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Round the world airfares

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Muschu

Joined
9 February 2008
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Hi
I noticed and posted to the holiday destinations thread.
This question didn't seem to quite fit there....
We are planning to travel to Istanbul, Prague, London, Boston and Vancouver later in the year and I've been researching round the world air fares but am struggling to come up with a "matching" airline or an airline with partners that fits our destinations.
Anyone had any good experiences with round the world tickets that you'd like to share?
[Our eastern Europe destinations have some flexibility built in because we plan to use Eurail once there.]
Thanks.
 
Hi Rick,

I've done the 'around the world' thing three times in the last 10 years. Twice with the Star Alliance and once with SkyTeam.

In my experience the rules are generally the same irrespective of which fare you choose. You must keep travelling in the same direction (no backtracking) and you are limited (or charged) by how many miles you travel.

I think they are great value and well worth doing if you want to stop at various points over several continents, but they are something that must be organised with your local travel agent. I generally choose The Flight Centre just out of habit. They are often complicated tickets so I wouldn't try to book them online in case you get it wrong. Nothing worse than missing a connection.

As always the prices fluctuate according to whether you want to travel in high, shoulder or low season.

A little more info here on the three main airline alliances: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airline_alliance
 
Hi Rick, As Joe mentioned they are great value. I have only ever used round the world tickets with One World and found them to very competitive compared to individual flights. I used to use Adventure Traveller in Wickam St in Brisbane but unfortunately William has now closed down. They were specialist agents and were very helpful.

With one world their flights are broken up into regions such as asia pacific, Americas and Europe. The general rules are that you must keep traveling in the same direction generally. Once you are in a region you can have a limited number of flights in that region. There is also the option of an open jaw flight. By this you could go Sydney > Bangkok > Heathrow and then a flight from Heathrow > Helsinki. Get off at Helsinki and find your own way down to somewhere like Madarid and then go something like Madrid > Cairo.
I have been lucky and actually changed my whole itinerary half way through my travel and gone back in the same direction that I came by simply going into the American Airline office in New York and asking nicely. It cost me about $50US to change my whole itinerary.

cheers,
 
The thing with "cheap" round the world fares is they are cheap because they use the big (high traffic) air ports....Istanbul, Prague and Boston are not big airports.

I would think that your itinery is only possable with side trips, 1 thing I've noticed over and over again, is that ALL online flight search engines are hopeless at finding ALL flights.
 
I use these round the world tickets all the time (one World), I find them great value and easy to use & change when needed.
It Pays to use a good travel agent (I use Amex travel), and sit down with them and go over your planned destinations, I have managed to do places like bermuda, Grand caymen, as well as some eastern european destinations (poland, Chech Rep, Turkey), found these to be doable but good planning is needed, as some connections are hard to get.
and sometimes it is just as easy especially in europe to just use rail and start the trip by air further down the road (as mentioned above this can be easily done).
So have a good trip.
 
A good site for researching airfares is
www.frequentflyer.com.au
You can post questions on the forum there and it had plenty of experienced people to answer them. They give advice on the best fares or travel routes, how to maximise your frequent flyer points etc.
 
Thanks for your comments and leads everyone. I will follow them up.
What I didn't add [because I did not want to be seen as pretentious] is that I was considering going business class, at least for some of the longer legs. The time of travel happens to be my wife's 60th and I am thinking of surprising her with this if we can afford it. [I'm pretty much retired and can "borrow" this from my super fund........]
Mentioning it now because it may make a difference to your recommendations. Qantas Business class is too pricey. Perhaps some other allances will offer a more affordable deal.
 

If you get combinations of business and economy, you may not be getting a good deal because they'll probably end up all being individual bookings anyhow.
 
I have also tried to mix and match economy and business class and found it an almost impossible task with little success and a lot of additional expense.
 
Muschu,
my round the world tickets are always business class.
I have found that these tickets are normally one class tickets (eg. business / econ.).
but if you book a business ticket that does not mean that you will not have to fly another class on this ticket, it all depends on your schedule and that of the airline. I have had to fly economy several times on the business ticket because business was not offered on that leg. normally this occurs on lesser legs. not the major routes like HK - London, etc.

also the best airlines that i have flown with have been
(one World) Cathay Pacific, BA, Hardly ever use Qantas except for to/from AUS.
(Non One World) Emirates, Virgin Atlantic.

thanks, have a good trip.
 

Many thanks. i've had a look at one world but have also heard excellent reports about emirates, although they seem to have limited eastern europe destinations. Virgin Atlantic I know nothing of but will check.
 
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