Last week, I finally got back from my month-long round-the-world trip to earn 1 million points, thanks to the phenomenal promotion I’ve told you about a few times. I’ll have plenty of content about this journey in January, but I wanted to at least share some overall impressions a little bit more quickly.
I’ve shared daily stories during the trip on my personal Instagram account, but I also had the best intentions in the world at the start: I wanted to write about every day of the journey here too, so that you could travel with me…
And I got extremely sick the week before I left (and my first week of the trip) and that screwed up my content plans; I’m really sorry about that! It made the beginning of the trip pretty nightmarish, too… but apart from that, it went even better than I thought!
So here are 7 overall impressions about the trip in general — I’ll share my impressions of each step and destination separately.
Basics of my trip
Without repeating everything, in mid-October, Scandinavia-based airline SAS announced an incredible promotion, better than anything seen in at least a decade.
They’re giving 1 million points (worth ≈ $10,000 to UNLIMITED) to those who fly with 15 of their partner airlines before December 31. You can read more about the SAS EuroBonus millionaire promotion (but it’s probably too late unless you leave right now, and even then).
I was already planning to go to Asia in November, so it made absolutely no sense not to do it. Plus I had procrastinated all my bookings, so it was perfect. However, I had to be in Miami on December 4, and I couldn’t leave Canada before November 11; so I had no flexibility at all.
So I put together a pretty optimized itinerary that would take me on my first ever complete round-the-world trip in one go. It was 30,487 miles in the air in 24 days, with 20 flights in total (it finally became 22), plus 2 flights back from Miami a week later.
This round-the-world itinerary had 13 of the 15 airlines. I added Delta at zero cost at the end to get back from Miami and was able to fit AeroMexico at zero cost throughout my 3 trips in late October and early November.
You can read what I had written on my detailed itinerary when I made my 13 flight bookings, including the details about the cost.
Overall impressions of my trip
Here are the 7 topics that come to mind about the trip:
- Much less unpleasant than I expected
- Nightmarish first week (but very nice afterward)
- Southeast Asia and East Asia are so amazing
- Total net cost was extremely low
- Not a single logistical problem for the whole trip
- Promotion logistics not ideal (but it works)
- Many more participants than I thought
Much less unpleasant than I expected
On paper, it was an incredible adventure, a promotion tailor-made for me. I loved everything about the idea. I was very excited about the experience, clearly.
But then, in reality, I knew that it was still a lot of flying in a relatively short time — 100% in economy class (I’ll probably change that in the future; I’ll talk about that again soon) — and I was a bit apprehensive that it might be very unpleasant. All the most rewarding things in life shouldn’t be “easy” either.
But honestly, it wasn’t unpleasant at all.
(Aside from the first week, but that really didn’t have that much to do with anything other than my flu/COVID or whatever it was I had; I’ll get back to that in the next section!)
Of course, I travel a lot, and I’m used to it.
And most importantly, I absolutely love being in airports, airplanes, transportation, and accommodations. Some travelers tolerate these parts of traveling, but for me, it’s more than that: I’m a firm believer in the “the journey is the destination” philosophy, and I really love every part of traveling as a true true travel lover!
The many hours in airports were certainly made more enjoyable by the free unlimited access to the world’s largest network of VIP airport lounges with my American Express Platinum Card (1400+ lounges).
By the way, Canada’s best premium card has its highest offer seen in years, until January 28! It gives you a huge welcome bonus that gives you ≈ $1252 in free travel on top of lounge access and luxurious benefits like automatic Gold elite status at Marriott and Hilton (among many other amazing benefits).
I also have a lot of experience with multiple flights in a short time, since I often travel this way (not as intensely, of course).
If you’ve been following us for a while, in 2018 we did 12 flights in 14 days for $450 total to show you that going around Europe could be very affordable. Yes, that even included transatlantic flights in the $450 total price (we miss our beloved ULCC WOW air). But this time, it was 2 times as many flights in not 2 times as much time, and almost 3 times the distance…
But still, in the end, I didn’t find it terrible at all.
It helped that I had also decided not to do any transport other than flights (with 1 exception, to go to Petra in Jordan). In other words, I always stayed in the city where I landed to minimize travel (which I had already quite a lot of with several flights).
