Trip Preparations: Round-the-World Tickets

So it's now official—after ironing out a few payment issues, the tickets have been booked! Which makes it a good time to talk about one of the biggest preparations to be made for any round-the-world trip: the tickets.

In our case, we decided to just go with RTW tickets, but this isn't the only option available. I have a friend who spent a year traveling who made it a point not to buy one plane ticket, and did so all the way from Japan through Africa and Antarctica and onto the Americas before running out of money and having to fly back. Also, many nowadays are opting out of going for the full-blown RTW ticket due to its limitations: 1) RTW tickets are only good for one year, and 2) while you can change dates for flights, you are a little more set into a schedule. With all the budget airlines popping up these days, just buying the cheapest ticket point to point can be a viable and even sometimes cheaper option, but only if you have the flexibility to wait for the best offers along the way. Other people have written more on alternative options.

There are, of course, certain advantages to RTW tickets which make them worthwhile. First, even with the budget airline option, it is still cheaper than buying all your tickets separately on the major airlines. This is doubly true for the more exotic locations, like most places in Africa or Easter Island. You also get the freedom to change your dates as mentioned above, and even your itinerary for a fee. And with buying things up front, it lets you know one of the biggest costs up front without having to hassle with looking up flights as much while you're on the road. This is especially big if you're trying to see a bunch of destinations spread across the globe like we are. And finally, you keep all the frequent flyer miles! We'll have a couple free international flights waiting for us once this is all over.

Ok, so we decided for the RTW ticket. Outside of some minor players, there are two major options: Star Alliance and One World, both of which have their strengths and weaknesses. You are encouraged to play with both before making your decision, and believe me, you will. Checking out your big map is fun! We went with Star Alliance as it had more options through Africa and still allowed us to go through South America. One World is supposed to be better for South America, offering flights to Easter Island and Galapagos for some fun legs to add. It also doesn't count the miles, so you can do longer legs for your 16 allotted segments. Maybe next time?

So how does it work? Well, there are a few rules. First you have to pick a direction: east or west. We chose to go west, starting from Tokyo. In general, you don't want to backtrack with Star Alliance as it uses up miles. The One World ticket is based on continents and segments, not miles, so it won't let you go back to a continent once you enter a new one. No going from Europe/Middle East to Africa, then back to Europe/Middle East, for example.

Our Star Alliance Itinerary

How much does it cost? In general, expect to pay somewhere between $3,000 - $10,000 depending on the ticket class, mileage (for Star Alliance), and starting point. Star Alliance offers three classes (Economy, Business and First Class) tiered at 26,000 miles, 29,000 miles, 34,000 miles and 39,000 miles. To get the most bang for the buck (or yen, in our case), you want to get as close as you can to one of these numbers without going over. Our itinerary came to about 33,500 miles or so, departing from Narita. Our total before taxes came to 444,534 yen per person (currently $5,579), up to 490,350 yen ($6,154) after taxes. We did mess around with different starting points, but once you factor in the ticket just to get to that starting point from where we are, just starting from Narita was the cheapest option.

I touched on this above, but the One World system charges you based on how many continents you visit, with the Middle East falling in with Europe. It doesn't matter how many miles the trip takes, which is good for scoring more frequent flyer miles, but if you're visiting a lot of continents the price can add up. With the Middle East being counted in Europe, our trip hits 5 continents out of the 6 available even if we cut out Turkey. Ouch. Besides that, One World wouldn't allow us to fly through Ethiopia.

So that's about all I have to say. Really, the best thing you can do to find out more is visit the Star Alliance and One World pages, but I also found this page to be quite informative.

Are you thinking about a RTW trip and looking for advice or have more questions? Did we miss something that would've saved us money? Let us know in the comments.