After an unplanned DONE4 18 months ago, I finally had the opportunity to plan one. Well, planned and then modified.
Originally I only had 2 stops - New York and Raleigh. I was restricted to QF, AA and BA flights because of my ticket. So the route I originally chose was
SYD-JFK-DFW-RDU-DFW-JFK-LAX-ORD-LHR-MCT-LHR-FCO-LHR-SIN-BNE-PER-DRW-ADL-SYD
Miles - 48910
SC's - 1940 (thanks to some A class US flights)
18 segments
I still need to get from BNE to SYD when I return because I plan to do the 4 SWP segments some time later. How I wished they hadn't changed the rules on these segments in the issuing region
. I 'll probably just buy a one way cheapie and then another when I need to return to BNE to continue my last part of the trip.
After taking about a week on the phone with the TA teaching them about what I could and couldn't do with the fare, it was finally booked.
The main problem was from LAX back to BNE was continuous travel. I figured I'd just sleep as much as possible and hope that my luggage would turn up one day!
Only a week after I had finalising all the flights, I had 2 more destinations to add - Tokyo and Zurich. As these were funded separately, I considered booking another DONE4 as it was going to be $1500 cheaper than booking flights point to point. And after all the effort in getting all the flights I wanted, I really didn't want ot go back and start figuring out flights again.
But fortunately I was able to match the timing with my original DONE4 and alter it for the 2 extra stops quite easily. So now it goes
SYD-NRT-JFK-DFW-RDU-DFW-JFK-LAX-ORD-LHR-MCT-LHR-ZRH-LHR-SIN-BNE-PER-DRW-ADL-SYD
Miles - 49740
SC's - 1960
19 segments
This works out quite well as now I have a weeks stopover in Zurich so I end up with 2 long legs
LAX-ORD-LHR-MCT-LHR-ZRH and
ZRH-LHR-SIN-BNE
The best laid plans - always seem to change.. But at least this time, I was able to simply add in the extra flights.
These DONE4 fares really are very useful.
The next thing to plan is the trip report!
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