Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Tourism & Travel > How To: Finding Cheap Airfare
 
  • Post
  • Reply
SixPabst
Oct 24, 2006

 Hello thread. I asked this question in a different thread and was summoned here.

me posted:

Has anyone had any experience with round the world tickets or know anyone that's bought one? In July I'm taking a year off and am planning on going around the world. I've looked into the options from OneWorld and StarAlliance and they seem pretty decent. Most are mileage based, meaning you don't necessarily pay for each leg of the trip, but instead pay based on mileage tiers - like 26,000, 29,000, 34,000 and so on. Restrictions are that you need to travel in one direction (i.e. east to west) and only get a certain number of stops.

I'm looking at the 29,000 ticket which costs about $6,700 on StarAlliance, which is great because you can get to places like Fiji, the Cook Islands and a bunch of remote places that usually cost a fortune to buy.

Anyway, it seems like a good deal for that much travel but if anyone has any advice I'd love to hear it.

The route I have in mind is LAX - Cook Islands - Auckland - Denpasar Bali - Bangkok - Delhi - Seychelles - Dar Es Saalam - Dakar (Senegal) - Freetown (Sierra Leon) - Miami

I'll be doing some travelling around each of those stops but those are the flights.

StarAlliance has a great planning tool but it's in flash so I can't link to the itinerary, unfortunately. You can play with it at http://www.staralliance.com/en/fares/round-the-world-fare/

* # ¿ Oct 20, 2013 16:37
  • Quote
Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 10:49
  • Quote
SixPabst
Oct 24, 2006

sellouts posted:

Words

This was the reality check I was expecting. Thanks a ton of typing that all out.

A bit more info: I'm planning on leaving in July for a 8 month - year long trip. I'm not really worried about the hours on a plane because they'll be spaced far enough apart that it will soften the ouch a little bit. I also travel a ton for work domestically so I'm used to 5-7 hour flights.

I'm absolutely not set on that itinerary either, although I do want to hit most - if not all- of those locations. I'll do some more in-depth work and come back here for more critiques. Can't thank you guys enough.

* # ¿ Oct 20, 2013 22:18
  • Quote
SixPabst
Oct 24, 2006

sellouts posted:

I really love RTW fares/ticketing, so I looked at this a bit more:

How are you doing an 8mo-1yr trip with your job if I may ask? Are you looking at booking nested round trips back to the US to work for a few months then pick the ticket back up? If that's the case you could look at a Circle Pacific fare. This is routeable around $5k all in.

I'm actually planning on leaving my job to travel for a year. I've always wanted to do it and now is a pretty good time for me. I'm a software developer so if I need to do some contract work I can do that anywhere with an internet connection.

quote:

Route:
Los Angeles CA - Rarotonga -Auckland - Sydney(connection) - Singapore(connection) - Denpasar Bali - Bangkok - Tokyo(connection) - Los Angeles CA
Total trip: 23026 miles

BTW: Bali is one of the worst to get to on these awards. I've had easier times getting to the Maldives from the US. The timing and frequency of the flights just seems to suck if you're coming from the US

Then you'd pick up Africa and India for a true RTW for around 9k. (7k + 1500 or so in taxes and surcharges)

Route: Route:
Miami FL - New York NY - Brussels - Freetown - (NOT INCLUDED) Dakar - Addis Ababa - Dar Es Salaam - Johannesburg - Nairobi - Addis Ababa - Seychelles - Addis Ababa - Bangkok - Delhi - Beijing - Chicago IL - Miami FL
Total trip: 36619 miles

Outside of that option, an African Airpass ticket might make sense. Or look at flight costs within Africa and just spend additional money to hit those cities. But drat is Africa hard to route into an RTW.

That being said, I'm not sure if you'll experience savings with this plan

If you fly a lot domestically, how many miles do you have and with what alliance? StarAlliance I assume? Could you look at covering part of this trip or do some positioning flights with miles?

Edit: also one of the best values about RTW fares are the fairly flexible change rules. If you're not doing that or you don't value that then you might not be getting the most value over just booking tickets directly or separately.

This is extremely helpful, thanks a ton. I didn't realize it was so hard to get flights into Africa. My plan for Africa was to go to Dar es Salaam for a little bit, do a Kilimanjaro climb and then go to Zanzibar to relax for a bit. Maybe travel up to Kenya and then head over to Dakar, go by land to Freetown, SL and try and get somewhere in South America maybe instead of directly back to the states?

The "must see" places are: Cook Islands, New Zealand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand (that's the purpose of the Bangkok stop), hopefully Nepal, and then Africa. I've been to SA a few times and don't really *need* to go back, but I would like to see Brazil perhaps.

I did like the flexible change rules because I'm not 100% sure how much time I'll stay in one spot. Could be 3 days, could easily be 2 months.

* # ¿ Oct 21, 2013 07:44
  • Quote
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply
The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Tourism & Travel > How To: Finding Cheap Airfare