After having a few difficulties with regard to RTW pricing, I called and was again told email fares. I declined and pointed out that two weeks ago a gentleman quoted me exact fares.

I got put through to someone.

I told him I was previously told no First and he said "that is a lie, who were you speaking to?" I can't remember.

He asked me my routing, I informed him JNB-LHR-BOS-LAX-SYD-JNB, he got me the following fares:

First: $7600 excluding tax,
Buss: $5840 excluding tax,

He then went onto point out how many segments per continent I am allowed, that there is no fee for a change but a free of $150 for a routing change. This is a major surprise from the usual "I don't know" I have had in the past.

The fares above are they fairly competative? With regard to buying a RTW ticket originating from another continent.

Cheers

matt

I haven't looked up the ex-SA OWE fares (see the spreadsheet), but they sound like xONE3 fares and you would have to buy an xONE4 fare (or higher) for ex-JNB travel (adding roughly USD 1000 to the price). I presume this is a circle fare of some sort, though I have never seen a "circle Atlantic" routing before (kind of hard given no South Atlantic crossings). You'd have to give us the fare basis before we coud comment on what the rules might be and whether it is a good deal, or not. On the surface it is an average deal (neither good nor bad).

No, those are xONE4s, per WBT's spreadsheet and making allowances for ZAR > USD fluctuations. Some friends en route to SA this week (using ex-IST DONE4s from last year) are thinking about starting new ones there and trying to figure out how to juggle the two RTWs simultaneously.

So we've gone full circle and back to the situation of 5 years ago when ex-SA OWE fares were a good deal? Unlike some other countries that had cheap fares, and were raised to be the highest in the world. I guess there is a bit of politics involved in setting fares for some countries.