Trip Report: Halfway around the world for the OWMD

Introduction
Clipper Lounge, Mumbai CSI Airport Terminal 2
Jet Airways Economy Class Mumbai to Brussels
British Airways Galleries Club Lounge, Brussels National Airport
American Airlines Business Class Brussels to New York JFK and Five-Star Arrival
American Airlines Premium Check-in and Flagship Lounge, New York JFK
American Airlines Economy Class JFK to London LHR
American Airlines Arrivals Lounge, London LHR
Sheraton Heathrow Hotel, London
American Airlines Flagship Check-in and Flagship Lounge, London Heathrow
American Airlines Economy Class London to Chicago
American Airlines Flagship Lounge at Chicago ORD
American Airlines First Class from Chicago ORD to Dallas Fort Worth
Hyatt Regency Hotel, DFW
Hyatt Regency Hotel, Bellevue
Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel, Los Angeles
Sheraton Gateway Hotel, Los Angeles
American Airlines First Class from Los Angeles to Chicago ORD
American Airlines Business Class from Chicago ORD to Delhi
Jet Airways Economy Class from Delhi to Mumbai
Conclusion

The oneworld MegaDo was my first MegaDo participation, and I sure was excited to go and meet another 170 frequent flyers who were game to put their money on the table and travel all over to meet airline, aircraft and hotel executives and get to know how it works behind the scenes.

The MegaDo was supported by American Airlines and I had participated in the Executive Platinum Challenge offered to OWMD participants. Hence, it only made sense to get some of my business to them and book my travels on the MegaDo with American Airlines as far as possible. However, I started to look closely at the reservations only in January, 15 days or less before I was supposed to get to the MegaDo. As a result, the flights on American Airlines soon to be discontinued direct flight AA293 between Delhi and Chicago were pricing at an astronomical price. I decided to take a codeshare option on American Airlines instead to get to Brussels, and then head over to New York on American Airlines.

For travelling to London for visiting British Airways, I chose to go with the MegaDo rate offered by American Airlines to travel from New York to London, and travel back from London to Dallas Fort Worth.

In the end, my routing for the entire travel, including the MegaDo looked pretty enormous, with 28,700 BIS miles travelled in a span of 10 days, hopping over 9 airports in 3 continents. Slightly crazy, but enormous uptake for the mileage account. Things that you’d have to do to credit miles to your account!

Here is how the entire itinerary looked, with a total of 28,686 travelled miles, 62,668 EQMs and 92,644 redeemable miles! I was able to use 2 of my EXP SWUs for upgrading my travel from BRU-JFK and on ORD-DEL, while I got a complimentary upgrade on the LAX-ORD flight.

21/Jan AA7836 Mumbai to Brussels (codeshare with Jet Airways) departing Mumbai at 03:00 and arriving Brussels at 07:50
21/Jan AA171 Brussels to New York JFK departing Brussels at 10:00 and arriving JFK at 12:45
23/Jan AA104 New York JFK to London Heathrow departing New York at 21:05 and arriving London at 09:10
25/Jan AA51 London Heathrow to Dallas Fort Worth departing London at 09:45 and arriving Dallas at 14:05
26/Jan AAOWMD Dallas Fort Worth to Seattle Tacoma
27/Jan AAOWMD Seattle Tacoma to Los Angeles
29/Jan AA2004 Los Angeles to Chicago O’Hare departing LA at 08:00 and arriving Chicago at 14:00
29/Jan AA292 Chicago O’Hare to Delhi departing Chicago at 15:40 and arriving Delhi at 17:45 +1
30/Jan AA7852 Delhi to Mumbai (codeshare with Jet Airways) departing Delhi at 19:45 and arriving Mumbai at 21:45

That some of the routing did not work out as planned is a different thing, and added to the excitement of being on the MegaDo (not to forget churn us miles for the inconvenience!) is a separate deal altogether!

I’ll skip the parts of the MegaDo charter and exclusive activities while I post them separately in an ongoing series. There are more trip reports lined up so keep reading, and if there is a question or comment, drop me a line!