Best value round the World Tickets

To book a round-the-world ticket with Amex points

All Nippon Airways (ANA), Japan's biggest carrier and an integrated member of the Star Alliance, provides probably the most precious round-the-world tickets. Used properly, an ANA Round-the-World Pass can save several hundred thousand points off the costs of having to buy either your First, Second, or even your Premium tickets in your city. Perhaps the best offer for the transfer and redemption of American Express Membership Rewards that have been earning on American Express Open's Platinum Gold Card, Amex's Platinum Gold Card and American Express Open's Platinum and Gold Business Gold Cards.

The Star Alliance is the world' s biggest air carrier, and Round-the-World tickets can cover any number of Star Alliance carriers including Air Canada, Asiana, Lufthansa, Thai Airways, SWISS and others. It is the 4th part of a four-part serial dealing with the Round-the-World Award and its benefits. The ANA Mileage Club uses an old distance-based pricing graphic for round-the-world-tariffs.

Onboard the Boeing 747 Lufthansa First-Class bed. The Star Alliance Round-the-World First-Class awards can be purchased through the ANA Mileage Club at the cost of doing so with other programmes. Thus, for example, a short course of R&TW such as JFK-LHR-ICN-JFK, which checks in at 16,000 mile, will cost only 105,000 mile to cash in a full season fare.

You could fly with some of the best carriers in the world, such as Singapore, EVA, Asiana and ANA itself. Are you not interested in understanding the specifics of this highly sophisticated prize? Avoid a great deal of trouble by working with a Juicy Miles or Points Pros advisor to help you schedule your trip around the world.

ANA' s distance-based diagram for round-the-world withdrawals. In contrast to a Star Alliance Round-the-World pass with money, your flight miles do not include floor transfer. Any journey must be either east or west. I have found, however, that ANA does not impose this limitation when it comes to connecting to a Star Alliance node.

Cabs can be mixed (i.e. Economy, Bus and First Class), but prices are always charged for the highest cab, even if a traveller only flies one way in this category. The voyage must cover all three ANA km areas and revert to the same origin areas.

The ANA divides the world into three areas to classify reward trips. Around the world tour trails are by nature more intricate than a regular withdrawal. First, look for cross oceans between continents. Do not use air carriers and air lines with high additional charges. In order to actually begin the quest, you can use an awards quest utility assigned to each Star Alliance carrier.

While ANA has its own affiliate award research tools available on-line, many find the Aeroplan and United Airlines sites much simpler to use for these needs. If you are using United's "Award Travel" feature (this is just a question of the "Award Travel" checkbox on the Air Travel page ), you want to find United services or affiliates that show availabilities in the Saver screen.

Please note that Aer Lingus is not a Star Alliance carrier, so these services cannot be purchased through ANA even if United indicates available capacity. Think about using land transport, low-cost airlines, or extra premium booking to create your own travel route. The Star Alliance option would have necessitated back-tracking to Vienna or Cairo - which would significantly increase the distances and added extra segment to my route.

Check the overall mileage against the ANA Awards table to determine the number of mileage needed. You can see below that my 11-segment route came in only the 12-segment maximum and took slightly less than 29,000 mile, which means that my redeem was 170,000 mile. Use the ITA matrix or the ANA tools to assess the additional charges.

It is much better to optimize your route to prevent additional petrol charges before calling an agency. And now to the most tricky part - the crediting of your mileage. Transfers from American Express to ANA take approximately 48hrs. It is possible that the premium stock may vary during this period.

You can of course earn proactive mileage with ANA prior to making a reservation. You should know, however, that ANA mileage expires after 36 month regardless of your age. However, I suggest that you transfer mileage to ANA only if you have a particular purpose in mind and are very optimistic that you will use it. As soon as your mileage has been redeemed and you are prepared to make a reservation, call ANA at 1-800-235-9262.

And ANA has some of the best operatives in the industry! ANA offers 24 hours of waiting if the mileage is already in your bank but you are not prepared for a flight, during which you can fine-tune your route. I needed less than 45 min to make my round the world outing!

As soon as a premium has been issued for the circumnavigation of the world, only the date of the trip may be modified. You cannot modify the carrier, flight or cabins without reissuing the whole flight tickets, which would mean that all your tickets are still eligible. At ANA, we charge 1,000 mile to make date changes.

One of ANA's main tasks is to pass on the additional cost of fuels to tariffs around the world. In some cases, these mark-ups can be significant and increase the value of a circumnavigation. Additional charges for fuels can be minimised or even completely eliminated by the avoidance of certain airline companies and itineraries. As a rule, long-haul services with carriers such as Adria, Austrian, Lufthansa and TAP Portugal calculate the highest charges between 200 and 600 US dollars peregment.

The LOT Polish charges petrol supplements, but these are often cheaper (~