 

 

[DCThunder]

5 hours ago, FlyerTalker said:

The time difference will be the same either way.  So that's a wash.

 

One consideration is that you would qualify for open-jaw pricing if you fly over the same ocean both ways.  But if you fly to SIN over the Atlantic and return from Japan over the Pacific, many open-jaw fares won't apply due to the two ocean restriction.  OTOH, perhaps a RTW fare may be a better option, but that would require some diligence in your research.

 

You don't mention if this is in business or coach.  If business, flights on QR through Doha would be my choice -- wonderful inflight product, and the lounges at DOH are excellent experiences.

 

 

I'd want to go Business class if possible, Premium Economy at worst.  I'd be looking at either booking the air directly or working with the air departments at HAL, which is my cruise line. Anyway, thanks for the advice and suggestions.

[Gardyloo]

8 hours ago, FlyerTalker said:

The time difference will be the same either way.  So that's a wash.

 

One consideration is that you would qualify for open-jaw pricing if you fly over the same ocean both ways.  But if you fly to SIN over the Atlantic and return from Japan over the Pacific, many open-jaw fares won't apply due to the two ocean restriction.  OTOH, perhaps a RTW fare may be a better option, but that would require some diligence in your research.

 

You don't mention if this is in business or coach.  If business, flights on QR through Doha would be my choice -- wonderful inflight product, and the lounges at DOH are excellent experiences.

 

Didn't the OP say it was a round trip cruise from Singapore through Indonesia and Australia?  

 

So forgive the broken record, but where else, if anywhere, do you plan to travel in the year before the Singapore cruise or the year after, or elsewhere within the same year?  In other words, if your cruise departs in, say, January 2025, do you have other international travels - cruise or otherwise - that would occur between, say, March 2024 and December 2025 (i.e., dates that encompass the cruise with up to 11 months on either side?)

 

If so, you might want to have a look at a round-the-world ticket that would not only get you to Singapore and back, but which also could be used for other travel in addition to the Singapore "stopover" for the cruise.  

 

I've talked about this before (endlessly, it seems, yadda yadda) but because business class RTW tickets' prices vary hugely depending on where the travel begins and ends, and because the tickets are good for a year and allow up to 16 flights for the one price, it's possible to leverage two, maybe three separate trips out of the one investment.  

 

For example, say your Singapore cruise is in January 2025 and you'll be on the boat for four weeks.  (Is that the one, on HAL?)  So sometime in the late winter or spring of 2024, almost a year before the cruise, you fly (on your own dime, or use miles) someplace where business class RTW tickets are cheaper than they are in the US (which is pretty much anywhere, but there are some standouts.)  You've already paid for the tickets, so all you need to do is show up for the first flight and off you go.

 

RTW tickets require you to cross both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans in the same direction (east to west or v.v.) and limit the amount of "doubling back" you can do between continents, but not within them.  With a few exceptions you have to start and end in the same country, but not the same city.  The most popular Oneworld RTW product, the Oneworld Explorer, is priced according to how many continents you touch in the course of your trip, between 3 and 6.  In addition to intercontinental flights, it allows up to four flights in each continent, except six within North America, which includes Central America and the Caribbean.  So with a 3-continent Oneworld Explorer, you'd be able to make 4 flights within Asia, 4 within Europe (which includes the Middle East and Mediterranean Africa) and 6 within North America, plus the 3 intercontinental flights between those continents.  (That comes to 17, one more than the max, so you'd have to cut out one of the flight segments from someplace.)  

 

So back to some specifics.  As I said, the prices for these tickets varies hugely between countries where the travel begins, not where the traveler lives.  A three-continent Oneworld business class RTW starting and ending in the USA carries a base price (before taxes and fees) of US$10,426.  The same ticket starting in Canada is (US)$7525.  But if you start in Norway (Why?  Don't ask.) it costs $4907.  Or $4835 in Japan, or $4214 in Egypt.   Now all of these are base prices; taxes and airline fees typically will add 15% - 25% to the total, depending on the airlines used and the countries visited - departure taxes, airline surcharges, etc. - but it's still pretty good value, and usually worth the cost of "positioning" yourself in the first RTW departure city/country at your own expense.  Can you get from Charlotte to Oslo for less than the $5500 difference in the RTW ticket's cost?  Duh.  

