Complicated Itineraries –
I love traveling and finding great deals on airfare.
Because I live in Minneapolis, which is Delta Hub, most of the deals that I find depart from a different city. That requires positioning to get to the deal. Recently there have been more attack deals from American and United from Minneapolis which has helped make it easier to get away.
Some fare deals include complicated itineraries which require multiple stops. These are oftentimes added in order to earn more miles, or simply because the fare requires it.
I have read other bloggers talk about traveling from New York to Los Angeles via London and Sydney. Myself I have never booked a deal like that.
When I travel from Minneapolis to Los Angeles, I would love to go via New York so that I could fly on the transcon from JFK to LAX; however, nearly every published fare does not allow that type of connection. Also on American, I can’t fly non-stop to New York anyway so it wouldn’t work. When I used to fly Delta, I could get to JFK but the routing was never valid.
Anyway, I recently booked a complicated itinerary which is coming up over two weekends in September and October.
Last December, American Airlines was offering a deal from Seoul to Atlanta for $317 round trip in economy. I bought the deal at the time. The only problem was the fare was only valid for departures from Seoul. That meant that I had a reservation from Seoul to Atlanta but not from Minneapolis to Seoul.
I figured that I would find a deal later that would get me there.
A few months ago, American was offering a Minneapolis to Tokyo fare. That seemed like a good option to get to Asia. But I still needed to get to Seoul from Tokyo so I kept looking.
I found an option that allowed to us JAL from Tokyo to Seoul so I booked the ticket for $900. That allowed for a creative routing where I could try out JAL’s 787 on a route from the US to Tokyo.
But I still needed to get to and from Atlanta from Minneapolis. So I found a low mileage fare to Atlanta and then return.
So I built the itinerary:
Minneapolis to Dallas Fort Worth – American
Dallas Fort Worth to San Diego – American
San Diego to Tokyo Narita – JAL
Tokyo Narita to Seoul – JAL
Seoul to Dallas Fort Worth – American
Dallas Fort Worth to Atlanta – American
Atlanta to Miami – American
Miami to Minneapolis – American
Minneapolis to Atlanta – Delta
Atlanta to Dallas Fort Worth – American
Dallas Fort Worth to Seoul – American
Seoul to Tokyo Narita – JAL
Tokyo Narita to Chicago – American
Chicago to Minneapolis – American
That is 13 flights total on four reservations for a total of 33,694 miles as per Great Circle Mapper.
It is a pretty crazy itinerary. This is all going to be in Economy so it will be a lot of time up in the air. But it should be fun as I get to try out the 787 and JAL in the process. Unfortunately, both directions on Dallas Fort Worth to Seoul and on Tokyo to Chicago are on the old 777 with the seating in 2-5-2 without Main Cabin Extra Seating or power ports. So that is three flights on the old aircraft. But oh well I will load up my iPad with movies and try to sleep.
What crazy itineraries have you been on?