KathyM

Has anyone used an "Around the World Tickets" provider and can recommend one? We are just exactly about 1/2 way around the world from my son in Perth, Australia. We are going there for his wedding in October, but would like to plan to spend a week in London in late September on the way and then a week in Sydney at the end of October on the way back. Has anyone had the experience of doing something like this? Any suggestions/comments would be appreciated! Thank you!

crazymina

I met a couple of people who used them and was researching them myself.

From what your itinerary looks like, I don't think a round the world ticket would make sense. For a sample of how a ticket works, you can look at this site from British Airways...

http://www.britishairways.com/region...ex.shtml#round

Basically, you are allowed to travel on the airline and all partner airlines, provided that you don't backtrack. The number of continents allowed, and segments in each continent depends on the ticket.

If you just want to make a couple of stops, it might be better to book each leg separately. The guy I met who did it actually booked his flight from the U.S. to OZ, then bought the round the world beginning from Australia, since it was cheaper to do it there. Don't know if it can work that way, but that's how he claimed to do it.

sandi

Kathy - Have you contacted either your primary carrier, e.g. United, American (assumming you have a FF program with them) - check what they offer for the "round the world" routing and prices rules & regs.

Then contact one or two of the companies that specializ in theses. One I can think of is Air Brokers (but do a "search" and you'll find others). See what they offer, prices, rules and regs.

One thing I've heard is that if you use your preferred Air carrier and partners you can accrue FF miles; with a specialty company you usually can't and you might not be able to pay by credit card (unless they've changed this over the years).

Melnq8

Kathy -

My husband and I have purchased around-the-world tickets on three occasions, and are currently working on the fourth. We always plan our own trip, choose the airlines and routing (all within Star Alliance in our case) and then take our itinerary to a travel agent to book.

When traveling around the world, you can only cross the Atlantic and the Pacific ONCE.

You CAN backtrack (with the exception of the above rule) with airlines participating in Star Alliance (and possibly others) as long as your travel falls within the mileage category you have paid for. For example, Star Alliance carriers (United, Air New Zealand, Lufthansa, etc) have three around-the-world fee schedules. How many miles you plan to travel will determine which fee catagory you will fall into.

In one case, we had a skeptical travel agent who disputed our backtracking to Frankfurt. He finally read the fine print and realized that what we wanted to do was perfectly "legal" within the mileage guidelines we had purchased.

So, it pays to do your research.

Your travel plans sound pretty straightforward and you should have no problems booking an around-the-world flight. You will cross the Atlantic on your way to London, then cross the Pacific on your return from Sydney to the US. Around-the-world tickets are good for a year, so you might want to see what else you can squeeze in as well!

christo

Just got back from our own RTW trip with some similarities to your situation.
We too felt that we might just as well go right around the world as return tickets to oz. In my research I found that the best deal was with Star Alliance. They covered the areas I wanted, good price, airmiles useable on all their member airlines and some of the best carriers. One World was good too but did not have a flight to Tahiti.I suggest you check out both web sites. I was able to get a better price through my travel agent using Air New Zealand than I could on my own with Air Canada. There are other advantages to using an agent too such as their expertise, assistance etc in case of emergencies, etc.
In my research I was told by Air Treks that they could not match the prices available from these 2 alliances especially when purchased outside the US in other currencies, and for Business Class. In our case Canadian Dollars through Air New Zealand. You may be able to do the same via the net.

But you will want to compare the cost to point to point tickets. For us we wanted to make many stops, actually on all 6 continents, and use Business Class, and this was the best and cheapest way. We collected so many airmiles we earned enough to fly anywhere in the world Business Class!

Good luck and Bon Voyage.