And finally, almost all those airlines were excellent airlines that are much better than the terrible standards we are used to in North America (and often in Europe). So that helped too, because I honestly was fine with economy class on all but the 3 long intercontinental flights. I’m glad, too, because SkyTeam was the airline alliance that I knew the least (by far), and I got to try them almost all. I find that kind of thing very fun. I’ll get back to that in the post about each step.
Nightmarish first week (but very nice afterward)
To start the trip, in the span of less than 96 hours (4 days), I did:
- 1 looooong 11-hour train from Montreal to New York
- 1 overnight transatlantic flight
- 6 flights all over the place to get from the U.K. to Jordan
In 4 days. Intense.
But just that wouldn’t have been so bad.
Here’s the worst part: I was extremely sick and slept an AVERAGE of 4h32m per night for 2 full WEEKS (the week before and that week). There were 2 nights that weren’t tracked by my Fitbit, but I assure you they didn’t improve my average.
I don’t get sick very often, but I got sick with really the worst possible timing this time. I don’t really know what it was; I was sure that since I started getting sick a full week before I left, I’d be okay… but it went on for a longer time.
I had deliberately planned for the beginning to be the most intense part of the itinerary.
It made sense: at the very beginning, that’s when I’d have the most energy before doing 22 flights in 24 days. I wanted to rush through Europe and get out of there as quickly as possible (I find Asia so much better in almost every way, even more so in November).
With the little sleep and all, this was no longer such a good idea. My flights were always early on top of that, which I normally hate (but I didn’t have much choice given the already numerous constraints of this itinerary).
So that week was definitely terrible. A real nightmare, I’d say.
But by the time I got to Jordan, I was feeling much better, and after that, it went really well.
(By the way, I’m just going to tease one funny anecdote before the next post: in Jordan, a policeman asked me for a ride. That’s the first time that’s ever happened to me!)
Southeast Asia and East Asia are so amazing
I said I wouldn’t talk about destinations in this post, but it really is one of the major realizations of the trip, and I can’t leave it out.
After visiting 75+ countries and almost every sub-region of every continent, I can’t repeat often enough once again how wonderful Southeast Asia and East Asia are.
I hadn’t been since before the pandemic, and it seems I’d almost forgotten just how extraordinary it is.
Wow, so amazing. Especially if you like to travel for cheap. So affordable, it’s incredible. Of course, it’s also beautiful and pleasant… but also so affordable.
If you’re one of those people who still think that travel is necessarily expensive, I’ll say it again: get over North America, the Caribbean, and Western and Southern Europe… Go somewhere else if saving money is important to you. There are plenty of affordable countries (we’ll update that for 2025 in January), and Southeast Asia is one of the best spots.
Long live that part of the world. I love it.
I’ll use my million points and go there often, I think. Possibly in business class too — I can get 6 roundtrips to Asia in business class just with the million points!
Don’t miss our content about traveling in business class and first class (no, they’re not the same) soon! I shared a testimonial if you don’t want to wait, but the best card to get if you want to start is the American Express Platinum Card mentioned earlier or the TD Aeroplan Visa Infinite Card with one of the highest Aeroplan offers seen in year (ending January 6).
Total net cost was extremely low
As I explained before I left in my itinerary post, I was already going to Asia, and I was already going to book about 20 nights in Marriott hotels to requalify for Marriott Bonvoy Titanium elite status (Asia has amazing hotels that cost so few points or dollars).
So the marginal cost of the round-the-world trip was already very low.
But it cost even less than I thought because I spent very little on everything else.
Food in particular. It literally cost me less than I would have spent at the grocery store at home, as is often the case in affordable countries. So it even reduced the net cost of the rest.
For example, in Europe, from Tuesday to Friday inclusively, I only paid for one meal.
And I could have avoided it; it was only because my friend who was also doing the promotion was in town and wanted to go. I could have used the daily credit I had for free food in my hotel thanks to my elite status. I often have this food/beverage credit or free evening meals in the hotel lounge, in addition to free breakfast in almost every one of Marriott’s 30+ hotel brands.
I also obviously had a lot of free meals in airport lounges or on airplanes.
(And eating so much airplane food reminded me of how ridiculous I find it when people are mad when flights don’t include any free food food that is built into the price of your probably overpriced ticket! Does anyone really find these meals good? Even me, a total non-foodie, can tell you it’s not worth paying more for this!)