 

So let's play this out.  You fly to Oslo or Cairo - use some of your AA miles if you have 'em.  Tour the pyramids or see the northern lights, then head to the airport and fly home.  Maybe your first flight (from either Oslo or Cairo) is to Doha, where you board a Qatar plane with Q-suites for your trip back across the pond - to JFK, Atlanta, Dulles - anywhere that Qatar flies.  You connect to CLT and go back to work/retirement/whatever your lives include.

 

Weeks or months later, you use the same ticket to head to Seattle or Anchorage for an Alaska cruise, or down to San Juan for a Caribbean cruise, or to the west coast, Canada, Mexico, Costa Rica... wherever you want to go.  All your flights are in the pointy end.

 

Come time for the Singapore trip, your head from CLT to, say, Chicago, then ride in Japan Airlines' Sky Suites to Tokyo.  Spend a few days in Japan (could be Hong Kong, could be Korea, could be Malaysia) then on to Singapore for the cruise.  

 

When you get back to Singapore, head back toward where you started - back to Norway, or if you started in Egypt, the ticket lets you end in any other Middle Eastern country.  Israel?  Jordan?  Tour around some more, then use some of the many frequent flyer miles you've earned in the course of the year and fly home.  Or maybe you buy a new RTW ticket, this time one that includes Africa, or South America, or Australia and New Zealand.  

 

Here's a map showing one of an infinity of possibilities for a 3-continent RTW.  In addition to the Asia portions, it includes stops in Anchorage, Vancouver and Los Angeles for an Alaska cruise; it could just as easily include stops in the Caribbean, Atlantic Canada, Mexico or Central America, all accomplished between picking up the ticket and heading over the Pacific for the cruise out of Singapore.  Substituting Oslo for Cairo on this map would be totally okay.  

 

 

Anyway, maybe some food for thought as you plan your travels over the next couple of years.  Maybe you don't even wait until 2025 to get started.  I'm happy to answer any questions.  

 

Edited May 16, 2023 by Gardyloo

[FlyerTalker]

On 5/15/2023 at 10:51 AM, DCThunder said:

I have booked a cruise RT from Singapore through Indonesia and Northern Australia in 2025. 

 

I'm leaning towards going eastbound because I'll be returning home from Tokyo,

 

8 hours ago, Gardyloo said:

Didn't the OP say it was a round trip cruise from Singapore through Indonesia and Australia? 

 

A bit contradictory in that first post.  Mentions R/T Singapore but also flying home from Tokyo.  So unclear for me.

 

 

 

Edited May 17, 2023 by FlyerTalker

[DCThunder]

@Gardyloo WOW!  Simply WOW.  You have given me a LOT to digest and consider.  I need to read it carefully before I could even think of questions to ask.  Thank you for the detailed response.  It's what I love about the CC boards.

 

I wasn't too clear in the OP.  I have a RT from Singapore and then a second Singapore>Tokyo cruise, so I'd fly into SIN and fly home from NRT, most likely. This is why I was thinking of what's essentially a RTW set of flights, although I'd travel by ship in the middle.

 

I guess the first question that springs to mind is how would I even begin to go about researching or booking the type of RTW ticket you mention?  Do I Google "RTW tickets"?  Or visit a TA?

 

Later this year I have a booking for a cruise from Rome through the Med, but then back to Florida.  I currently have a flight booking (through the cruise line so not paid for yet) to Rome.  Would it be better to do a cruise that's just RT from Rome and fly home to start the RTW flight process?  Or can I buy the RTW flight ticket while in Rome or Greece or Israel while one the cruise?

 

This whole think is very new to me so I need to understand how it works a lot more.

 

Thanks in advance for additional information!

[6rugrats]

Gardyloo is the expert on RTW tickets on more than one forum!

[FlyerTalker]

1 hour ago, 6rugrats said:

Gardyloo is the expert on RTW tickets on more than one forum!

 

He should have a website www.rtw-r-us.com

 

 

[CruiserBruce]

1 hour ago, FlyerTalker said:

 

He should have a website www.rtw-r-us.com

 

 

Or it could be made a "Sticky". 

[Gardyloo]

3 hours ago, DCThunder said:

@Gardyloo WOW!  Simply WOW.  You have given me a LOT to digest and consider.  I need to read it carefully before I could even think of questions to ask.  Thank you for the detailed response.  It's what I love about the CC boards.

