Does a OneWorld Explorer ticket make sense?
 

In the course of planning for possibly our first trip to Africa, I was introduced to the concept of a RTW ticket, namely the Oneworld Explorer, by Gardyloo (thank you Gardyloo!). I admittedly had very little prior knowledge of how these types of tickets worked and didn't think it would serve my interests, until now...

Thinking about my travels between November 2015 and August 2017, we are looking at:

Africa - April 2016
Japan and Australia - April / May 2017

In addition, we would like to spend a few days in Europe or South America in November 2015 and 2016 and / or August 2016. And depending on any leftover miles, we could easily fill them with domestic U.S. trips or segments on our longer trips (e.g. CPT-MQP/SZK/HDS, VFA/BBK/MUB-JNB, CNS-MEL/SYD).

Given that my travels exceed the one-year time limit, I'm soliciting feedback on whether or not any portion of all of this would make economic sense on a LONE ticket (I'm only considering economy class).

And I've been reading about potential benefits of starting the ticket in Japan or South Africa but are unclear about price differences.

My home airports are IAD/DCA/BWI although I frequently use PHL/JFK/LGA/EWR as well. I have Platinum status on AA, and am able to use AA or UA miles to position from Japan, South Africa, or someplace else.

Suggestions and advice welcome and appreciated. Thank you.

As you know I'm a big fan of the Oneworld Explorer, but it doesn't always make sense as the go-to solution, so first I'd determine if it's the right product for you given your plans.

Because the OWE is priced according to how many continents you touch and not how many miles you fly, the value partly comes from your plans once you've reached some continent or another.

You're allowed a total of 16 flights, but limited to four flights per continent, except North America where you're allowed six (only one of which can be a transcontinental nonstop such as JFK-LAX, MIA-SFO, SEA-PHL, etc.) There are further limitations on long haul flights within Europe/Middle East from London, and transcontinental flights within Australia.

Prices for the tickets are very different depending on where they're bought and started/ended, and for the time being the very strong US dollar has made the tickets surprisingly affordable if bought and begun in countries where the local currency is weak against the USD. So the approach I take (and most leisure buyers of these tickets - a minority I'm told - ) is to start the ticket someplace "cheap" then return to the US (if that's where you live) and go back to work or whatever, then move on to the next destination or series of destinations before ending back where you began.

So getting back to your plans, much of the value of the ticket might come from your plans <i>within N. America,</i> during the periods between longhaul trips. A long weekend in the Caribbean or Central America? Alaska in the summer? The per-continent segments are basically "use 'em or lose 'em" - you can't roll them over to the next continent, and leaving any of the 16 available flights on the table means that the average cost of the remaining flights has gone up.

Let me address the pricing variations. Unfortunately, since most countries and the EU now require that advertising airfares has to include "inclusive" pricing, i.e. with taxes and fees included, it's made prices for RTW and similar products hard to find, because each itinerary is different, thus resulting in different airport taxes, or operator surcharges, or national extortion schemes like the UK's air passenger duty.

So all that's left is to look on the global distribution services (GDSs) like Sabre, where the airlines file their base fares, or a couple of services like KVS or Expert Flyer which skim or scrape or otherwise access these fares.

But to illustrate, let's take an economy (LONE) 4-continent fare, using US dollar conversions that are current as of today or yesterday. This is for the same ticket, but just with a different end/start point. Remember these are the BASE fares; the addition of taxes and fees will typically increase this price by 10-20 percent, sometimes more.

USA - $5299
Canada - $4251
Euro countries - $2729
UK - $3218
Egypt - $2485
Japan - $2981
Australia - $2992
South Africa - $1751

Now let's look at business class fares, same origin points:

USA - $10,799
Canada - $8664
Euro countries - $7663
UK - $9503
Egypt - $5786
Japan - $6296
Australia - $9210
South Africa - $4877

Now these are snapshot-in-time fares; Oneworld can and does change fares periodically (not all at once, more country-by-country) and of course currency fluctuations have a huge impact. But as you can see, starting the trip - in economy - in the Euro zone saves roughly half compared to the USA, or in South Africa 2/3. A 4-continent business class ticket bought in South Africa is less than an economy ticket bought in South Carolina.