At least, the food in most VIP airport lounges is good.
Especially in Asia, where everything is obviously so much better than North America. Including the great made-to-order noodle bars in many lounges.
Apart from that meal, for the rest of Europe, my only expense was the bus between the Bucharest airport and the old town: a huge $2 roundtrip.
In Jordan, it cost a little more because it’s the only place I rented a car and splurged on a pricier activity (Petra), but it was still very cheap overall. And it was just about 2 days anyway.
The 2 free Marriott hotels there cost a bit more points, however. Compared to Asia’s extremely low prices. And they were luxurious hotels still cheaper than terrible highway-facing Courtyard hotels in terrible North America.
In Asia, I had many days with no flights so no free meals in airports/airplanes. But everything costs so little there.
Even in the more expensive countries in the region, food is almost always ridiculously affordable. And incredibly delicious!
Transport costs next to nothing. And I basically stuck almost completely to free activities, given the limited time anyway (and the fact I had already visited many of the cities, unfortunately).
I really saw this as a business trip, where the business was getting my million points (a huge quantity that will allow me to come back and visit a lot of places).
Not a single logistical problem for the whole trip
There were some issues, of course, but nothing that jeopardized the trip or cost me any extra money most importantly.
That was the most worrying thing of all: flight disruptions or problems entering a country could have turned everything upside down. I had given myself quite a bit of buffer at least, unlike some others who did all 15 airlines in 10 days (totally crazy).
But still, it would have cost more to sort anything out, and I really don’t like spending money for no reason (everything is always fixable at a certain price).
Here’s what could have gone wrong but turned out to be unfounded worries:
- Several flights in a very short time in Europe
- 1-day pilots’ strike in France on the day of my Air France flight
- Massive flight cancellations in Bali due to a volcano during the days I was there
- Using China’s visa-free transit for the 1st time (3 times in one week)
- Pitiful state of my passport, with an unreadable cover page
- Everything related to the logistics of the promotion (next section)
Here’s what happened that was a bit worrying:
- My flight to Amman was canceled completely (with no option until 3 days later)
- My flight to Vietnam was diverted to Cambodia due to thunderstorms
- My flight to Seoul was delayed by 23 hours due to their historic snowfall
I handled the Amman flight situation easily because I’m a flight pro who knows his rights. It’s really fascinating to me how so many travelers don’t know what to do when flights are canceled and delayed and rely on the airlines (the worst possible approach); I’m really going to prioritize this guide in 2025 to help you out.
Anyway, they canceled my flight weeks in advance, and the only other TAROM flight was 3 days later. Of course, that didn’t work: I was never in one place for 3 days the whole trip. And I absolutely had to fly TAROM, obviously; I couldn’t just ask for an alternative airline.
I got TAROM to rebook me for free on their flight to Istanbul (in business class, too) and on Turkish Airlines from Istanbul to Amman (a much better airline that isn’t even a SkyTeam member; and I got to go through an airport with amazing lounges with free massages). I’m very easygoing; I even waited until I got to Romania on the day of the scheduled flight to sort it out because I hate talking on the phone!
Then, the only time I didn’t have much of a buffer in Asia was in Vietnam. My flight arrived in the evening, and I left the next morning. Imagine my reaction when, after circling a few times over Ho Chi Minh City, the pilot announced that we would finally have to land in another country. I’d like to point out that in 500+ flights in my life, I’ve been diverted a grand total of one other time. Just my luck!
We landed in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Often, the risk in these situations is that the crew will “time out” and be unable to fly to follow safe working hours rules. Especially at the end of a day like this.
But fortunately, we refueled and headed back to Vietnam. My friend who was in town was waiting for me for dinner and found it funny that his flight tracking app told him I had “landed”… without mentioning the slight detail that I had landed in the wrong country.
Finally, the biggest snowstorm in 100 years hit Seoul… on the same day as my flight to the city from Nanjing, China. My flight was initially canceled and rescheduled for the following morning.
I booked a free luxurious 5-star hotel with my credit card’s flight delay insurance, of course (along with many “necessities”). Savvy travelers always pay for all their flights with a good credit card; it’s so simple. One of the best tips and yet so many people still don’t know it, sadly.
