Question from a newbie (current SE on AC). I would like to book a RTW (starting either YYZ or LAX and hitting SYD, AUH and possibly a few others). I priced this on the *A site at abou $12k for business. Anyone know of other places to book that might be cheaper? A friend mentioned years back he booked through an agency in India (no longer around) and got a similar itinerary for under $5K.

It's all based on where you start flying from. The price will be different if you start the trip in India, but not if you still start in Canada and book in India. You might be able to save yourself some cash on the fuel surcharges depending on which airline you book the ticket with. Air NZ for example doesn't charge fuel surcharge on their flights to/from NZ and doesn't seem to collect surcharge for other airline's flights either.
I know United used to be the same, but I think they collect them for some airlines now.

Hmm... Interesting signature, but I somehow miss the point - AFAIK, Aer Lingus does not fly to Australia

It's actually a quote from The Simpsons. And sadly Aer Lingus (or pretty much any Euro airline except BA and VS) do not fly to Aus.

Welcome to FT . The answer seek is in the Forum Sticky which has reference to a spreadsheet.

Cheaper to start the RTW in Korea or Japan.

Which are the cheapest 5 countries from which to start a Star RTW journey at the present time?

AFAIK S. Korea/Japan/South Africa/ Egypt-- don't know the rest.

South Africa is very good relatively speaking, but it's neighbor to the East, Mozambique, beat the first class fare on a 29,000 Star 1 by US$2,000 (base fare of ~US$7,900).

I haven't found anything cheaper right now than Mozambique.

Hmmm..this is good to know, for those of us who live in the region. No RTW plans now, but I'll keep it in mind!

So you mean its cheaper to fly to one of these countries then start a RTW from there ???

You can buy the ticket somewhere else, but you have to start the trip at one of these places. Especially attractive in case you travl on a regular basis. Get to the starting point with a different ticket, start the RTW from there and then buy the next RTW and keep traveling.

I would recommend looking into Japan and Korea. Usually you need to connect there on a US-Asia trip anyhow (especially using Star).

Great,
So you recommend Star for a RTW ?

It depends where you need to travel. This is for F tickets mainly, looking at travel between continents.

US-Australia:
OneWorld wins, Qantas - on Star you are stuck on United (yuck)

US-Asia:
OneWorld wins because of CX and JAL. Star as L=limited connection esp. back from Asia to the US. SQ has limited F flights

US-Europe:
Star wins Swiss and LH win as long as you don't need to go to the UK. Don't like BA F too much and AA is subpar.

US-South Amerika
No winner. AA and UA, LAN (good airline) hasno F.

Europe-Africa:
Star wins, Swiss and LH

Europe-Asia:
Star wins, LX, LH, TG and SQ. CX is better than LX, LH, TG but need to connect thru HKG).

Europe-South Africa;
Star over OW

OW tickets are better for optimizing mileage earning by allowing some very long routing (based on continents) and sectors vs flown mileage on Star.=.

FF program: For F i like the LH program (triple miles, reasonable easy to find award seats in premium classes, much better than OneWorld in my experience.

Just my personal opinion, YMMV depending on your travel pattern and the places you usually want to visit.

great,
I'm looking to do Europe - Asia

Thanks for the infos