Budget Travel - Need help to complete budget RTW Itinerary

Intend to a RTW on budget airlines this coming end april :)

So far have all these planned out. I'm from Singapore


Singapore -> Chennai (Tiger Airways) - $200 SGD / $130 USD
Chennai -> Sharjah (Air Arabia) -> $131 SGD / $85 USD
Sharjah -> Istanbul (Air Arabia) -> $222 SGD / $145 USD
Istanbul -> London (EasyJet) -> $201 SGD / $130 USD (Need help on this, any cheaper alternatives)

My next step would to be to continue on across the atlantic but i cannot seem to find any cheap flights on this. An after i've crossed the atlantic to an east coast city, is there any budget airlines that fly over to the west?

From the west, I intend to head to Vancouver where I would be able to head on to Hawaii using Westjet and then on to Australia and back to Singapore.

Thanks!

Sorry i left out the dates

Istanbul -> London (28th April)
London -> USA East Coast City (29th April)
USA East Coast City -> West Coast (30th April)
West Coast -> Hawaii (1st May)
Hawaii -> Australia (2nd May)

Not planning to stay long at each destination.

Istanbul -> London (28th April)
London -> USA East Coast City (29th April)
USA East Coast City -> West Coast (30th April)
West Coast -> Hawaii (1st May)
Hawaii -> Australia (2nd May)

Not planning to stay long at each destination.



I'll help you with the Hawaii sections. The cheapest fare from the west coast on May 1st to Hawaii is CO LAX--HNL for $235 roundtrip. The one way fare is $790 so buy a roundtrip fare and just use the outbound flight. I really don't know how much you'll be able to do since the flight arrives at 12:45pm HST.

I don't think you'll be able to do HNL-SYD for two reasons. One the flight is expensive, its over $1000+ for one way and the flight is over 10+ hours. I think you're taking this too fast and should at least spend a day or two at your locations.

I think you should either ditch the Hawaii plan or Australia. You can get a cheap flight from SFO to SYD for $654 round trip.

Are your flight plans flexible? You could save a lot of money by spending a little more time in these cities instead of flying in one day and flying out the next.

You don't mention any airline elite program(s)? Are you a member of any of them now? If not, it would be a good idea to get signed up in one or more of them. This trip could gain you some level of status on one of the airlines if you happened to find your trips consolidated on them.

I know you said "budget" airlines, but sometimes you get really good fares on the majors too.

I think it might be a good idea to finish roughly sorting out your trip first, and then revisit it thinking of the mileage issue. Maybe a little tweaking and a very few $$ will get you elite status or move you closer to it. For future trips, the mileage bonuses you get from having elite status really help add things up faster.

You've got enough on your plate right now, but I hope you revisit this issue when you've sort of got your arms around the plan.

Romelle

Not planning to stay long at each destination.

Yes, we can see that. Unless you really enjoy flying, I'm missing the point of the exercise. You will spend a lot of money and not get much back except sitting in cramped coach seats on LCCs.

EmailKid

The nature of LCCs is that you're not going to get especially good deals if you're booking only two weeks out. If you haven't booked things already I would recommend postponing this trip by a month or two if possible.

Before deciding on any LCC you should use Kayak.com to check what the major airlines are offering; for many routes this will often turn out to be cheaper.

Generally I would recommend flyglobespan.com for budget UK-Canada, but they don't seem to have availability in May. Aer Lingus often has good oneway transatlantic fares out of Dublin, which major carriers tend to match. Air Berlin and Condor might also be decent budget options, particularly if you are willing to drop your UK stop and change in Germany instead. Air New Zealand has some cheap LAX-SYD oneways.

WestJet does not appear to have very good fares from YVR to HNL, so if you do that segment you should look at flying Alaska Airlines instead. That said, I concur with relativelynormal's suggestion to skip HNL if possible; even if you can get a relatively cheap HNL-SYD flight on Jetstar, flying directly from North America to Australia will almost certainly be cheaper.

Hope this helps.

Canadian Affair (http://www.canadianaffair.com/) can get you from London to Toronto for £169 with Air Transat. It's not quite East Coast USA, but it's not a million miles away.

