As you may have recently read, a female traveler named Cassie De Pecol recently went viral after claiming to be the fastest traveler to visit all the countries in the world in a span of merely 18 months.
While visiting over 190 countries is no small task, what really stuck out to me was cost her around the world trip, which was $198,000.
Being the miles addict that I am, this got me thinking whether it was possible to replicate such a journey solely using frequent flier miles.
I decided to dive into my airline route database, and extracted a list of airports that could be reached via one of the three major alliances (OneWorld, Skyteam, and Star Alliance). Each alliance has a US partner: American Airlines, Delta, and United whose miles can be redeemed on a partner airline.
It turns out that the three major airline alliances fly to over 90% of the countries recognized by the UN.
Only 12 of the 193 countries lacked air service from one of the three major alliances.
Five of them are micro-states that have no commercial airports: Andorra, Liechtenstein, Monaco, San Marino, and the Vatican City.
A rare uncrowded moment at the Vatican
The rest are mostly small island countries such as Dominica, Solomon Islands, St. Vincent & Grenadines, and Nauru.
The final three countries all have unique situations that prevent any major airline from flying in:
The Kingdom of Bhutan has long kept its tourism numbers in check, with a mandatory steep “tourist tax”, and a near monopoly of air traffic coming out of Paro Airport.
East Timor is a small country that won its independence from independence from Indonesia in 1999. There is a codeshare service with Silk Air, which is owned by Singapore Airlines, but it is unclear if you can use your miles to book a ticket.
The final country is Syria, which lost all air service with most major airlines when the civil war began in earnest in 2012.
Surprisingly, you could theoretically use your miles to fly to North Korea, as Air China (Star Alliance) has weekly service from Beijing to Pyongyang.
Even Turkish Airlines flies to Somalia, one of the world’s most violent cities to serve the Somali diaspora.
The World is Flat
In conclusion, my quick analysis reminded of an old book I use to read while in college, The World is Flat.
With rapid globalization, the fact that it’s now possible to use your frequent flyer miles to fly to over 90% of the countries in the world is pretty amazing.
Of course would probably need a few million miles to fly to every country, but for those who are expert churners or small business owners who run through six figures in expenses each month, this would be quite attainable.
You’ll have to also account for hotels and airport taxes & fees, but I’d imagine the world penetration of the major hotel chains would be something similar.
To start traveling the world using miles & points, start here.
