Originally Posted by
eznh
Originally Posted by
stan1162
So Many Questions...
We are a retired couple who travel. End of 2025 or Jan 2026 we are starting to explore Asia. We think a RTW is the way to go.
1. OneWorld Global Explorer vs One World Explorer. We will be buying Business Class tix. We would like the most bang for the buck ( cost). Is one better than the other. We plan to us all 16 segments.
2. We can start the ticket any North American city. I've read Canada is a good place to start ( lower fees)?
The DGLOB34 (Global Explorer) costs the same as a DONE4. The only reasons I can see going for the DGLOB34 are that you want to fly the couple of airlines you can't on a DONE4 (but maybe with Fiji joining OW that will be less or an issue) or there is some way to get to 5 or more continents in the 34k flown miles you are limited to on a DGLOB34.
Get a trial subscription to Expert Flyer. You can get the RTW base fares and rules from there. Canada is better than the US. But they are much cheaper starting in certain countries in Europe (esp. OSL, ARN, BUD, REK, HEL) or Asia (Japan, India, Sri Lanka). From the east coast, positioning to REK or OSL and starting there could be the way to go (or to Japan from the west coast).
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stan1162 ,
eznh has provided some good points.
For such as this you need to know where to start. In most cases a DONE4 gives better bang for your buck - but that is somewhat dependent on where you actually want to go/see. For now, lets look at the costs of this OneWorld Explorer four continent fare which varies in base cost depending on the country of origin.
Starting in the USA has a base cost of USD12.2K, Canada USD10.5K per person. If you can fly to Oslo and start there the base cost is USD5.1K. Or Japan at USD6K (It can be useful to start outside the continent of residence - this can be wangled to give a breather mid trip.) See here for contemporary base price examples:
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/36757225-post2617.html
It is not unreasonable to expect to be able to comfortably locate oneself to a start point for a price point much less than the fare difference in the cost of starting in North America.