stimpy

You can have many stops in the same country. As long as you keep moving roughly in the same direction, east or west. Thinking of it from a US point of view, you can stop at JFK, then ORD, then DEN, then LAX...

pbd456

it is a mileage based product, they do enforce the east to west?

stimpy

Travel direction is roughly enforced, east to west or west to east. Within a country you can slightly reverse direction. For instance you could fly LYS-CDG-PEK-CTU-SEL...

LYS to CDG is westward, then to PEK is eastward, then CTU is westward, then SEL is eastward...

siw

Although this topic has not been added to in along time I hope it's the best thread for SkyTeam RTW questions.

Is it possible to start/end a RTW route from any city/country? Or does it have to be the home country of the traveller?

I was making routes to not exceed the RTWSKY4 fare level for 1 person in business class to start/end in LHR and is was £5558. Playing around with the SkyTeam RTW Planner it gives the other fare level prices of: RTWSKY3 at £6200, RTWSKY2 at £7065 and RTWSKY1 at £8124. Then I changed the start/end city to others around the world and found the prices to vary considerably, this was written about back in http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/3269127-post11.html.

However, the cheapest RTWSKY4 I have found was from Tunisia at £4210. Can this be beaten? Quite a useful start/end city since Tunis is not far from the Alitalia base at Rome.

The route that most interested me as it got to just under 26000 miles and would give me new cities to visit (except for Rome but that's just for flight transfers) was: 1) TUN-ICN (transfer in FCO) on AZ, 2) ICN-SEA on DL but tempted to replace with YVR on KE, 3) SEA-MEX on AM, 4) MEX-SCL on AM, 5) SCL-EZE on AR and 6) EZE-TUN (transfer in FCO) on AZ giving a total of 25576 miles in the RTW Planner. So I assume this route conforms to all the SkyTeam RTW rules.

delanotre

AFAIK, due to my french experience with AF travel agency, you cannot buy a RTW fare departing from another point of sale.
You have to buy it in the country you begin your trip.
So, for example, you need to find a tunisian travel agency accepting to sell the RTW departing from TUN
Be care of 7 days rule between sale and departure.

siw

Thanks for the information. That's a shame as it would save about £1300, but I guess if it was possible everyone would do the same. I assume that I can still start/end a RTW route from anywhere just so long as I purchase the ticket in the UK (at the UK price), or have I misread the rules?

delanotre

I don't know, you should ask to a company or/and to a travel agency.

To come back to your last question: have you try to ask a travel agency based in England but with a desk/correspondant in Tunisia, for example, to benefit the Tunisian RTW fare?

siw

The travel agency I use (www.trailfinders.com) do not book RTW tickets unless they start/end in the UK. They do for oneworld and Star Allaince RTW but just not SkyTeam

I called Air France (being a Flying Blue member) and the person I spoke to had no idea even that I could start/end a route outside the UK, instead she just spouted off a bunch of routes to me e.g. Amsterdam to LA, so no idea what that was all about. So I thought better than to ask if by starting in a different country then do I pay that countries' RTW fare level price. I expected this to be much easier to do and I am getting more put off since even an airline call centre operator could not help

irishguy28

You can start anywhere you like, but that doesn't mean that you can have that ticket priced in Sterling and issued in the UK.

Yes, of course. But you will find that the various fare bases are priced at the same price for many countries. For instance, whether you start in the UK or in any country using the Euro, you will probably find that the same price level is applied.

If you want to get a cheaper price, you would probably have to start from somewhere much further away, i.e. some African or Asian country, for example, where the fares are priced cheaper.

siw

irishguy28 thanks for the reply.

I did a quick look at the fare level prices for a few different countries and it looks like North Africa have the cheapest prices so I figured to start/end in Tunis as it is close to Rome for the various Alitalia routes. So if it is allowed to buy online and pay the Tunisia price then that saves about £1300. Getting from London to Tunis and back again would be cheaper than the £1300 to make it worthwhile.

jpdx

I am confused by the rules about post-departure routing changes. If I stay within the mileage I paid for (RTWSKY1), can I change the routing without fare recalculation?

delanotre

No:
A fare, including taxes and surcharges, is only valid if the flights are flown in the sequence provided on the issued Round the World ticket. Any change requested to the routing and/or sequence of flights might result in recalculation of the fare, based on the actual flight routing and sequences.

