World Trip 2005

Tickets

Grant Macandrew

So - how do you organise a trip around the world? First thing was to find a good Travel Agent. Many I approached were less than knowledgable. Fortunately, I found an excellent travel agent in Gerard Murphy of Bon Voyage Travel. Be persistent - a good travel agent can save you thousands, in getting you to where you want to go. In my case, a Round the World ticket was the best option.

So what is a Round the World ticket? It is a bundled airfare, available from a group of airlines such as Star Alliance, One World Explorer, or World Journey . You buy a number of air miles, and then can choose flights up to that distance with any of the airlines offering the ticket. Common to RTW airfares is you must start and finish at the same spot within twelve months, and not surprisingly, you must travel around the world (usually defined as crossing both Pacific and Atlantic). Another restriction is the number of stopovers and often rules on backtracking. Often,you have to plan your destinations, and while the flight times can be changed without charge, you will be charged for changing arrival and departure points.

With several to choose from, which is best? It depends on where you want to go. Because you are restricted to flying with ticket member airlines, your flights must usually either start or finish with a hub. A hub is an airport where a member airline is based, and so there will be many flights to choose from arriving at or departing from the hub. Every time you have flown in to an airport, you have to fly out on a member airline, and if airport is not a hub, your only way out may be either back the way you came or by paying for your own arrangements.

Back tracking, where allowed, uses up your milage going nowhere and means a more expensive ticket or missing out on later destinations. Overland travel is not a problem for short distances, and I travelled this way from Lima to Quito, from Beirut to Cairo, and from Mumbai to Kolkatta, but if the hubs are not well placed, you may find yourself travelling back and forth across continents, often not covered by your ticket.

As an example - to get to South America, I had to fly Air Tahiti Nui via Papeete to Los Angeles. From here, COPA took me to Panama and on to Lima, Peru. COPA also took me out of South America - to Havana, Cuba via Panama City , and departing this time from Quito. The key to these flight was COPA based in the hub of Panama City, and all my flights with this airline either departed or arrived from Panama. This access to South American was the reason I chose the World Journey ticket,with a 35 000 mile limit and ten stopovers. A bonus on this ticket was to be able to fly from Cairo to Kenya and on to Mumbai.