Ever since I was a kid, I’ve always wanted to visit Australia to explore the outback and see all the continent has to offer. Just as luck would have it, a few months back, my awesome friend who lives there invited me down for a visit. Of course, I was down to go.

I also have always wanted to fly Singapore Airlines’ Suites class, so I figured out a way to include that in my itinerary as well, along with a stop in Singapore.

Not including time spent in each of the cities I’m visiting, my cumulative transit time is 78 hours and 35 minutes in total and I will cover 25,244 miles by air on the journey, which surpasses the length of the equator at 24,901 miles:

Norfolk to Perth: 44 hours and 5 minutes

Perth to Singapore: 5 hours and 10 minutes

Singapore to Norfolk: 29 hours and 20 minutes

The map and all the distances were done through Great Circle Mapper.

The Itinerary

• Norfolk to Chicago and breakfast/lunch at the Polaris Lounge
• Chicago to LAX and the Star Alliance Lounge
• LAX to Auckland on Air New Zealand flight 1
• Air New Zealand Lounge, Auckland
• Auckland to Perth on Air New Zealand flight 175
• Adventures in Australia, Part 1
• Adventures in Australia, Part 2
• Perth to Singapore on ScootBiz
• Sheraton Towers Singapore
• Exploring Singapore, Part 1
• Exploring Singapore, Part 2
• The Marina Bay Sands
• Changi Airport and The Private Room
• Singapore to New York in an $8,000 A380 suite on flight SQ26

 

Miles, award bookings, and a little bit of cash,

I made four separate bookings for this round-the-world trip. Two of them with miles earned from credit cards and two of them with cash. Ironically, the second most expensive flight of the trip was the flight from JFK to Norfolk in economy, which is just over an hour.

1. Norfolk to Perth: 70,000 United miles and $40 for a business class award ticket. I was originally supposed to be traveling via United in first class across the Pacific, but due to a delay, I wouldn’t make my connection in Hong Kong. Therefore, I was rebooked on Air New Zealand business class, which actually has a seat equally as wide and a bed equally as long as United’s long haul first class product. I redeemed my 70,000 miles for a ticket with an approximate value of $5,000, netting me a value of just over 7 cents per mile.
2. Perth to Singapore: $228.21 for a Scoot business class ticket. My friend tipped me off to a sale, so tickets were nearly $100 off.
3. Singapore to New York: 191,250 Krisflyer miles and $332.20 for an $8000 Suites class ticket, netting me a value of about 4 cents per mile.
4. New York to Norfolk: $271.20 for a Delta economy ticket on a regional jet back to Norfolk

Overall, these award bookings and sale fares made for an amazingly cheap around-the-world adventure.

Cheers,

Matt