GoRoundTheWorld.com - RTW Travel - Before Departure

Airline Reservations - The RTW Ticket “Primer “

Air transport is for many if not most people the key to traveling Round-The-World. So far I have focused on RTW airline tickets; however, there are other RTW transportation options in addition to such tickets:

Some travelers opt for a one-way or open-return ticket from home to a single destination, then build their itineraries on an ad hoc basis as they progress through their trips. Unfortunately for me, I wouldn’t be able to trust myself to have enough money to get home at some point! One way and open-return tickets can be obtained fairly cheaply through consolidators (see below for what that means).

Some travelers forgo air travel altogether and take boats across the seven seas. Sailing can be arranged on cruise lines or on cargo ships. If someone is considering cargo ships as an option, he or she needs to have some time on their hands - it takes 4 to 6 weeks to cross the Pacific depending on routing and transfers.

A few travelers attempt to drive around the world. For information about this, check out http://www.drivearoundtheworld.com/.

The focus of my website is RTW travel based on an RTW airline ticket booked through one of the major airline alliances, which is by far the most common way that RTW travelers execute their trips. For more information about the airline alliances with links to their websites, click HERE.

RTW Airline Tickets

When booking an RTW airline ticket, you may use a travel specialist or you may deal directly with one of the airline alliances. If you want to be in complete control of your options and how you are going to be transported around the world, you may want to consider dealing with one of the airline alliances directly as opposed to using a travel specialist. You should be forewarned, however, that some of the airline staff are better than others at getting around RTW ticket restrictions on your behalf, and at times you will have to push them to get them to try alternate routings or airlines for you to satisfy the sometimes complex restrictions attached to these kinds of tickets. If you decide to work directly on your RTW ticket (as opposed to using a travel specialist), you will find that after a few phone calls, you will know the ticket rules better than some of the airline reservation staff answering the phone! Each call will be lengthy (a half hour to an hour or more) as alternate routes are tried, ticket rules are reviewed, and different carriers are substituted in order to stay within the ticket parameters specified by the particular airline alliance.

You may also choose to have a travel specialist work on your ticket for you. Because of the complexity of RTW ticket rules and the number of decisions which have to be made while on the phone with the airlines, the travel specialist you choose will be making a lot of decisions on your behalf. Therefore, you will want to be sure the specialist is someone who is familiar with your travel style, preferences, and limitations.

As far as reservations go, the airlines will generally allow you to reserve seats as you develop your itinerary, then pay for the ticket once the itinerary is complete. Be sure to find out the reservation and ticketing policies for whatever airline and/or alliance you are considering. Be sure also to find out what the restrictions are for changing your ticket. You will want to know, at a minimum, whether there is a fee for date changes and whether routing changes are permitted after ticketing.

While you will need not finalize all of your arrival and departure dates before ticketing or departure, you will generally need to have a firm routing in place. In other words, you will likely be able to make changes to the dates you are planning to arrive or depart from a particular RTW stop, but you generally will not be able to add or delete any of the stops after ticketing.

Date Changes and The 330 Day Rule

The airlines will tell you that the dates on your RTW ticket are fully changeable, typically without penalty. All I have to say to that is, don’t count on it! The dates of your flights may be fully changeable so long as you change your reservation to the same inventory code for the seat on the new flight as you have on your existing flight. This can be problematic. For example, the flights to and from South Africa are always packed; it can be very difficult getting the same “inventory”, and, therefore, very difficult to change your planned travel dates. When I once tried to change a flight out of Johannesburg, I was told that the next available sea was six weeks later. That is hardly what many people would call “changeable.”

The date-change policies often lead to a problem for travelers who are planning to use the full one-year validity of their RTW tickets . Airline reservation systems can maintain bookings up to 330 days in the future. So, if you plan to fly more than 11 months from now; that is, during the last month of your ticket’s validity, you can’t book firm dates before you set off on your trip. Initially, you will have to ticket those later destinations using “placeholder” dates (remember, you need to have all the stops booked ahead of time). Then, as the 330 day window opens up, you will need to call the airline which ticketed your reservation and attempt to change the “placeholder” date to the date you actually would like to travel.

If you do find yourself needing to ticket “placeholder” dates, be sure to change those dates to the dates you want as soon as possible after the 330-day window opens. Otherwise, you run the risk of not being able to get a seat in the correct inventory, and your “placeholder” dates may wind up becoming the dates you must use, because those are the ones which have formally been ticketed.

I have found the airline alliances to be completely unsympathetic to this Catch-22. So, look on the bright side - working your way around rules like that makes you a savvy RTW warrior!

Types of Agencies Which Can Issue Airline Tickets

Airline tickets can be issued by the airlines themselves, by travel agents on behalf of the airlines, or by consolidators. A consolidator is an agency that has a contract with major air carriers to manage blocks of seat inventory at reduced prices which they then sell to the public, often at fares below what the airlines themselves are advertising. They are used mainly for international, business, or first class flights. There are hundreds of consolidators; far too many for me to recommend one or two. To search for a listing of “air consolidators” using Google, click HERE.

Paid vs. Mileage Tickets

You may be able to fly Round-The-World using the miles or kilometers you have accumulated in an airline frequent flyer account. That is how I ticketed my first RTW journey, via oneworld.

You will need to check with the alliances with which you have accumulated your miles about how the RTW restrictions change, if at all, by using a mileage ticket. On oneworld Alliance, the rules change in a very significant way - instead of having to fly in a single easterly or westerly direction, those using mileage RTW tickets are able to criss-cross back and forth, going east or west at will at any point during their journey. The advance routing and date change restrictions of paid RTW tickets are still applicable to tickets booked in exchange for miles on oneworld.