China Eastern told us to be at the airport at 6:30 in the morning… and we ended up taking off at 3:30, 23 hours late. Terrible. After about 15 canceled flights in the last few years, this was the first time this kind of incompetence had happened to me (I could’ve used that extra sleep). I lost almost all the time I had to visit Seoul, but I still had a bit of a buffer before my next flight at least!
Promotion logistics not ideal (but it works)
In short, you have to earn at least 1 SAS EuroBonus point on each airline, not just take the flight.
Since the airline has just joined the SkyTeam airline alliance and the integration is flawed, to say the least, everyone knew this would involve making retroactive claims online for points that didn’t credit automatically. Nothing dramatic.
Some even feared that it would be difficult to even just associate your SAS EuroBonus number with each flight, but it worked with each of the 15 airlines without a hitch for me.
I was off to a great start. Points from each of my first 9 airlines were automatically credited very quickly.
Those from my 10th airline, Kenya Airways, were never credited — ironic considering this was the flight more than 30 future millionaires were on (see next section). Then, 4 of the last 5 airlines also credited without a hitch; only China Airlines didn’t.
The online claim form worked instantly for China Airlines… but it absolutely won’t work at all for Kenya Airways.
I have to say that several other people have had much more than 2 problematic airlines too; it’s really not a very efficient system.
However, it’s going to work without a hitch to get the million points, even if it’s just going to take a little longer. You just have to send an e-mail to SAS with the information, it’s not that bad.
By the way, on Friday SAS sent an e-mail to reassure participants explicitly, so even if it’s a bit arduous… the important thing is that it’s going to work!
Many more participants than I thought
There’s honestly never been anything like it, so it was hard to get an idea of how popular the promotion was.
But to give you a striking example, on Kenya Airways’ famous 5th freedom flight between Guangzhou and Bangkok (which operates 3X a week in both directions), over 30 travelers were doing the promotion just on my specific flight!
We even took a photo together as we exited the airplane.
The highlight was meeting a Flytrippers fan from Montreal on this same flight. Just being on the same flight is actually pretty crazy.
But it gets even crazier: she was sitting in seat 20C and I was in 20D. What are the odds of that? It’s got to be microscopic!
I sat down and heard “Hey, it’s Andrew” from across the aisle. I honestly couldn’t believe it haha!
This is far from the first time Flytrippers fans have talked to me while traveling — it had even just happened again in the Global Entry priority queue at U.S. Customs in Toronto (YYZ) on the way to my Vegas music festival in October and in a Marriott hotel lobby in Orlando a few months ago. But on a flight this random and this far away, it’s really something.
We clearly are hundreds, if not more, who have done the promotion. The promotion has gone viral in the travel rewards community; I’ve never seen anything so popular.
And that’s just in English-speaking circles; as you saw above, my Kenya Airways flight had many Asians also doing the promotion (not to mention Scandinavians, logically the biggest SAS fans)!
I was even assigned to lead a session on the subject at the last minute at the travel rewards conference I was speaking at in Chicago in October, and by sheer coincidence, my co-speaker Tonei and I had itineraries that intersected 4 times in European and Asian cities (in Taipei we even met up with the conference organizer Stefan, who was visiting without even doing the promotion).
We also crossed paths in Bangkok, where Flytrippers’ other co-founder, Kevin, was spending a month.
Another example of how small the world is: it turns out that Tonei had known Kevin’s girlfriend for years, so we all spent the evening exploring Thailand’s very special capital. I can’t wait to share many funny stories and tips about this trip!
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Summary
I knew I’d love the experience, but thought it might be a bit hard too, like the best workouts should be grueling and not comfortable for example. Apart from the part I was sick, it was actually great. It cost me even less than I expected (long live Asia) and really couldn’t have gone much better logistically. A lot of us did the promotion and will soon get a whopping 1 million SAS EuroBonus points!
What would you like to know about my overall impressions of my round-the-world trip? Tell us in the comments below.
See the flight deals we spot: Cheap flights
Discover free travel with rewards: Travel rewards
Explore awesome destinations: Travel inspiration
Learn pro tricks: Travel tips
Featured image: In Bali and in Bucharest (photo credit: Andrew D’Amours/Flytrippers)
