[Robbo]

Hello from a newbie.

I'm planning a trip to Europe in May 06 with my wife and 20month old to go to my cousin's wedding in London. We're also thinking about spending a week or so driving down to Rome, then a week in Malta. We'll then travel back to London for a flight to Sing, and after a couple of days there back to Sydney.

I have about 340,000 QFF points to use.

Can anyone suggest the best way to plan this out?

Please accept my apologies if I have missed a previous message on this - I couldn't find anything appropriate using the search function.

Thanks

Rob

[danielh]

Two RTW economy tickets are 142,500 points each. The 20 month now will be about 27 months in May so will have to pay for her as she is older then 2 years. I think it is 10% but I don't have children so not sure. Prob max at 25%.

Depending on your status (Plat, Gold, Silver, Bronze) you will find various difficulties on getting your flights. WPs have the easiest time to get award seats and it goes down from there.

If you are a Silver (min) you get to change your DATES on the flights without penalty but not the places.

Since you are flying next MAY 06, you will find that many of the award seats will have been taken up. I would give the Qantas staff a call and tell them you would like to cook two RTW tickets with them, give them your MUST BE dates in London and see if they can work out a nice trip from:

SYD-LAX-NYC-LHR-ITA-Do some driving around and back to-ITA-SNG-SYD.

You will have to be very flexible on dates as May is relatively just around the corner.

Otherwise if you don't want to do a RTW, just try for the LHR return flight for 128,000 each. You will also need to be flexible but if the wedding is the priority then use the points to get there and then drive around up there.

Just realised you need to go to Singapore as well.

For the return bit, maybe you will have to pay a bit extra for the LHR-SNG and then SNG-SYD flights. It depends on the return fare conditions. When I last did it (2002) I could stay in SNG for 1 night without point penalty for my Hong Kong trip (MLB-HKG-SNG-MLB) as it was a stopover I deliberately put into my schedule.

Regards
Daniel

[NM]

Will the child be 20 months old in May, or is it 20 months old now?

I would not recommend doing a RTW trip with a 20 month old child on your lap. If you do not have enough points for 3 seats, then make sure you keep the total flight time as low as possible. If you can, go for three seats and have some space. I have just booked for Mrs NM to take Mini-NM #2 (11 yo) and Mini-NM #4 (14 months at flight time) to Perth, and have booked them with 2 J seats one way and 3 Y seats for the return.

Of course the downside of booking three seats is that you have to pay 3 x fuel surcharges and other taxes/charges.

How long will you be away altogether? Knowing that a sub-2yo will not remember the experience, I would consider leaving the child behind with the grand parents or similar relative if that is possible. But some some people that is not an option or not desirable, so its a personal choice only you can make.

Read up on the rules for award flights and make sure you understand the way points are calculated for one-way trips. Note that stopping in SIN on the return makes it at least 3 one-way trips and you will need to calculate the points accordingly. Once you get to enough one-way trips, it may be more economical to go for the OneWorld award permitting more stopovers and options, and that award does not need to be RTW but is just limited by mileage and a max number of stopovers. if you chose that option, make sure you understand the restrictions associated with the aware fare conditions (such as no changes to anything once the trip commences).

[Robbo]

Daniel and NM - many thanks for your suggestions.

She'll be 20 months when we go, and unfortunately we don't have any family here that we can leave her with.

I'll have a play with the online booking tool and see what I can come up with.

Thanks again,

Rob