Hi All,

we are considering the "big trip" and are trying to understand the differences and benefits of each of the products. Please help?

We are in PER Australia and are likely to have about 7 weeks travel time, scheduled for May '09. Any thoughts, tips or ideas would be greatly appreciated.

The big differences are (1) the Global Explorer is mileage-limited while the Oneworld Explorer isn't, and (2) the Global Explorer allows travel on some additional airlines, namely Air Pacific, Gulf Air and Aer Lingus, plus QF codeshares on some others, including Air Tahiti Nui and South African between Perth and Joburg. There are several additional restrictions with the GlobEx, such as stopover limits and so on, but those are the big ones. For limited itineraries that include Australia/NZ, the lower mileage-limited GlobEx tickets (e.g. 26,000 miles/economy) can be cheaper than the least-expensive OWE, due to the OWE requiring that a minimum of 4 continents be purchased. However, if travel becomes more extensive - say by including South America or Africa, then the OWE quickly becomes better value.

You can do a good comparison using the information on the Oneworld website under "air travel options."

http://www.oneworld.com/ow/air-travel-options

Thanks.

I had a look at the oneworld web site, its just that i'm so unfamilar with how to put a RTW together and all the various nuances that it was and still is confusing me.

Gardyloo has already pointed out the main differences between the two tickets - generally, you can get much more miles out of a OW Explorer than a GlobEx but you give up the ability to use certain non-OW airlines.

I'd start by asking myself "where do we (think) we want to go"? For the OW Explorer, it's based on 6 continents - Australasia, North America, South America, Asia, Europe and Africa. Starting in Oz, you have to do at least 4 continents (the usual ones being Australasia, Asia, Europe and NA).

Are you intending to fly economy (cheap <relatively> from Oz) or business or first (much more expensive from Oz compared with starting in some other places).

Do you want to go all the way round the world or would a Circle Pacific ticket, covering Australasia, Asia and NA work (i.e., no Europe)?

So many questions, no answers....

Give us some thoughts on places you want to go and the group can help from there ...

The only reason (advantage) to use a GE fare instead of OWE is to be able to fly on the additional airlines allowed on the GE. If all of your routes are available on Oneworld, then there is no reason or benefit in considering the GE product. But if you need to fly to certain places or routes, then only the GE will get you there. Otherwise you are always better off with OWE instead. Makes it an easy choice, if you know your routing or can give up on the GE sectors.

I've used Global Explorer for work reasons because of the ability to fly Air Pacific to various south pacific islands.

Maybe yes, maybe no. At the 26K mi (Y) level the GlobEx from Oz is A$490 cheaper than a low-season LONE4. Many economy-class users of these products are very budget-sensitive.

But 26K mile RTW is almost impossible to route from Australia (it is primarily useful for northern hemisphere only). For example more than 26K miles is needed for the simple routing syd-lax-jfk-lhr-hel-lhr-syd. So it really has to be compared to the 29K fare, and even that prohibits many routings (no visit to most of the middle east, for example, as mileage goes over 30K for most routes).

Nonsense. Replace the second LHR in your example with any destination where you can connect from AY to QF (eg BKK, so syd-lax-jfk-lhr-hel-bkk-syd) and you're well under 26K miles. It may not be the most exciting RTW, but it's cheaper than the LONE4.

QF flies to precisely 2 cities in Europe (in Jan 2007) -- LHR and FRA. Shocking, isn't it? AY flies to HKG, NRT and PVG in Asia where you could connect to QF -- but AY has an inferior business and economy product, so saving the miles is at the cost of comfort. However it is a shame to go RTW without seeing more than 1 city per continent.