Booked an ANA Round the world trip right before they are planning to close the program. This is probably one of the best use of points and miles. It took a couple hours of research, but it wasn’t as difficult as I expected, probably because I was only looking for a single seat. I also had 330k stranded ANA miles so it was a great time to use it before RTW trips fly away.

The goal of the entire trip was to spend some time exploring southeast Asia, then head to Africa for a safari, and then spend some time in Europe before heading to the east coast.

My itinerary is:

LAX-ICN-HKG on Asiana (Los Angeles to Hong Kong)
VTE-BKK-DEL on Thai Airways (Laos to Delhi)
KTM-SIN-SZN on Singapore Airways (Katmandu to Shenzhen)
SZN-JNB on Air China (Shenzhen to Johannesburg)
JNB-ADD-IST on Ethiopian (Johannesburg to Istanbul)
FCO-IAD on United (Rome to Washington DC)

I was able to find business availability for all flights.

I paid 170000 Amex Membership Rewards Points + $920 in taxes/fees for these flights. That would be the equivalent of about $2800.

Some thoughts:

• Even though the list price for these exact flights is $13944 in business, it is highly misleading. I can get equivalent or better business class flights for $8787 if I didn’t have to stick to the exact flights bookable with the ANA RTW program.
• I could get the business class cash price even lower, probably close to $6000. Since I was extremely flexible, I didn’t have to arrive in HKG, return from Rome, or stop at any of the specific cities. This opens up other possibilities.
• Versus economy, I paid about $800 more for over 60 hours in business class.
• Even the best deal in points and miles isn’t necessarily cheaper than economy, but it is great value.
• These itineraries had to be booked over the phone. The hold times were long, but I can do other things while waiting so it isn’t bad at all. The customer service was amazing. I’ve had much worse experiences with domestic carriers (cough Frontier).

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