1st RTW- cheapest place to start?

Old Jun 20th, 2017, 06:13 PM
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1st RTW- cheapest place to start?

I'm thinking about doing my first rtw during December 2017-January 2018. I'm from Paraguay but want to start from somewhere in the middle east, Europe, or south/east Asia. I don't have a set itinerary yet, but my must sees include Israel/Jordan, China (the great wall), Japan, the Victoria Falls and Egypt. Italy, Greece, Istanbul, Delhi and Bangkok would be nice too, as well as either Mauritius or Fiji. I'm not including North/south America (North change rates too expensive, south I'm from there already) nor Australia/New Zealand (visa issues). I don't have any frequent flyer miles so I reeally need to get the cheapest flights ever! So, my questions are: Where's the cheapest place to start? Is it better to buy from an alliance (in that case which one) or from airtreks or similar? When should I buy the tickets? I've just started reading about rules and itineraries and destinations and miles and I'm still in the digesting-information stage. Any suggestions and tips will be more than welcome!
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Old Jun 21st, 2017, 06:24 AM
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By avoiding the Americas, this isn't really an around-the-world plan; a "real" RTW requires crossing both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans in the same direction.

The Oneworld alliance offers a product called the "Circle Trip Explorer" which allows travel wholly within the four continents of Europe/Middle East, Africa, Asia and Australia/NZ. This can be purchased with either three or four continents touched; however one of them must be Africa.

The ticket allows up to 16 flights in total, with no more than four flights in any one continent, so with 3 continents you're limited to a total of 15 flights (12 for in-continent flights, 3 intercontinental.)

The price for this product, as for all multi-continent or RTW products, varies a lot depending on where you start and finish the trip. For your stops, a 3-continent Circle Explorer started in, for example, Norway, will cost US$2039 plus taxes and fees (which could be as much as 20% more.) The same ticket bought and started in, say, London, will cost $2298, in Japan $3014 and in Hong Kong $3650 (all plus taxes/fees.)

By comparison, "traditional" RTW tickets covering four continents (adding N. or S. America to meet the requirements) are typically a couple hundred dollars more from each of those locations, sometimes a little less.

There are rules that can make your exact itinerary difficult when using alliance products. If two cities aren't served with nonstop flights by an alliance member (say Bangkok and Beijing with Oneworld) then you have to change planes someplace like Tokyo or Hong Kong, using two of your four allowed "Asia" flights to make the trip. That way you can run out of available segments for that continent.

For example, this route - http://tinyurl.com/yblqxvu8 - skips Beijing and Athens from your wish list; you could buy these separately "outside" the main ticket.

A "conventional" RTW that would cost a couple hundred dollars more (but maybe lower taxes) starting and ending in Spain could look something like this: http://tinyurl.com/ydblx7ay . Because there's nonstop intercontinental service from Madrid (unlike Oslo) you "save" a segment in Europe.

So I would keep researching and looking at the rules, and definitely contact Airtreks or a major international travel agency like STA, who have people who specialize in these things. I'd also take the time to look at do-it-yourself plans using discount airlines, which are numerous in many areas. Your route isn't especially complicated and doesn't include too many exotic destinations, so airfares can be quite reasonable. Look at the likes of Easyjet for Europe/Middle East flights (they fly to Israel for example) and regional carriers in other regions, especially in SE Asia where there are many options.

Happy planning!
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Old Jun 21st, 2017, 01:05 PM
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Thank you for the lenghty answer Gardyloo!

I haven't considered a diy approach but will check if it makes a difference in cost. The second itinerary starting in Spain looks interesting! Can it be done in 6 weeks? If not, how would you change it to skip the US but keep more or less the same route? I really (and sadly) can't take more time than that to do a real rtw.

*The ticket allows up to 16 flights in total, with no more than four flights in any one continent, so with 3 continents you're limited to a total of 15 flights (12 for in-continent flights, 3 intercontinental.)*
Didn't quite understand this. If I fly to four continents I'd have 3 flights in each and 4 intercontinental, right? So could fly just three continents (with one more flight in each) and fly to a fourth continent with separate tickets? Would that count as a surface sector?

