Originally Posted by
sabbasolo
In my experience, the website is cheaper than UA, but sometimes the mileage earning difference justifies the difference if you are a UA elite
My wife and I booked an RTW trip last spring, and took it this past fall, 2017: PDX-Fiji-Japan-China-Thailand-UAE-Switzerland-ATL-PDX. I got quotes for business class from several RTW booking "experts", UA, and the staralliance.com booking engine. I used the staralliance.com to pick the best flights, and had the various other sources quote that ticket.
The RTW "expert" booking sites wasted my time; even after talking directly to their "experts", they failed to route using the flights and booking class I selected. I spent an hour on the phone with United, and they came close to the flights I wanted, but at $15K for the trip in business, and $8K in Economy.
Kudos to the Star Alliance site and its booking engine. Easy-peasy, got the flights I wanted; ticketed on LH; even was able to get advance seat assignments. All for $11K.
Made one change to flying date for one segment, and it was easy via email. Tried to make a same day change in China, but that wasn't possible as agent said they needed 24 hours to reticket. Several minor changes due to airline schedule adjustments between time we ticketed and time we flew, but all came off without a hitch.
Only other issue was trying to change to an earlier flight in Shanghai (This was the NAN-AKL-PVG-NRT leg for Fiji to Japan); even though there was space available on the earlier ANA flight to NRT, the ANA counter agent said I had to reticket via LH, the LH desk wasn't open yet, and the phone agent for the RTW desk at LH said there wasn't enough time to reticket.
Be sure to have access to 24-hour phone agents, as when you are traveling around the world, your time-zone may not correspond to call centers that don't run 24-hours.
One other glitch was not being able to check-in before getting to the airport. Momentary worry was that something might be wrong with the ticket, though LH said all was OK. Seems that passport and/or visa info doesn't always migrate properly, requiring airport check in.
All in all, a great deal, a pleasant experience, double mileage credit to UA Mileage Plus. Kudos to LH RTW desk and the Star Alliance booking engine.
Booked as one PNR for both of us (evidently an LH one). This PNR worked at all the partner airline sites which I also visited for airline specific info. For payment, was able to split to two separate credit cards. Some airlines also provided an additional airline specific PNR (for UA).