
#KRISFLYER AROUND THE WORLD FOR TWO SERIES#
With all of the rules and regulations of RTW tickets, sometimes it’s worth paying a bit more for the flexibility of booking a series of one-way tickets.įor our RTW trip, we opted to book one-way flights as we traveled. It can also be more expensive.In general, RTW tickets do offer cost savings over pay as you go, but the savings are not huge. For some people, this may seem like too much of a hassle. And you will have to do this from time to time while you are traveling. It takes more time to sift through various airlines to book flights. By traveling on off days or at off times you can save a lot of money, and when you are traveling long-term, you have this type of flexibility. By booking as you go, you can take advantage of flight deals and discounts. But it’s also great having an open-ended schedule and not have every destination planned out a year ahead of time. If you are booking your flights as you go, this is a huge advantage. You may hate a place and want to leave earlier. You may fall in love with a place and want to stay longer. Your entire itinerary does not need to be planned out.

You can plan as you go, backtrack all you want, travel for over a year…you get the idea. Since you are booking as you go, all you need is your first flight scheduled. Like booking a RTW ticket, this also has advantages and disadvantages. With a RTW ticket, you do not have the ability to make these changes, not at least without paying lots of fees or losing money in the process.Īnother option is to book one-way airline tickets as you travel. Things may change toward the end of your trip…you may want to add more time, you may want to visit a country you never thought of during the planning process, maybe you even want to come home early. By having all of your flights booked, you are set on one itinerary. It can be very difficult to nail down an entire RTW itinerary for a year. If you have to reschedule a flight at the last minute, your availability will be even more limited. This means that you may not be able to fly on the exact date you want. Limited seats are available for RTW tickets. If you have a flight booked to Beijing and you want to change it to Tokyo, you will have to pay roughly $125 to do so. Once you start your trip, you cannot go back and change your route, at least not without paying a fee. It is permitted, but this mileage gets applied to your overall mileage allowance. For example, if you fly from New York to Budapest, and then fly from Budapest to Lisbon, this is backtracking.

However, you can backtrack across a continent. Once you fly across the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean, you are not permitted to fly back across it. All trips must return to the starting country within 12 months of the first flight.īacktracking is allowed, but you get penalized for it.

The maximum duration of your trip is one year. Oneworld’s Explorer Pass keeps things simple, charging you based on your airline class and the number of continents visited. You also have a maximum of 15 stopovers with this ticket. With Star Alliance, you purchase your ticket according to the number of miles you will travel, from 26,000 miles to 39,000 miles. There are a lot of rules and regulations.Depending on the airline alliance, there are rules as to how many stopovers you can have, how many continents you can visit, and/or how many miles you can travel. For example, your first flight could leave from New York City and your final flight can land in Washington DC. You must start and end in the same country. Therefore, you must know your entire itinerary before starting the trip. As you log thousands of miles on one airline, your frequent flyer mileage add up, bringing you the perks that come along with a huge bank of airline miles.Īll flights must be booked before departure. Sometimes, but not in all cases, this works out to be cheaper than piecing together one way tickets as you travel.Īirline Perks. By pre-booking all of your flights, you get a discount. This eliminates the hassle of searching for and booking flights as you travel.Ĭheaper, sometimes. You pre-book your flights before starting your trip. Advantages of a RTW TicketĮasy and Convenient. When you fly with Star Alliance, you fly with United and all of its partners. When you buy a ticket with Oneworld, you will fly with American Airlines and all of its partners. The two main companies offering RTW tickets are Oneworld and Star Alliance. What is a RTW ticket?Ī RTW ticket is a series of flights linking cities around the world, all offered by one airline alliance. If you will be traveling around the world, don’t automatically assume that you need to book a RTW ticket.There are a lot of rules and small print that go along with these tickets and you need to decide if a RTW ticket is right for you.