*I'd also take the time to look at do-it-yourself plans using discount airlines, which are numerous in many areas.*
I've read that tickets get more expensive the closer it gets to departure date. Is that also true for discount airlines?
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Old Jun 22nd, 2017, 05:24 AM
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*The ticket allows up to 16 flights in total, with no more than four flights in any one continent, so with 3 continents you're limited to a total of 15 flights (12 for in-continent flights, 3 intercontinental.)*

Both the "Circle Explorer" and the "real" RTW (in the cast of Oneworld either the "Oneworld Explorer" or the "Global Explorer," but really any alliance-based RTW ticket) you're limited to a maximum of 16 flights, which is an industry limitation imposed by the use of e-tickets. So for a 3-continent Circle Explorer (Asia, Africa, Europe/ME) you'd have 4 flights in each continent PLUS the three intercontinental flights available, total 15.

In a 4-continent RTW that includes North America, a slightly different rule applies. Under the RTW rules, you're allowed up to SIX flights in North America, but still no more than 4 in any other continent, so given your plans you'd have 4 flights available in Europe, Asia and Africa (12) plus 4 intercontinental flights, so a total of 16. In my sample RTW, I limited you to 3 flights in Africa (JNB-VFA-JNB-MRU) and added one flight in North America (JFK-SFO) but you could add back the Africa segment by limiting your North America stop to a touch-and-go, for example MAD-JFK-NRT, or MAD-DFW-PEK, something like that. You need to be mindful of where the alliance planes fly from and to; for example the only route you can fly between Asia and Africa using Oneworld is Hong Kong to Joburg or v.v. You'd have more choices using Star Alliance's RTW products, but those are universally more expensive than Oneworld's and have stringent mileage limitations (Oneworld's don't.)

Now, can you do this in six weeks? Well, sure, depending on how long you want to spend in the various places. One thing I'd say is that Mauritius and most of southern Africa is going to be hot and humid in December/January, and in the summer Victoria Falls is prone to being so misty from the falling water that the falls themselves are all but invisible. You'd also need to think about malaria prophylaxis in that part of Africa during mosquito season. If it were me at that time of year, I'd probably limit my southern Africa experience to Cape Town and the Western Cape, maybe including the Garden Route or Cape Winelands, which are going to be beautiful but not as hot as farther north. On the other hand, northern hemisphere destinations like Beijing are going to be cold, of course.

If you were to drop Africa altogether - just imagining - you could probably construct a pretty nice plan without relying on the route restrictions imposed by the RTW-type products. You might look at this as a thought experiment - if you want a tropical beach experience, rather than Fiji or Mauritius, look at destinations in SE Asia instead.

Complicated, I know, but worth the work.
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Old Jun 23rd, 2017, 12:33 PM
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Again, thank you for the very informative answer! Been reading about the circle explorer and Oneworld and Star Alliance's rtw and just realized they are out of my budget limit. So now I want to do CAI-IST-ATH-RAK-JNB-LUN-MRU-CMB-SIN-BKK-DEL and back to Cairo but I don't think I should fly all those segments, but haven't checked prices for land transportation yet. Also, I'd fly discount airlines as I haven't found any circles or rtw that allow that route. Or if they did, I'm not sure it would be cost effective given the total number of flights.

*One thing I'd say is that Mauritius and most of southern Africa is going to be hot and humid in December/January*
Paraguay is also hot and humid (and full of mosquitoes) during those months as well, so that's not an issue. But not being able to see the falls is kinda sad, as they were the main reason I wanted to visit Africa, and can't go at a different time. I'll have to think more about this u.u
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Old Jun 23rd, 2017, 02:55 PM
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So now I want to do CAI-IST-ATH-RAK-JNB-LUN-MRU-CMB-SIN-BKK-DEL and back to Cairo but I don't think I should fly all those segments, but haven't checked prices for land transportation yet.

Several of those city pairs are far from cost effective, because there's no nonstop or direct service between them. For example, Mauritius to Colombo requires routing through Dubai or Istanbul, with one-way prices ranging between US$800 and $1100. Lusaka to Mauritius costs US$500 or more via Nairobi or Joburg, and Marrakesh to Joburg is over $600 via Doha. By the time you add up all the one-way flights you'll end up spending way more than an RTW would cost.

If you were willing to travel from Cairo to London and back after the trip, this route using Star Alliance's RTW product would have a base price of US$3200 starting and ending in London (cheapest place in Europe) - http://tinyurl.com/ycsm234o . You'd have to use Casablanca instead of Marrakesh as it has better air connections, but all the routes are served by Star Alliance members. You'd still have one flight segment and around 3,000 miles left to spend somewhere along the way.
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