---

Only you can determine if these products work for you and your plans. My approach has been to develop something like a 2- or 3-year "master plan" and see where paid v. award tickets come into play. Aside from the obvious differences in comfort levels, as an AA Plat you should also look at the benefits of business class in terms of mileage earning. With the class-of-service bonuses earned for business class (and first class within the USA) and your Plat 100% mileage bonus, it's very easy to earn well over 100,000 miles in the course of an ordinary 4-continent business class OWE. For economy (LONEx) itineraries you earn less, sometimes nothing for L-bucket bookings (e.g. on Cathay Pacific) so in doing your financial planning as part of any travel plans, don't discount the value of the miles you'd earn in the course of the trip.

For example, if your plans are to visit Japan and Australia in 2017, maybe the miles you'd earn in a 2015-2016 RTW could be used for that, rather than trying to pretzel it into an RTW ticket. Or, do what I've done over the past decade, do a business class RTW in year 1, then fly off the miles earned in year two, then repeat. Counting the mileage-redemption flights, it's worked out for me that a $5500 DONE4 started in Cape Town resulted in 20 or 22 business or first class flights over the next 24 months, with an average cost of $275 or so. Good for La Guardia to Miami, insanely good for JFK to Hong Kong.

Play around with the online "plan and book" function at Oneworld - https://rtw.oneworld.com/rtw/ - just to get a feel for pricing and routing options. Once you get the hang of it, you can do "what if" scenarios until you're exhausted. Pleasantly so, most likely.

Thanks so much, Gardyloo. Would you happen to have the LONE and DONE prices for 5 and 6 continents? I have not found a website that lists this info, although perhaps I haven't spent enough time on Flyertalk.

Kind of tedious to pull them; in general in the cheaper countries the LONE fares bump around $400 - $500 per each additional continent, closer to $800+ in the more expensive countries. An LONE6 in the US is $7099 for example; in South Africa $2433.

The DONE fares bump around $800 - $1000 per continent in the cheaper countries, $1200 - $1500+ in the more expensive ones, e.g. in the US a DONE6 is $14,099, in South Africa $6662.

Using the booking tool on Oneworld, you can see the actual fares including taxes and fees right online (just don't put in your credit card until you're ready to shell out kilobucks) quite easily.

Thank you again Gardyloo. You may have me onto something... ;)

On the xONEx ticket do you have to book all your segments in advance or it could be as you go? And do folks know of a way to get around the BA YQ if JNB-IAD is the first segment (everything seems to go through LHR)?

You have to book all the flights when you buy the ticket, but you can change dates for free later, or change any or all of the itinerary for a flat "re-issue" fee of $125. (Of course any itinerary changes have to comply with the fare rules. If you increase the number of continents, you'll pay the higher fare (based on the country of issue) but if you reduce the number of continents you're SOL.

BA and Qatar have a monopoly on departures from SA to Europe. And unfortunately the Oneworld tool has a bug that doesn't allow you to specify Qatar for the first segment. If you ticket through BA you'll get hammered throughout the ticket with BA YQ; the best bet is to communicate with American Airlines' general sales agent in Cape Town, Mindpearl Ltd., who can can issue the ticket with AA ticket numbers. That won't avoid BA YQ on the JNB-LHR segment, but will help in reducing YQ for the rest of the trip. The easiest way to avoid fuel surcharges on JNB-issued xONEx tickets is to depart JNB on Cathay Pacific to HKG. CX doesn't levy fuel fines at the level that BA and Qantas do for departures to LHR or SYD respectively. On a DONEx this can easily present a savings of over $1000. Frankly, it's wise to price compare JNB departures with CAI departures using Royal Jordanian (same basic itinerary, just different start/end points.) Sometimes the more expensive CAI origin ends up costing the same as the cheaper JNB ones, after fees and taxes are added.

You could also see if Mindpearl could do the first segments as JNB-xDOH-PHL, avoiding BA altogether.

Note that by transiting Europe on the way back from Joburg you will not be able to re-visit Europe anywhere else on the trip. That may be fine with you, but just a consideration.

Thanks again, Gardyloo. I thought one of the rules of the ticket was that you could transit from Africa through Europe to say, North America, as long as it's a layover and not a stopover, and then visit Europe on the way back to Africa. Is this incorrect?

