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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.