 

I wasn't too clear in the OP.  I have a RT from Singapore and then a second Singapore>Tokyo cruise, so I'd fly into SIN and fly home from NRT, most likely. This is why I was thinking of what's essentially a RTW set of flights, although I'd travel by ship in the middle.

 

I guess the first question that springs to mind is how would I even begin to go about researching or booking the type of RTW ticket you mention?  Do I Google "RTW tickets"?  Or visit a TA?

 

Later this year I have a booking for a cruise from Rome through the Med, but then back to Florida.  I currently have a flight booking (through the cruise line so not paid for yet) to Rome.  Would it be better to do a cruise that's just RT from Rome and fly home to start the RTW flight process?  Or can I buy the RTW flight ticket while in Rome or Greece or Israel while one the cruise?

 

This whole think is very new to me so I need to understand how it works a lot more.

 

Thanks in advance for additional information!

Several questions that I'll address but maybe not in the same order.

 

More info:  At the risk of shoulder strain from patting my own back (yeah, right) let me point to a thread I posted years ago on TripAdvisor that I tried to make as something of a "primer" on RTW tickets.  TA closed the thread to new comments some time back, but most of the things covered in it are still reasonably current.  One major change is that Skyteam (Delta, KLM/Air France et al) discontinued their RTW product during the pandemic and haven't resumed selling it since, so one assumes it's gone.  For other tickets, a couple of Oneworld "circle" products - Circle Atlantic and Circle Explorer - have also gone away.  Of course prices have changed too (sometimes for the better) and airlines have joined or left the various alliances.  But mostly the thread is pretty accurate.  Here it is:  About round-the-world (RTW) tickets - Air Travel Forum - Tripadvisor

 

For booking, Star Alliance has a decent online "plan and book" tool - Round The World (staralliance.com) and Oneworld has one too Multi-City Flights: Round The World Airline Tickets - RTW | oneworld, but Oneworld's is buggy beyond hope, and has been for a decade.  Honestly, it's okay to do some practice or "dummy" planning, but if you actually plan to book and ticket something, see your doctor about a Rogaine prescription first.  If you get my drift.  Fortunately, for would-be Oneworld RTW users, American Airlines maintains a "RTW desk" you can phone at 1-800-247-3247.  I wouldn't do that until you've studied and plotted your route pretty thoroughly first, so you don't get lost in the weeds in the process.

 

There are also some individuals and travel advisors who can book these for you, as well as some travel companies that can help assemble non-alliance RTWs, basically stringing together a bunch of one-way flights that do the trick.  

 

One good source for RTWs and other services is Flyertalk.  Their "travel tools" board has some useful links for various services including booking assistance.  Travel Tools - FlyerTalk Forums

 

Flyertalk's "global airline alliance" boards, especially the Oneworld one, are probably the best source for detailed "how to" and hand-holding options.  https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/global-airline-alliances-391/

 

As far as your upcoming trip to Europe and the Middle East goes, timing would be the important factor.  RTW tickets are valid for a year from the first flight, so if you want to, say, buy a RTW ticket someplace in Europe or the Middle East on the upcoming trip, then fly home with it and use it to get to Singapore for that cruise, you'd have to be sure that the first flight (from Europe or the ME to home) and the last flight (from Tokyo back to Europe/ME) aren't more than 12 months apart, or else the RTW will turn into a pumpkin in the meantime.  Savvy?  

 

Hope this helps a little.

[DCThunder]

@Gardyloo THANK YOU!  This give me at least an initial compass bearing through the jungle of these RTW flights and bookings.

[CruiserBruce]

@Gardyloo, I hope you are cut and pasting these explanations, given the number of times you have had to explain it.

[Gardyloo]

14 minutes ago, CruiserBruce said:

@Gardyloo, I hope you are cut and pasting these explanations, given the number of times you have had to explain it.

Pretty much. 

 

For what it's worth (zilch?  bupkis?) here's a link to a trip report I filed on Flyertalk during the Covid shutdown period, documenting our first RTW trip taken in 2005.  If nothing else, it illustrates some of the power and flexibility of these products.  

 

Trip report – Our First RTW, 2005 - FlyerTalk Forums