The rule you're referring to is only on itineraries that <i>don't</i> include South Africa, e.g. if you're originating or ending in Nairobi. The "second entry" rules have changed dramatically since Qatar joined the alliance. Best to download and refer to the actual rules - http://www.oneworld.com/documents/10...9-d346ec820edf

Thank you Gardyloo. You're a wealth of information.

We live in Portugal with nearest airport being Faro. We can use Lisbon but it is sometimes easier to go to London for international flights. We have family in London and do visit 3/4 times a year.

We are also planning RTW on Business Class but cannot work out the best logistical route and so we may have to do straightforward return flights. We are BA FFs and would prefer to use the OW Explorer.

Our plans are:
1. NYC, Kentucky, New Orleans, Philadelphia in April/May 2016
2. Singapore, Phuket, Bangkok in September 2016
3. Australia/Easter Island or India or Moscow/St Petersburg 2017

Gardyloo, can you help with best way of doing this if at all? Is it going to cost us more to return home after each tranch of the itinerary?

Well the tickets are only good for a year, so the question would arise as to <i>when</i> in 2017 you'd be planning to visit Australia/Easter Island/India/Russia if you'd be planning to link that/those trips with anything in 2016.

Speaking generally, RTW tickets are terrific for making long trips like Australia or Easter Island etc. more affordable, and somewhat less efficient for shorter itineraries, e.g. western Europe to Moscow, or even the USA. And since they require that you cross both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans going in the same direction, i.e. east to west or west to east, connecting the N. America trip in May to the SE Asia trip in September would be complicated unless you wanted to remain in N. America for several months before continuing to Asia westbound across the Pacific.

Pretty often you can find cheaper business class flights from Europe to North America in the spring and summer, so what I'd probably do is to exclude North America from any RTW itinerary and look for conventional tickets for the trip next spring.

Then I'd look at combining the SE Asia, Australia and Easter Island trips into an RTW that would start next year and hopefully last long enough to include your 2017 plans within the lifespan of the ticket.

For example, let's assume that by next September Japan is still a reasonably inexpensive place to start/end business class RTW tickets. You'd fly to Japan to start the ticket, then down to Singapore and Thailand, then home to Portugal. Then the following year, but before 12 months from the first flight have elapsed, travel to South America in order to access Easter Island, then across the South Pacific to Australia, and finally back to Japan to end the ticket. You probably would have earned enough Avios or points to cover the trip home from Japan at the end of things.

Something like this, maybe - http://tinyurl.com/pe9t5vo

Just throwing some ideas around.

Thank you for your help. We too were finding it difficult to include North America in the mix. We will keep that as a separate trip and will try and work on the Australia/Far East idea.

Hi Gardyloo

My husband and I are Still looking at RTW ideas and am coming to some decisions on where and when. As you you were so kind to respond to my previous enquiries, I wonder if you could help me clarify and finalise my itinerary. I do realise there will be some tooing and froing but am interested in looking at overall costings to compare with straightforward return fares and also trying to fit in four hols in one ticket. So the plan is:

Travelling Business or First. We are based in Portugal but can easily go back and forward to London. We have quite a few air miles and so can do one ways to return to London/Portugal

Starting from Cairo
1. June 2016 - Venice
2. September 2016 - Singapore, Easter Islands/Fiji, New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia
3. January 2017 - Barbados or Caribbean
4. May 2017 - Kenya/South Africa

Will really appreciate your views and ideas on this.

Indebela,

Glad to see that you're still working on it.

There is indeed a lot of "to-ing and fro-ing" in particular the Caribbean trip in January 2017. RTW tickets require that you cross both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans in the same direction, so once you've returned to Portugal from, say, Philly in September, you can't use the RTW ticket to return to the other side of the Atlantic.

There are also some specific issues with your destinations when looking at conventional RTW tickets. First, if you want to go to Easter Island, the only alliance airline serving IPC is Lan, which is a Oneworld airline. However, Oneworld doesn't have any member airlines that serve Fiji, so putting both Fiji and Easter Island in the same itinerary is a non-starter.

Second, your list of destinations would likely exceed the maximum mileage allowances in any of the Star Alliance products, which cost much more in general than the Oneworld ones anyway, which means you're left with the Oneworld Explorer as the only usable product.