In case of no-show or reissue of the first flight coupon (flight from the Country of Origin), a fee of USD 125 will apply, unless this is due to illness or death of the passenger or his family. In case of rerouting, the fare difference, if applicable, based on recalculation of mileage and/or stopovers will be added.

In case of cancellation of the Round The World journey, a fee of USD150 will apply. Any change of travel dates, time, carriers or flights other than the first flight coupon, will be free of charge, subject to availability, However, a local service fee may apply.

https://www.skyteam.com/en/about/faq...ravel-planner/

siw

Hi,

Apologies for the long post but I hope you can stick with it and help.

I am getting the run around from SkyTeam (ST), Air France-KLM (AFKL) and Flying Blue (FB); i.e. ST do not reply when asking questions using their form (https://www.skyteam.com/en/about/faq...ravel-planner/), telephoning AFKL tell me to call FB and FB tell me to contact ST because I do not want to use Award Miles to buy the ticket. So I got nowehere.

I previously asked about a route starting and ending in TUN as Tunisia has the lowest ticket price. So I made a route which the ST RTW Planner has routed me through Rome with Alitalia and the route distance is 25902 miles, it is: TUN-SCL (via FCO with AZ), SCL-MEX (with AM), MEX-YVR (with AM), YVR-NRT (via SEA with DL), NRT-ICN (with KE) and ICN-TUN (via FCO with AZ). This is less than 26000 miles so in the cheapest fare basis RTWSKY4. But because the future of AZ is uncertain I have instead forced the RTW Planner for a non-AZ route by making CDG a destination to fly with AF but this puts the route over 26000 miles and into the next higher fare basis RTWSKY3. So if I book the original RTWSKY4 route and AZ fold or just leave ST what are FlyerTalker's guesses as to the fate of the ticket? Would it be re-routed via CDG with AF but with no fare increase or the fare is increased. Or the ticket is cancelled and refunded?

The above condition of enforcing CDG in the RTW Planner in the assumption AZ disappears means I cannot make longer routes in other fare basis as it exceeds the number of cities allowed even though CDG would only be for me a transit airport. So a longer route (32961 miles) I made is: TUN-PEK (via FCO with AZ), PEK-SHA (with CZ), SHA-XMN (with MF), XMN-MEL (with MF), MEL-SYD (alternative transport for city pair), SYD-SFO (via LAX with DL), SFO-ORD (via SLC with DL), ORD-JFK (with DL), JFK-GIG (with DL), GIG-TUN (via FCO with AZ). But I cannot make this enforcing CDG instead of FCO as it exceeds the destination limit.

Actually I want XMN to be a transit city and not a destination but the Planner forces Shanghai to MEL with MU, who I do not want to fly with as I want to fly with MF via XMN to MEL but the Planner is not flexible enough to do that. Also if I can remove XMN as a destination it allows another city in China to be a destination that I really want to visit such as Chengdu.

Any ideas on how to proceed as I cannot make the route I want as the RTW Planner does not allow me to set transit airports even though they (as far as I can tell) do not break the ticket rules. Thanks.

irishguy28

At a guess, the plating carrier would be required to re-route you, which should be done without a corresponding fare increase [it is not a voluntary re-route].

If Alitalia is the plating carrier, then you are in big, big trouble!

However, finding yourself in such a situation would be quite difficult, I imagine, to get anyone to take ownership.

I would strongly advise you to find a travel agent specialisting in RTW routings, and have them book for you. They would also be your point of contact in any such disruption in future. Having a human you can get hold of and talk to in such cases is invaluable.

delanotre

[QUOTE=irishguy28;28841546]...

I would strongly advise you to find a travel agent specialisting in RTW routings, .../QUOTE]

Yes, and the problem is not the routing that any TA will do but you have to find one in Tunisia because it is mandatory to begin and pay in Tunisia to have this tunisian fare...