Star Alliance round the World

Australian Business Traveller started working on the Star Alliance - the world's biggest alliance of airlines - world tour scheduling procedure early this month, and today we'll show you how to make your reservation safe, whether it' booked on-line or through a tour operator. Once you've selected which towns to go to, you can use the Book and fly tools on the Star Alliance website to make a difference.

To get too far, you will need to provide some fundamental information, such as your home state, how you would like to go (First First, Private, Premier or Economy) and how many people will be travelling. Like on many of our domestic trips, we will be booking Executive classes for an Australia grown-up airliner - then the following screens will appear.

Starting by typing your starting town ( where you are staying or will begin your trip), the other towns you want to go to, and then the town you want to go back to, which must be in the same county where you started. Here we are flying to and from Sydney, going to London and New York - but if you want to take off from Sydney and end up in Melbourne, that's fine:

If you click on "Select flights", you will receive a general offer that is more of an orientation guide but gives you an impression of what the trip could be like. Finally, the end fare will depend on the precise flight you are making, the tax and charges that apply to the country and airport to which you are traveling, and whether or not "aircraft fare surcharges" have been agreed for any of your chosen flight types, but more on that later.

You will then come across such a display with results ordered by journey times, but there are a few things you should be aware of. For example, Singapore Airlines charges this on Airbus A380 and Boeing 777-300ER services, thereby increasing the fare between Sydney and London by over US$1,200: ... or you can completely eliminate it by choosing another carrier, such as ANA from Sydney to London via Tokyo:

It is interesting to note that some Qantas home departures also appear as an option if they are coded by Air New Zealand, so you may be able to set up a home flight within Australia if there is another carrier or itinerary you like, or to prevent these "aircraft model surcharges", based on destination and date of travel:

But if you have a pronounced predilection for another carrier, there are also many one-stop choices via Air Canada, Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines, LOT Polish Airlines, Lufthansa, SAS, Swiss and TAP Portugal.

Basically, there are a few things you need to keep in mind-the fact that you have to travel in a general sense (east or west) when circumnavigating the world, and that you can only travel once across the Pacific and once across the Atlantic. This does not mean that some zigzag traffic is not allowed within each area, but you cannot travel from Australia to the USA, back to Asia, on to Europe and around to South America, for example: the trip must be logic.

When this is your schedule, you can create a simple PDF of your itinerary on the Star Alliance website to facilitate the reservation procedure. Reserving through a tour operator has several advantages: It is simpler to make changes to your reservation even after you have started your tour, as the reservation can be ticked by the last carrier you fly with and is therefore kept "open" for system changes.

Otherwise, if you book online yourself, your reservations will often be honored by the first carrier you fly with, making changes difficult. Both take these returns and you will consider nearly 16,000 bucks in air fares and easy 100 hour journey times - but airing around the world, as lush as it may sound, comes with 12,314 bucks: that means a savings of tens of thousands upon hundreds of bucks and almost half the amount of your trip to the same goals, which gives you more free flight or home for the same amount of timeframe.

But even intelligent travelers can put together two distinct fares - e.g. Sydney to London and London to New York - that could potentially make even more savings in times of high fares, but without the comfort and security of traveling with a fare: we give you the freedom to choose!