But if you're wanting to start in Egypt, which is in "Europe" for the purposes of Oneworld RTWs, and then end in Africa, that's not permitted as you'd have to transit Europe on the way there (from North America.) With very limited exceptions - which don't enter into your itinerary - you can't "re-enter" a continent once you've left it. You'd be leaving Europe at the outset if you start in Egypt, so coming back to Europe on your way to Africa would be no go. Hope that's not too confusing.

So my recommendation would be to look at your itinerary with the thought of starting and ending in Africa rather than Europe. That way you could return to Portugal from North America and lay over until you want to head south to Africa.

Here's an imaginary route that would hit some - not all - of your targets. You'd still have to pay for the Caribbean holiday separately (or pick some place in "Europe" that's sunny in January instead - maybe the Red Sea?) and I'd definitely do Venice on my own.

Here's an imaginary itinerary that starts and ends in South Africa - http://tinyurl.com/hdq8d53 . I've included Easter Island and also Israel (but could be Jordan) for the "mid-winter sun and sand" destination. I've also included Mauritius on the way back to Joburg at the end of the trip. This would be a five-continent Oneworld Explorer, with a base fare today of around USD$4500 plus probably another $1000 in taxes and fees.

Like I said, imaginary, but maybe it helps illustrate some routing options and restrictions.

Thanks Gardyloo for all your help.

We are now slowly able to use the One world route planner but do find ourselves at a loss sometimes.

Please could you let us know what you think of the itinerary below and if can see any glaring mistakes and what we can add/subtract from it.

Joburg-Delhi-Singapore-Honolulu-SFO-NYC-LON-Joburg

This should give us India, Far East, New York and an African Safari after we return to London/Portugal. Unless we can return home from Delhi or Singapore as well.

We are looking at travelling First Class but does it make more sense to go Business?

Using Oneworld your route would be something like this - JNB-HKG-DEL-KUL-SIN-NRT-HNL-LAX-SFO-JFK-LHR-JNB - http://tinyurl.com/j9fus2e - since you can't fly straight from Africa to India with Oneworld. That's only 11 segments out of a possible 16, so you'd have the potential of adding three segments in North America or four within Europe, or some combination, if you wanted.

With the above route you'd only have first class available on five of the segments (HNL-LAX-SFO-JFK-LHR-JNB) and since business class tickets book into first class on HNL-LAX-SFO anyway (since business isn't offered on those) you'd be spending the extra money on just three flights, which in my view isn't worth it. It's your money of course.

Bokmarking

Gardyloo...am looking at a RTW trip and have several questions. You have provided invaluable info in your posts. Very helpful.

My initial itinerary thoughts are these....I live in Memphis and would either buy or use miles for a MEM > JNB RT tix.

Starting in September or October I would fly MEM > JNB and from there start and would go Hong Kong - Narita - Sydney - Auckand - LAX - MEM, where I would arrive home and break up my trip, probably somewhere around late December or January.

Restarting in April, would go MEM - Lima (with transit thru an AA gateway thus adding a segment)- Rio De Jan - Madrid - St Pete - LHR - JNB.

I have put the itinerary in AA's flight scheduler but problem is I can do the 1st traunche thru January but wont let me investigate flight schedules for the back half thus not allowing me to see pricing. Any way around that pitfall ?? Othersie looking at at least May b4 later half itinerary can be priced.

Your thoughts ??

Date changes are free, so just put "dummy" dates into the planner and once you're ticketed and the actual dates open for booking, you can change the dummies to actuals.

I live Uruguay (South America). Do you have any idea what country in South America the RTW is cheaper?
Very good column, and thank you for your recommendations.

<i>I live Uruguay (South America). Do you have any idea what country in South America the RTW is cheaper?</i>

The prices are the same throughout South America regardless of where one buys the ticket.

Prices start at US$4050 plus taxes/fees for economy and US$10229 for business class, roughly $1250 and $570 cheaper respectively than the same tickets bought in the US, Mexico or Central America.

That still makes them roughly $1300/$2600 more expensive than in most of Europe.

Gardyloo,

Just to continue our correspondence from a while ago, we are getting closer to our planned RTW, however, I am having a few problems and wonder if you could assist to finalise our plans.

