I've been comparing Star Alliance with OneWorld - neither really meets my needs, e.g. both are poor re Central and South america, and re Beijing
I believe other Airline alliances exist, and do RTW. Any suggestions?
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Stephen Petter, Retired, Quaker, Traveller, from London.

I saw a site that talks about many of the RTW fares from different carriers. Use around the world link at www.airtimetable.com I think they only list fares from the US but the other requirements should be the same. Welcome to these boards!

Thanks for the reference cy-gone.

Welcome to the boards! Here are some resources on RTW travel you might find helpful:

BUSINESS TRAVELLER, a UK publication, has a chart with RTW airfares in the back of the magazine each month
www.airtreks.com - web site for a US travel agency that specializes in RTW travel. Edward Hasbrouck works here; he has written PRACTICAL NOMAD: HOW TO TRAVEL AROUND THE WORLD. This was the best book on the topic. It has an extensive section on air.

An on-line RTW travel guide can be found at http://www.travel-library.com/rtw/html/

I hope you find some of these sources helpful. And would you please post any you find useful? I took a STAR-alliance RTW trip over the yearend holidays, and hope to take another within the next couple years. I'm definitely a novice on the topic, and eager to learn more.

Enjoy both your planning and your travel.



[This message has been edited by SanDiego1K (edited 02-03-2001).]

Delete - dupe post

[This message has been edited by SanDiego1K (edited 02-03-2001).]

Thanks to you all.
I found Marc Brosius's on line book very interesting. As for my original question we have pretty well decided (not yet fixed) to use Star Alliance. We understand the advice not to commit to a route but a RTW ticket is so much less expensive than a series of One Ways. (Or is it - I hope to check this today). Star All. do not forbid back-tracking - that's their great plus. We will supplement it with an air pass for norther South America and Central America.
So out current plan is London Rio, Lima, (Bolivia, Costa Rica, Honduras, Guatemala) Miamia, drive to S CA then to Vancouver BC. (Advice soought on this --- hire or buy and sell car/camper??, bus, train???)

Hawaii, Bangkok, India (long stay) Ulaan Baator, Moscow, St Petersberg, London. 1 year RTW ticket that permists 15 stops, 39,000 miles.

Comments??

Stephen Petter


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Stephen Petter, Retired, Quaker, Traveller, from London.

If you are planning to do a lot of driving in North America, I would seriously consider renting a car for 30 days at a time (the max. allowed by most car rental companies) on an unlimited mileage rate plan. With the amount of driving you are talking about, you will definitely make out ahead.

Just be careful of the fine print. Some car rental companies prohibit any driving outside the state, adjacent states, etc. in an effort to protect themselves against high mileage rentals.

Also, if you don't return to the renting location, you could get hit with a high one-way charge. Most car rental companies reposition a portion of their fleet from Florida to other states towards the end of Spring, and will offer some extraordinary deals to renters willing to drive these cars up North. This is another option you should consider.

I would recommend you to have a further look on the backtracking rules again. For my rtw last year I chose oneworld because it is much more flexible to route. Remember that any travel within one continent is never backtracking. The only rule is that you can't enter one continent twice (with the exception of North America that you can enter twice).

I would recommend you to have a further look on the backtracking rules again. For my rtw last year I chose oneworld because it is much more flexible to route. Remember that any travel within one continent is never backtracking. The only rule is that you can't enter one continent twice (with the exception of North America that you can enter twice).

in my experiences, 2-airline RTW tix are a much better deal than those hyped up alliance RTW's. example: UA-CX is a mere $3618 in C (starting in the US), whereas STAR RTWs in C are close to $5k.

Starting from London, the price difference is much less, though, as is also the actual price of on rtw. But I would still call some travel agents in London to check the fares for alternative non-alliance rtw.

Thanks again to Marc Brosius for his very informative online :-: RTW Travel Guide :-:, which lives at http://perpetualtravel.com/rtw/ and was recently updated, according to the copyright date.
JD

Curious on people's opinion re: RTW on SkyTeam in Business and/or F class using miles instead of cash... worth it?

On the driving from Miami to S. Cal. Be very aware that this is a VERY long trip. Just how long are you planning to take for this drive? And, what do you plan to see and do along the way? At what season? If you drive pretty much straight through you could make it in maybe a week, but, what would the point be? Also, as mentioned above, it can be quite costly to rent one way.

You might want to think about more flying and less driving. How about something like, tour S. Florida, fly to Albuquerque, tour New Mexico and Colorado, fly on to L.A. If you like, you could add some time in, say, Chicago. Such an itinerary could easily take a month.

By the time you drive from Florida to L.A. to Vancouver, you will be car crazy.

Europeans very often vastly underestimate North American distances when they plan drives. I recently had some UK visitors who planned to drive from L.A. to SF for a day trip and were amazed to discover that this was impossible as it would have required close to a thousand miles in one day.

We have a SkyTeam forum where you should be able to get some good answers.