How do round the World Airfares work

Roundthe-world tickets explained - FAQ Friday

We were asked a number of questions about ticketing around the world last weekend. When you want to make a world wide booking, you can do so by ticking here. Around the world, ticketing works as follows: A world: a world KLM, Delta Airlines and certain airlines in Asia etc. e.g. JHB - London - New York - LA etc.

Hopefully this will help you better understanding ticketing around the world.

Astonishing Finnair Round The World rates

You know how many airline companies in Europe go to Australia? Most of the major airline companies in Europe are selling between Australia and Europe by using the service of the airline partners between Australia and the harbours from which they can collect you, e.g. Sydney to Bangkok with Thai Airways and from there to Frankfurt with Lufthansa, all with a Lufthansa ticketing.

Often these tariffs can be unbelievably versatile as they allow you to use a wide range of towns on different continents as stops on your way from Australia to Europe and back, enabling you to build a ticketing experience from Australia to America, Europe, Asia and back to Australia - all at a single flight back to Europe.

As a rule, these can be acquired for a small part of the Allianz RWT-rate. It has been some years since Finnair had tariffs that can be used in this way, but last year it made it possible to travel both South and North America in the same way, even incorporating flights between the two mainland countries with a one-way European comeback.

Because Finnair does not operate its own services to Australia, these rates use some of its one-world carriers, such as Qantas, LATAM, American Airlines and Cathay Pacific, to take you from Australia to a place where they can collect you. Of course, Finnair must always be used on departures to and from Europe.

They are definitely more restricted than a conventional Allianz RWT ticketing. You still have to track the route point in the tariff instead of just calculating kilometers or continents. However, the value is simply laughable, especially at the present time, while the early bird prices to Europe for next year are for selling.

Here is an example of a route that can be created with these Finnair fares: Overall cost for this route is AU$2135 inclusive of all tax! Finnair tariffs offer the lowest O reservation throughout the journey, regardless of the operator. Above route is just over 29,000 flying mileage, but due to the reservation category you would only get ~11,000 eligible mileage and 225 credit points if you had given the full route to Qantas Frequent Flyer.

When you book one of these rates, make sure you research the best programme to which you can give it. When you specify this precise route on the basis of an RTW tariff from one of the world''s leading oneware providers, the rate rises to AU$4658, more than twice the Finnair rate! Those rates also work in Bus Classe and the above route would be AU$9038 if you could book me all the way through the course.

That' a big buck, but in comparison to the costs of the same route as an on-eworld RoW Classic rate, it's still a savings of about AU$3000. Apparently oneworld's raw material rates are much more agile and there is much more you can do with them. Santiago, for example, is the only town you can travel to on Finnair rates and still be eligible to fly to North America.

Since Finnair itself does not offer flights to South America, you can only fly both continents in this order, while you can travel to North America, then South America and on to Europe on an one-way world itinerary. Another apparent problem is that you have to travel via Helsinki on the way between the USA and Western Europe, which extends the trip by several additional acres.

There' another thing that makes these rates a little bit fiddly. There is no on-line tourist office known to me that is able to evaluate these properly. This is because they are contrary to the rationale of the standardised tariffs in the pricing system, since the longest route will always be the one between Australia and America.

That means that a finnair has to be used as a bridge between the electroplating substrate and the tariffs during quotation. The Skyscanner won't let me put in quite as many breaks, but if I introduce the above route without a break in Singapore and just return from Hong Kong to Sydney (which actually lowers the GDS rate to AU$2022), the overall rate for the lowest score is over AU$10k!

Traveling via Asia, at least at the lowest possible price, allows 2 stops, while traveling via North and South America allows up to 4, i.e. route-based tariffs, so you can only drive via the towns on the trip chart. Santiago is the only real place to be in South America and the only flight you can use between South and North America is a one-way flight with American Airlines or LATAM from Santiago to Miami or New York.

When you look at only arresting in North America and not in South America, the listing of towns that can be visited is quite large, e.g. Honolulu, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Dallas, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston etc but most smaller towns are not in route sales. However, all in all, these rates are an unbelievably cheap travel around the world.