So the plan is:

Cairo - Nairobi
Surface to Livingston
Livingston - Johannesburg
Johannesburg - Mauritius
Mauritius - Johannesburg
Johannesburg - Delhi
Delhi - Hong Kong
Hong Kong - New York
New York - Barbados
Barbados - London
London - Cairo

I cannot get a pricing for this as I keep getting referred to Royal Jordanian Customer Services. Is there a glaring mistake in our itinerary?

Is it better to start from Johannesburg?

Also, is it straightforward to purchase the tickets from Cairo?

Lastly, do you always have to finish the journey from the place you started?

Will really appreciate your assistance on this.

indebela,

Yes, if it was me I'd definitely start in Joburg. Not only will the "base" price be cheaper than starting in Cairo (around £800 per person) but the fees and taxes will likely be less. In addition, the online booking tool at Oneworld is unable to ticket itineraries where either Royal Jordanian or Qatar Airlines is the first airline flown; it hangs or has some kind of seizure that makes it incredibly frustrating to use.

The rules of the ticket limit you to four segments within the continent of origin, but the biggest problem you'd encounter with starting in Joburg is that you can't re-enter the country of origin until the end of the trip. That would make LVI impossible as it's only served from JNB, and the only flights into and out of Mauritius are from JNB or Gatwick. You wouldn't be able to start in Joburg and fly back from Mauritius; you'd have to fly to London, which would then goof up the onward trip.

So what I'd probably do is fly to Nairobi on your own (use points or look for some sort of bargain) and make your way to Zambia and then Joburg. Start the RTW ticket in Joburg by flying to Hong Kong with Cathay Pacific, then Delhi and back to Hong Kong, then HKG to New York, down to Barbados, over to London (and I presume a long layover there, or down to Portugal.) Then finish by flying from London to Mauritius, then to Joburg to finish. (Note if you start anywhere in Africa you can end anywhere in Africa, so you could end in Mauritius. Or if - at the beginning - you flew to Joburg and did the LVI and MRU flights outside the RTW (using points or cash) you could end up in Nairobi at the end of the trip.

By making JNB-HKG the first flight on the ticket, you'll probably get the tool to work, and because the ticket will be sold by Cathay Pacific (as the first carrier) you'll probably avoid several hundred quid in British Airways surcharges that they would add to the whole ticket if BA was the first carrier (e.g. CAI-xLHR-NBO).

I know this is confusing but I hope it makes sense.

Your proposed route: http://tinyurl.com/z7zpqyu
Mine, version 1: http://tinyurl.com/j3jqb78
Version 2: http://tinyurl.com/jajq4hu

Note both of my routes would leave numerous eligible segments on the table - up to two in Asia, three in North America, four in Europe/Middle East... to a total of 16.

Hi Gardyloo,

We are getting closer to our RTW, however, I wonder if you know if BA fares have gone up.

We have an itinerary: JNB - LHR - FAO - LHR - DEL - HKG - NRT - JFK - DOH - JNB.

Just a few weeks ago I got a price of ZAR 74,809
Today I got ZAR 105,102

I notice from the Flyertalk that you did a very similar itinerary in December last year and got a price in the ZAR 70's.

Would appreciate your input on this.

<i>We are getting closer to our RTW, however, I wonder if you know if BA fares have gone up.</i>

Yes, Oneworld Explorer prices out of South Africa went up significantly two weeks ago. It's not just BA, it's all the Oneworld carriers, although American doesn't appear to have updated the fare yet on its GDS servers. But that's only a matter of time, and you wouldn't be able to ticket through AA anyway.

Two possible workarounds you could examine -

1 - Fares haven't been increased out of Namibia, and you can fly to/from Windhoek on BA/Comair or South African for positioning. Try loading WDH-JNB-LHR-FAO-DEL-HKG-NRT-JFK-DOH-JNB-WDH into the online tool and see what happens.

2 - Egypt is now a cheaper origin point for Oneworld Explorers (in USD, EUR and GBP terms) than South Africa, plus if you didn't need to visit Africa on this trip, you could purchase a 3-continent OWE out of Cairo (although the 4-continent ticket is only US$200 more than the 3-continent one, so excellent value.) The 3-continent alternative would still give you 16 flights, so you'd have more options in Asia and North America should you choose. Or you could still get a 4-continent ticket and add either South America or Australia to the mix.

