Hi everyone,

I have recently been looking at RTW fares and notice that there is a big difference between different countries.

For one to book a fare in a different (cheaper) country, does the RTW need to depart from that country, or simply need to be paid for in that country?

Does anyone have a suggestion where to start a RTW for someone living in AUS.

Your assistance is appreciated.

Yes, it also needs to depart from that country.

I'll state the obvious. AUS.

Now if you are asking where in the world are the least expensive RTW tickets then that would depend in what class you wish to travel. I understand Mauritius is one of the lower priced starting points and runs about $7400 for an AONE4 at current exchange rates and conversion fees (excluding taxes and fees). Now you would have to pay or use miles to travel half way around the world to start your RTW trip from there, and then return from there at the end of your RTW trip. If that is worth it from a time and money standpoint, then go for it. Economy fares AUS-MRU on AA/BA run between $3100-4700.

Others who have been following this would have better answers, or you can read through recent threads on this subject since that is where my information came from.

Thanks a lot for your quick reply.

I have a semi-unrelated question: what happens if you start your RTW from one country but your ticket expires before you return to the starting destination?

That's fine - Oneworld has no problem with you not using the flights you've paid for.

Does living in AUS mean you live in Austin, Texas or Australia?

RTW tickets are priced based on the country in which the journey starts and (with a weird Canadian exception) have to be issued ("ticketed") in that country.

Prices vary from country to country - and some countries are cheaper for business/first tickets and some are cheaper for economy tickets. If you want an economy ticket, Australia and the UK are two of the cheapest (of the "major" countries) in which to start. However, if you want a business or first ticket, they are two of the most expensive.

(Except for the weird Canadian exception) you pay the higher of the price for the country where it is ticketed or the price for the country where it starts. That generally means you (a) start the ticket from the 'low cost' country (b) figure out how to get it ticketed in the low cost country and then (c) figure out how to get yourself to the low cost country. Alternatively, you give up and just start from wherever you live....

If you can provide some input on where you'd like to go and what class (F, J or Y) you want to travel in, then there are lots of people around here who can provide good advice.

Since the decline of the rand, I believe that South Africa is now cheaper than Mauritius. At least it was in April, last time I bought an AONE4. Remember, too, that taxes and other charges depend a lot on whether you hit LHR in your routing. If you can avoid it, you may save some $$$.

The S.Africa/Mauritius question varies in a lot of relatively small-beer ways. You may find that at any one moment, AONE4 is cheaper in SA and AONE5 slightly cheaper in MRU .... and then comes the question of BA fuel surcharges v. AA etc. etc.

To come back to the OP's question, South Korea and Indonesia are possibly the most economic starting points for many Ozzies, bearing in mind the cost of getting there and back. A DONE4 is currently the equivalent of US$6,728 ex-Seoul & US$6,779 ex-Indonesia. (As Mauritius is treated as part of Africa, you should really compare with the DONE5 price there, which is US$6,855.)

As for avoiding LHR, the taxes are OK if you don't stay more than 24 hours (or if you're in WhY), otherwise, if you want to visit the UK, pay up & look as if you like it! (One avoidance strategy is to stopover in AMS or CDG & visit the UK on Easyjet or Eurotunnel. The tax difference virtually pays for the trip. Oz passports are visa-free these days in both these - in the past, you needed a Visa to enter France.)

Pretty sure the OP is in Australia, based on other posts.

Also it's not clear what the preferred COS is - if Y, Oz isn't that expensive a starting point, plus there are other RTW products besides xONExs and Globxs sold by Qantas and others there. Depends on itinerary.

My bad, I just assumed Austin since AUS is the airport code. The AUS-MRU prices provided in my previous post are ex-Austin Texas and all prices quoted including AONE4 were US dollars so that info really won't be that helpful at all for the OP - sorry.

Thanks for all of your replies.

To confirm, I am from Melbourne, Australia, and am researching possible fares for my parents.

I am looking at both DONE and AONE fares.

After doing some initial calculations, it appears that Mauritius is a good option as a starting point. The OW website has starting prices at about 6,369/7437. SA prices are a bit cheaper again, but the problem is that my mum doesn't like flying economy for long distances (does anyone?? but she really hates it) so the few hundred dollars cheaper in SA might not be worth the extra hours in economy.

Air Mauritius flies from PER two times a week, so i was thinking that they could get over to PER and then take the Air Mauritius flight one-way. Then instead of returning back to Mauritius, just finish back home in MEL and let the final segment expire. It is unlikely that segment limit will be too much of a problem because they don't want to explore Africa.

The one-way flight from PER to Mauritius is only about $1.6k so the total fare would be about 7990/9056.

I would appreciate your thoughts on the above plans.

Also, does anyone have experience booking and collecting a RTW from Mauritius. What is the actual process one would go through? I assume it would be through BA but is there any way to organise it through Qantas?

Thanks again for all your help.


Fraser

What is the sort of routing you are looking at? It's more than one segment that will go unused if you abandon an ex-Mauritius ticket in Australia.

A search will bring up many threads about this.

QF has no office on Mauritius AFAIK, only BA has (and they charge a high booking free in Mauritius). There wouldn't be an advantage booking through QF anyway.
You should really consider South Africa rather than Mauritius. Two reasons:

1. You can ticket through AA rather than BA/QF. This will save hundreds (!) of $ in fuel surcharges
2. You can get there with one segment, so you are wasting less parts of your precious ticket.

I take it you're using Oz dollars, although I know there's only about 2% difference at the moment.

You won't be able to leave only the final segment to expire, as there's no direct flight MEL-JNB. Neither do you have to ticket as far as MRU as you only have to end "somewhere in the African continent". You'll have to set the itinerary so that the final 2 segments are MEL-SYD-JNB, and then let these lapse.

There is a bit of a restriction in that you can't actually do a MRU- (or SA-) based RTW to include Oz within a xONE4 unless you go westbound and miss out any Asian cities. Otherwise it's an xONE5.

You can play with itinerary planning using Mileage Monkey & this itinerary should get you started. You can add up to 10 more segments, so long as you don't exceed 4 per continent (6 in N.America). Intercontinental flights don't count for this. Even the middle segments can be changed, but you can't avoid the first, or the last 2. There are other restrictions, but the OneWorld rules explain these, and MileageMonkey (MM) does a fantastic job highlighting them. Nevertheless, MM doesn't catch them all, so feel free to post your prospective itinerary here.

Have fun with it.

What happens if your original itinerary has <24hr transits through LHR, then at a later date (after having already paid and done some travelling) you reschedule flights such that the transits become stopovers ?

Look at Indonesia as a starting point. It has a base fare of ~USD6800 and with the volume of holidaymakers that go there from Australia, it shouldn't be hard to find a cheap positioning fare. It's also a lot closer than most other options (= less time in Y if you're looking at a A/DONE4) .