What should I know about "Around The World" flights?
- By
- Aparna Patel
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- 24 Jul, 2023
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I’m a bit late to this party, but if your purpose is tourism, then round the world tickets are not really a great deal at all, except for giving you a lot of convenience in not having to worry about flights and being able to buy the one ticket in one place.
Pretty much all parts of the world, conventionally covered by a round the world ticket are also served by a host of budget airlines. If you plan a few months in advance, you can go to many more places for much less, as compared to a regular round the world ticket.
Many round the world tickets look great based on advertised minimum prices, but if you want to get those prices, then you may have to book months ahead. I talked to two separate travel agents and they both agreed that trying to book an around the world trip a month away would cost much more (say an $3800 instead of $2900). Apparently, there are only a certain number of cheap flights available and once those fill up, you have to buy more expensive ones.
On a standard “round the world” flight, it is quite typical to spend a decent amount of time at each destination. This might make it easier as most flights would be further out. However, for the one we considered, we were trying to keep it tight. We were considering a round the world trip because it didn’t cost that much more based on advertised prices and we were hoping it’d only be a few hundred more than the advertised prices.
RTW fares generally have date flexibility but not route flexibility. This means they are great for someone who wants to do something like tour the world for 6 months or a year on cash savings. You plan out all your places in advance and pay for the entire trip’s airline tickets (so you don’t need to include that in the trip budget). Then, while you are traveling, you have the flexibility to stay at any given place just as long as you want, without having to pay big premiums to change your flights or book at the last minute.
For people who are not actually travelling to a lot of places around the world, they don’t seem to make much sense. I was booking a trip from NYC to Australia via Dubai, and it would have been around $2500 for a RTW trip, vs. $1300 for a normal trip.
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Round-the-world fares do exist.
Most airline alliances and occasionally single airlines offer around the world fares.
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OneWorld (includes British Airways, American Airlines, Cathay Pacfic)
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Star Alliance (includes Lufthansa, United)
It can be very cost effective, especially for premium class (business and first class fares).
There are limits on all of them, usually they prevent backtracking across a continent, a limited number of segments, and only visiting each continent once (once you leave you don’t go back).
Flyertalk is a forum with a lot of trip reports done on RTW fares (check the trip reports forum).
In response to your comment, usually if you arrive at one airport and depart from another then that counts as an overland segment and counts towards your ticket usage.
For example, if you flew from New York to Berlin, took the train to Madrid, and then flew out from Madrid to Cairo, three segments would be used:
- New York – Berlin
- Berlin – Madrid (overland segment)
- Madrid – Cairo
It doesn’t matter if you fly or not, it still takes away from your overall segment limit. A segment refers to one specific flight.
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