By originating in Europe (of which Egypt is considered a part) you'd be limited to two stopovers in Europe, so that might require some rearranging of your plans. However, by starting in the Middle East you can end anywhere in the Middle East - Israel, Dubai, Jordan, wherever.

Hi Gardyloo,
Thanks for suggesting that we begin our RTW from Namibia.
I am now trying to book this but I cannot progress to the payment page as the screen seems to hang.
Any ideas as to why this should be. Do you think we need to get this ticketed in Namibia.
Thank you for all your help so far

I was afraid of that. The Oneworld online tool is so hopelessly buggy, and Oneworld is so clueless about its defectiveness - that you end up beating your head against the wall.

I quickly googled some travel agents in Windhoek and found a couple with connections to major international travel groups, and which had IATA logos on their websites. Frankly, I'd phone one of them (I use Skype to keep the cost down) and see if they're able to ticket RTWs. You might also try the BA/Comair office in Windhoek, but typically these out-stations are quite small and/or contracted out to some other company, and the agents are clueless when it comes to complicated products they've never encountered.

I have a colleague that went this route in SA (when the prices were lower) and found an agent in Joburg who was quite able to book the RTW for him using her GDS access (Amadeus) and who took his credit card in payment. I wouldn't be surprised at all if this was the case with competent TAs in Namibia.

One trick to apply when you're booking with TAs that are unfamiliar with RTWs is to keep the itinerary as simple as possible, e.g. WDH-JNB-HKG-JFK-LHR-JNB-WDH, then once you're ticketed you can change stops, timing, routes etc. for just $125 and any changes in taxes/fees, using any airline in the alliance. So get it ticketed on BA ex-WDH, and after the first flight, contact BA in, say, South Africa, or the US, wherever, and have the ticket re-issued with all the changes. You'll still have the Namibian base price.

Sorry I can't be of more help on this.

Thanks Gardyloo. Will try your tips and suggestions and will let you know if we are successful

Gardyloo, You are simply amazing!

bookmarking

I'm bringing this back up due to a recent major change in the rules for the Oneworld Explorer - a <i>positive</i> change, imagine that!

Oneworld has dropped the requirement that RTW tickets be purchased in the country of origin. You can now purchase them anywhere, with the price being that of the country of <i>origin</i> not the country of <i>sale</i>, even though the price might be much less than the one that applies to the country of sale.

So for example if you want to start the trip in Namibia or Egypt because the price there is a fraction of the US price, you can phone the AA RTW desk in the US, have them book the ticket, get it priced, and take your credit card for payment, without having to communicate with somebody in Windhoek or Cairo.

Now you'll still have to <i>get</i> to Windhoek or Cairo to physically start the trip, but you'll have your ticket in hand when you do, so it could simply be a turn-around - land in Windhoek, walk to the departures area, and get right back on the first flight using the Oneworld Explorer.

Hi Gardyloo,

Prices from Windhoek have just gone up!! They are now similar to prices from JNB.

Unfortunately, it is all working against us. Pound is weak, Rand is strong vs the Pound!!,

Any ideas? We are committed to starting in Africa as we will be in Mauritius before we start our RTW.

Will appreciate your input as always.

Until yesterday (which is when the WDH fares went up) the prices out of Maputo (MPM) Mozambique were crazy cheap - under US$2800 for a four-continent business class fare. Somebody posted a note about it on Flyertalk and so many people jumped on it that the fare was doubled yesterday, so a 4-continent business class fare out of MPM is now US$5200 plus taxes/fees. That's still $1100 less than out of South Africa or Namibia. (The only Oneworld service out of MPM is Qatar Airways to Doha.)

Proves the point about early birds I guess.

Not knowing your plans, I'd look at the pyramids for a cheaper base fare. Wink wink.

Quite right Gardyloo. We dithered for too long!

I kept looking at the OneWorld site and putting in various itineraries when we thought we were going to fly to Japan and then Singapore and then take a cruise to the Middle East and fly home.

I liked the idea of getting points for the whole thing but I also looked simply at sites like Kayak and others and kept finding these so-called "hacker fares" which were cheaper (and with their supposed drawbacks).

