Hi there,

I am just about to take a bit of a career break and thought that travelling RTW could be a fruitful exercise.

I am based out of Australia (Melbourne) and am travelling to Sri Lanka (Colombo) in Dec on a one-way ticket. I have to return to Melbourne in Mar 2014 to sort out some affairs here. I also plan to see parts of Australia that I haven't seen till June/July 2014. After this, I want to explore South America and Europe.

I am keen on starting my miles journey and thought the Oneworld Explorer RTW ticket would be a good starting point. I came up with the following itin by playing around with the online tool:
CMB -(CX)- HKG -(QF)- MEL -(QF)- DRW -(QF)- ADL-(surface)- SYD -(LA)- SCL -(LA)- GRU -(LA)- LIM -(LA)- EZE -(IB)- MAD -(AY)- HEL -(AY)- FCO -(AB)- TXL -(surface)- CDG (or LHR) -(RJ/QR)- AMM (or DOH) -(RJ/QR)- CMB

However the price with fees/taxes comes to about AUD5500. Having heard that an AONE4 (from KRT???) can be obtained for less, I am interested in hearing strategies to reduce the final fare and maybe increasing the number of miles. I am open to anything and my main aim is to cover South America and Europe.

Your help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks

The deals on AONEx's out of KRT were removed some time ago. Those fares are now comparable to AONEx's out of first world nations.

When I still got LONE4's out of Australia, they were 3900-4400AUD depending on taxes. Though my last LONE4 was in 2009 (have since been booking DAS13's to TYO or ICN, then starting DONE3s from Japan or South Korea).

Welcome to FT yads_oz

Generally, there is little difference in LONE base fares around the world
For example the ex-Australia LONE4 fare is lower than the ex-Sri Lanka LONE4 fare (AUD3,899 vs LKR550,000 (~AUD4360))

Currently, the cheapest places to start a premium cabin RTW are Egypt and Sth Africa
Base fare for ex-CAI DONE4 is EGP40,900 (~AUD6,150)
Base fare for ex-JNB DONE5 is ZAR67,880 (~AUD7,190)

Issues with these are:

• positioning flights to/from (they are further from MEL than CMB)
• security situation in Cairo at the moment
• Only two stopovers allowed in continent of origin (and Egypt is part of the Europe/Middle East continent)
• Starting in Africa adds a continent, at extra cost

Thanks for the replies Himeno and pandaperth.

pandaperth - Where do you get the latest pricing list? wandr.me seems to be a bit outdated.

Also in terms of taxes and fuel surcharges are there anything bad in the itin I have created?

I subscribe to expertflyer

Probably not
You can check out the fuel surcharges on each segment by using ITA

The prices for the LONEx fares are also less expensive in CAI and JNB albeit not dramatically so. If recall, when I checked earlier this year LONE4 exJNB was about AU$3000 plus taxes/charges. To use that SEAisa and NAmerica would be omitted.

In the end, I decided to use point-to-point fares.

Happy wandering

Fred

Hi

I've been looking at DONE4 fares for April 2014 departure from JNB in the last few days as well.

I looked at Expert Flyer today and it seems the price is 48,000 ZAR (about A$5,100).

Pandaperth, I notice you singled out CAI as the best departure point for DONE4. Am I misinterpreting the information on Expert Flyer?

Thanks

geoffb78

Slightly confused by this
48,000 ZAR is the old price for a DONE4
Prices changed back in May '13
see post #13 in this thread oneword-global-explorer-economy-sale

Which airline did you specify in expertflyer?

Hi Pandaperth

I didn't specify an airline when searching, however the price I mentioned was associated with AY. The same price applied to DGLOB34 (which I assume also changed in May 2013).

Presumably an oversight by AY?

I'll check the link you included above now.

Thanks

Geoff.

Yes, an oversight that is not bookable due to AY not flying there. There is a thread here about an AGLOB34 out of MRU on QR that I found which is also not bookable.

JNB seems to be cheaper now