Yes, we can see that. Unless you really enjoy flying, I'm missing the point of the exercise. You will spend a lot of money and not get much back except sitting in cramped coach seats on LCCs.

EmailKid

Hmmm. Looking at the timeframes suggested by the OP, I think you have a point! If the OP is even 2% serious about this mission, they would be far better served by going to and actually seeing just one destination rather than having solely having contact with immigration officials and check-in staff. It's rather like those people who insist they've been to places such as Singapore, but have never stepped foot outside of Changi Airport.

Sorry i left out the dates

Istanbul -> London (28th April)
London -> USA East Coast City (29th April)
USA East Coast City -> West Coast (30th April)
West Coast -> Hawaii (1st May)
Hawaii -> Australia (2nd May)

Not planning to stay long at each destination.

I too am wondering why you are flying, because you are obviously not doing a mileage run at any carrier and you are not staying anywhere long enough to see or do anything. This will be a grueling schedule and I can't detect any purpose. What am I missing?

If you are a student on a tight budget and trying to avoid hotel expenses, I can understand, but in that case I'd advise one of the following: (1) Wait until you can afford at least 1-3 days of youth hostel type living in each city. (2) Skip a few cities and put that money into YH's in others. IMHO it would be more meaningful to visit just one of the great cities like Istanbul, Rome, London or Paris for a week. At most two in ten days. Save USA, Australia, etc., for future.

To be honest, unless you are on a mileage run, which has its own purpose unrelated to destinations, it is a waste of money and opportunity to go to cities like Istanbul and London for a few hours.

Visiting cities for only 1-2 days can still be very worthwhile, particularly if one is visiting a series of them with cheap/overland travel in between, but under the OP's itinerary they would barely have time to leave the airports, and indeed may have some difficulty making their connections. It almost looks as though they're playing some sort of LCC-Russian-roulette game, waiting for one of the LCCs strand them by delaying or cancelling so they miss their connection, and then spending a week or two wherever they get stuck. Another possibility is that they've made some sort of round-the-world-in-8-days bet.

At any rate, I think flyertalk should focus on the the "how" of travel rather than the "why". We've all traveled for reasons that some other people would consider dubious. If it's worth $2000 to the OP to see some airports and be able to think that they've been around the world, we should try to help them do so as cheaply and efficiently as possible.

Although if the OP would like to clarify their motives it might be useful.

It almost looks as though they're playing some sort of LCC-Russian-roulette game, waiting for one of the LCCs strand them by delaying or cancelling so they miss their connection, and then spending a week or two wherever they get stuck.

This should be stressed for the OP. An airline ticket generally requires an airline to get you to the destination on the ticket. They have to get you there, but might get you there late.

So if you buy a single RTW ticket, even if it's on a mix of airlines, and you miss a connection, the airlines are required to work together to eventually get you to the final destination on the ticket (presumably home).

But if you buy a hodge podge of separate LCC tickets with tight timeframes to go around the world, each ticket only guarantees you passage to the destination on that ticket. So if one flight is severely delayed, that airline will eventually get you to the destination on that ticket, but if you've meanwhile missed your ongoing flight on a different ticket with a different airline, you are at the mercy of that second airline to rebook you (likely at your expense). You could very well find yourself stranded somewhere along your itinerary with the need to pay big change fees on all your remaining tickets.

Try Aer Lingus via Dublin to either Boston or JFK. Should be around $462 or so....

Within the US, you can use southwest.com. They are great, but usually fly out of secondary airports. You can get them at BWI for a trip out to LAS or so.

You should look at Air Transat. They have some 200 pound one way fares from LON to Toronto, and 300 pound one way fares from LON to Vancouver. If you fly to Toronto, you can either grab a westjet flight to points west or do what the Canadians do and take the bus to Buffalo, NY and fly Southwest.

As many have already stated, your itinerary is just visiting one airport after the next, and what happens if your flights are delayed and you miss connections etc.? with no time between destinations a delay could have a cascade effect on all your flights. But not sure what your motivation is for doing this, just thought I'd give my $0.02.