I think it is a great idea but we finally decided simply to fly to Japan from Europe while we are IN Europe next year. So much for going "around the world" I guess.

Thanks Gardyloo for all your help. We learnt a lot from you!

So, we finally booked our RTW journey starting in the desert (wink wink) and are looking forward to an exciting 2017 with visits to America, Far East, India and of course the Pyramids.

Thanks again.

Good for you! Hope your trip is a blast. We'll be waiting for the trip reports that I'm sure will be forthcoming. ;)

Hi @Gardyloo you seem to have a real grasp on which flights are best. Any opinion on which RTW ticket would be best to get for these destinations. I was thinking the One world explorer 3 continent one but every time I look at it online the flights aren't available for next year and if I pick random dates this year it seems to be a nightmare tool to use so I give up.

I guess if there are advantages in buying some of these flights separately I could do too..

Thanks

London 14/01/2018
Dubai 14/01/2018
Auckland 18/01/2018
overland to
Christchurch 06/03/2018
Melbourne 06/03/2018
overland to
Cairns 29/04/2018
Auckland 29/04/2018
Tahiti 30/04/2018
Los Angeles 05/05/2018
Los Angeles 21/06/2018
Jackson Hole 25/06/2018
overland to
Vancouver 10/08/2018
London 11/08/2018

Hi, <b>siouxchief,</b> and welcome to Fodor's!

First, airlines don't allow you to book farther out than 11 to 12 months (depending on the airline) so most of your dates will fall outside that range.

Yes, the Oneworld online booking tool is hopeless; despite many requests to Oneworld to repair it, they seem deaf and uninterested, so most people find an airline in the alliance who knows what they're doing (usually American Airlines in the US, Qantas in Australia, BA in the UK, and Cathay Pacific in Hong Kong) who book and issue the ticket, or in a few cases some experienced travel agent who can pull it off.

By comparison, the online booking tool at Star Alliance seems to be much more trustworthy. http://www.staralliance.com/en/round-the-world

As for your trip as planned, there are some complications that would not permit use of a Oneworld Explorer as you currently have it planned, mainly the lack of any eligible airline service between New Zealand and Tahiti, and between Tahiti and North America. So for a Oneworld Explorer to work, you'd have to drop Tahiti from the itinerary (maybe add it as a stand-alone side trip from NZ or Australia).

Your trip would still be priced as a 4-continent trip even though you're overflying Asia; it's one of the kinks in the rule.

Using Oneworld's <i>Global Explorer</i> RTW ticket however, your trip could be undertaken, but with some modifications to the order of places visited. Unlike the Oneworld Explorer the Global Explorer is mileage-based, with mileage tiers at 26,000, 29,000, 34,000 and 39,000 flown miles. And unlike the OWE, the GlobEx allows the use of some additional airlines, one of which is Air Tahiti Nui, provided you use the Qantas codeshare flight numbers many of them carry, e.g. between Auckland and Tahiti, and Tahiti and LAX.

So this route - LHR-DXB-MEL-CNS-SYD-CHC-AKL-PPT-LAX-JAC-YVR-LHR, http://tinyurl.com/jnky22c - would be available using the GlobEx. As you can see, it comes in just under the 29,000 mile tier; if you wanted something like your original routing you'd probably have to go up to the 34,000 mile level, which would cost quite a lot more. Note with the GlobEx, you count the miles between ticketed points against the maximum, even if you're using surface transportation for them.

Starting in London, an economy-class 29,000-mile Global Explorer has the same base price (£2100) as a 4-continent Oneworld Explorer. The 34,000 mile version of the GlobEx is £2550. In business class, the GlobEx only offers the 34,000 mile tier, which is the same price as the business class 4-continent OWE.

So it comes down to a question of Tahiti. With the Oneworld Explorer and its lack of a mileage limit, you could substitute Hawaii for Tahiti, or anywhere in the Caribbean, or, since you're already paying for it, anywhere in Asia for that matter (Bali? Sri Lanka? Maldives?) and still have an eligible trip with far more flexibility.

Either way you'd need to be patient and wait for the flights to become bookable, and you'd probably want to use that time to find a competent travel agent, or somebody who knows what they're doing at one of the airlines you'd use, to do the actual booking when the time comes.