Regrouping for our Round the World Trip

(Note: this post was updated in 2019)

After our family regrouped from the first call to Delta, I had my lists ready for calling Delta’s RTW desk, part 2.

Not only did I have a list of possible places for us to fly, but I also had Delta’s routing map that I had pulled out of a Sky Magazine from a recent trip. My thought was if I asked for an airport and it wasn’t available, I could just look at the map and point.

I was ready to throw darts if I had to!

A Good Delta Agent

This time when I called Delta, the agent was super, well-experienced, and willing to make some suggestions. I explained our goal–two, free, non-revenue tickets we’d get with points, one revenue ticket, less than 26,000 miles round trip, 30 days, 6 stopovers. We didn’t necessarily care where we went–we just wanted an adventure to learn, taste, smell, explore.

And finally, after another six hour phone call. (You think I’m kidding. I wish I were.) We had a booked itinerary.

Our Final Itinerary

DEN (Denver)-MSP (Minneapolis)-AMS (Amsterdam)- NYO (Stockholm)
Stay for 6 days.
NYO-AMS-CIA (Rome)-ATH (Athens) (We have a 12 hour layover in Rome, yeah!)
Stay for 5 days
ATH-SVO (Moscow)
Stay for 6 days
SVO-PEK (Beijing)
Stay for 4 days
PEK-TPE (Taipai)-LAX (Los Angeles)
Journey to San Diego, stay for 3 days
SAN-SLC-DEN
Home in 29 days!

I confirmed the amount of points we would need, 360,000 and the price. The rev ticket was $2999 plus taxes. We would also have to pay the taxes on the non-rev tickets as well, plus we would have to pay some fees for transferring our points. We had 48 hours to pay up.

Next, we pay up.