PlanetRovers – Airfare

Airfare
Some things to consider before beginning the search for airfare (based on what we learned about RTW fares):

Consolidators appear to be the way to go. We can’t see how anyone could buy a ticket from an alliance and really go “around the world.”
 

When dealing with the airline alliances ask many questions, and be sure to speak to someone in the know (this is usually the fare desk).
 

The Middle East is a tough place to get in and out of.
 

Air Brokers was wonderful! They do great work, are helpful, knowledgeable, and informative, and really work with you.

We found many travelogues that made mention of RTW airfare. Because neither of us had any experience with such tickets, we had to do a good bit of in-depth research. We found the most information in the Rec.Travel Library. From there, we figured out that we basically had two options: airlines or consolidators.

We spent hours pouring over web sites, looking at the RTW tickets offered by the airlines and investigating the different consolidators. From there, our search entered three phases.

Phase I – Buying an alliance RTW ticket in Australia
Everything that we found in the USA was really expensive and didn’t seem to accommodate our needs very well, especially given the cost. So, we started looking at buying tickets from other countries. Given that the U.S. dollar is pretty strong against most other currencies, to us, it seemed like a sensible idea. We had already decided that we were going to start our trip in the South Pacific, and since the Aussies travel like fiends, we figured that we could likely find an Australian travel agent on the Net who sells RTW tickets.

We hit the jackpot with travel.com.au. They have tons of options on RTW passes, offered through the airlines and their alliances, which are all based on number of miles and travel between certain geographic regions. We looked extensively at the RTW tickets offered by the Star Alliance (United Airlines, Air Canada, Air New Zealand, Ansett Australia, Austrian Airlines, Lufthansa, SAS, Singapore Airlines, Thai Airways, Varig Airlines).

We also looked at some of the packages offered by the OneWorld alliance (American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, FinnAir, Aer Lingus, Iberia, Qantas), but their airline network is much smaller and doesn’t travel to as many destinations. The biggest problem with these alliance passes was that getting a flight from India to Egypt that did not go through Frankfurt or London was impossible. But, it was still cheaper to buy a pass and then pick up that flight while traveling.

So, we picked a Star Alliance package, decided to buy it when we had the money, and began planning our itinerary under the assumption that we had 29,000 miles and 5 stopovers to play with.

Phase 2 – WRONG ASSUMPTION!
It started with a call to United Airlines. We wanted to submit our itinerary and stopovers so that they could calculate the miles and we could compare that with what we had calculated. Our calculations: 18,000 miles. United’s calculations: 43,000 miles. What??

For two months we had called and emailed all of these people (travel.com.au, United Airlines, Air Canada and Air New Zealand), explaining our plans, asking question after question and we were told, numerous times, that the mile calculation was air miles. Not! The Star Alliance passes take into consideration ALL travel, including overland. If you flew into Istanbul and flew out of London after taking trains, buses and ferries across Europe the Star Alliance will count all of those land miles.

Phase 3 – To the consolidators!
At this point, we were pretty frustrated with the major airlines. We thought we were set, and then, with one phone call, we were back to square one. In the beginning of our search, we had come across the ticket consolidator web sites, but brushed them aside as too expensive. We decided to give it another shot. We called as many companies as we could find who specialized in RTW tickets. Only 2 were helpful, courteous, and responded to our calls in a timely manner – AirTreks and Air Brokers. The beauty of these companies is that they deal with many airlines not just those that are part of an alliance. We called Air Brokers and talked to the extremely helpful Sharon. She put together this itinerary:

Los Angeles to Fiji (stopover in Hawaii)
Fiji to Auckland, New Zealand
Christchurch, New Zealand to Darwin, Australia
Sydney, Australia to Bali, Indonesia
Bali, Indonesia to Singapore
Bangkok, Thailand to Kathmandu, Nepal
Delhi, India to Cairo, Egypt

for about $2350 per person. The only catch here is that if you pay with a credit card, they add another 3%. We sent them a check and had our tickets about 3 weeks later.

The gaps in our arrival and departure points will be done overland: trains, buses and ferries. We can fly from Maryland to Los Angeles is for considerably less then the consolidator could offer (thanks to some well-connected family members). We plan to buy the ticket for the flight home from a European consolidator in either Athens or perhaps Berlin.