I don't know wher to post this so I will try several places. Has anyone traveled on a "round the world" air ticket? What are the restrictions? How long will it take me if I only stop in 3 cities? I hear it is not as expensive as one might think...is it?

<BR> <BR>I live in Europe where these tickets are frequently used to travel to Australia and back. They can be just as cheap as buying a simple return ticket. All of the alliances have deals eg Oneworld etc but be careful we found the legroom on BA to be very poor. <BR> <BR> <BR>It costs the same to travel from LON to lAX in July as to go the whole way aroung the world at Easter - so timing is everything. <BR> <BR>Minimum trip is usually seven days. There is usually a maximum number of stops or limitation by mileage. Maximum stay is usually a year (this is to cater for European students spending their gap year in Australia) <BR> <BR>The shortest trip we took was two weeks with six stops. The flight was overbooked at LA and we almost received our entire airfare back in compensation when we volunteered to get off. <BR> <BR>United will become the only airlines to fly around the world ina couple of weeks and (if bought in Europe) their fares are reasonable.

Thank you! <BR>Does anyone have a favorite "rtw" air alliance?

Went round the world (NY-Hong Kong-Bangkok-New Delhi-Paris-NY)in February. Used AirTreks.com service without any real problems. Trip took 48 hours, approximately 18000 miles on five airlines and eight different airplanes. All good airlines with good service and English speaking crew, longest delay was one hour. You can make changes after you leave but there are monetary penalties. I paid $1700 but if I had started planning three to four months in advance, rather than two, I would have paid less. Will go around world again and will use Airtreks.

Clarification: My flight time was 48 hours, longest segement 10.5 hours Anchorage to Taipei. I spent 16 days on complete trip.