Round-the-World Travel

You don't need to want to travel around the world to look into Round-the-World (RTW) tickets. They're not just for people who have months to burn. If you are well-informed and buy them in the right way (I'll explain later), they can be the most cost-effective way to travel internationally, especially in business class (and first class, but less advantageously).

RTW tickets come in two main varieties: mileage-based and segment-based. Almost all are mileage-based and have some common rules. the oneWorld Alliance has two RTW programs, one of which is mileage-based and the other of which is segment-based. I'll discuss the mileage-based ones because they are the most common.

The most common RTW tickets are:

• the Star Alliance RTW
  
• oneWorld Explorer (segment-based)
  
• oneWorld Global Explorer (mileage-based)
  
• The Great Escapade (Singapore Air, Silk Air, Air NZ, Virgin Atlantic)
  

The key thing to know is that they are priced by country. If you buy them in the UK, the price is different than if you buy them in the US. But you have to start your travel in the country in which you buy the ticket. Some require you to live in the country of origin, but if you purchase the ticket through a local travel agency in the country of origin, you usually won't have a problem.

The key advantage to RTW tickets is that they are flexible and offer the ability to travel extremely inexpensively to a variety of destinations, using first-rate airlines. Let's say that you are going to London for some other reason. While in London you can buy a Great Escapade RTW trip (my personal favorite) for around $1,500 and return to the US on the first segment. Later, when you want to travel to Asia, you can use your RTW trip to fly to Singapore and anywhere else that Singapore Air or Silk Air flies (up to a limit of # of destinations and mileage). If you want, you can continue your trip through India to London and return home on a new RTW trip (or the original return segment of your US-London flight if it has not expired). You can change travel dates as often as you'd like without penalty (though you'll pay a fee of $75-100 to change the routing).

Buying a RTW ticket is an ordeal. You cannot buy them online, and many of the airline representatives are not well informed about them. In my experience the airline with the most informed phone sales representatives is Singapore Air. They are much much better than most US-based airline representatives when it comes to RTW tickets, and they sell the Great Escapade as well as the Star Alliance and even a Singapore Air-only RTW trip.