Don't worry about the country. You can always very easily buy it from the * carrier in any country. It was a pretty simple in Egypt...... Set up the ticket with airline before you depart.

If you are on the east coast of the US then Sweden is probably the most convenient destination. With the upcoming dollar rally then it should be more reasonable at some point in 2005. If you are in CA then maybe Fiji is not too far. The only problem then is that you are locked into flying to AKL.

I really miss the Egyptian deal..... I really enjoyed going there for other reasons.

Why no Star Lite/Special?
 

I am wondering why the Star Lite or Special option - 26,000 miles and 5 stopovers - has not been included. I have just bought this from Air Canada, originating LHR for GBP 1099.

On my first enquiry on 3 Dec 2004 I went through various cities asking the rates for the Star lite. The agent was very helpful, but the prices were all in C$ using the exchange rate of that day. In gact I had to pay a little more when I actually booked. We were both surprized to find the UK coming out cheap.

These are the 26K fares in Canadian $ on 3 Dec:

Toronto 3729
LHR 2448
BKK 2510

These are the 2900 Y fares from the same conversation
Toronto 4299
LHR 2894
SIN 3426
BKK 2838
India 2926
AKL 3051

I also got these Business class ones:
BKK 5244
India 5326

The Star Alliance tool for calculating distances and flights was really helpful. We are paying not much more for this RTW ticket and YYZ-LHR-YYZ (dept Jan) as we would to go to NZ, and YYZ-LHR-YYZ in the summer. There is the bonus of a visits to Bangkok, Melbourne and Oslo, changeable tickets, and enough status miles to qualify as elite.

It would be nice to see a fresh update on this chart for the new Calendar year .. reflecting price changes and currency shifts that have occurred.

Happy to help find some of the data ? Others ?? Who has the base spreadsheet ?

I question the Fiji statement. AKL is unnecessary if you can get a decent one-way consolidator fare on PH.

i for one would love some help on booking a RTW in C on *A. would like to make at least 30K-35K miles if possible. don't mind a few stops along the way.
am based in YYZ. i will probably go to DUB in feb and could possibly leave from there though i could take a cheap flight to latvia or any other cheaper city easily. i need to travel to VIE, POS, HKG,PEK, YHR, then back to originating city and home after that.
any suggestions?
M

mcrein - you may get a better response by opening a new thread seeking advice on *A RTW. This thread is for *A RTW prices.

I suggest you provide more info - eg how much time you have, which FFP you will credit miles to, etc.

Another update
 

My apologies for having been remiss in not updating the spreadsheet more assiduously. I haven't spent much time on FT recently, but you just have to keep coming back here somehow. ;) The latest update is today January 9th, and can be found here:

RTW Fare Spreadsheet

I've added prices for Poland and Argentina, as per thefareguru's posts in this thread. For Poland I assumed that the PLN basis means that the fares are priced in PLN and only converted to EUR for display. This means that changes in the EUR/PLN rate will change the EUR price.

As for retrav1k's comment on a widespread 5% increase, I have not incorporated this yet. I'd like some more specific data before I do that. So this may be subject to change soon.

donard asked why Star Lite prices aren't included; that's because I originally created the spreadsheet for personal use, and I was never interested in Star Lite. :D I may add it at some future point, together with additional oneworld non-xONEx RTW fares.

I also quashed a bug in the Star Alliance "compare to" cell.

Further comments and questions are welcome.

Whoa, Poland is the cheapest for a 29K C class? ?Is this an error? The Zloty has appreciated 24% or something like that last year vs. the USD, so it is unlikely that Poland would be the cheapest. Currency depreciation was a major factor behind the Egyptian loophole.

Also, Denmark is suddenly the cheapest in the western Europe. Sweden was number one before. Either is fine by me but there is no currency basis for this, so the Swedish prices went up and the Danish did not?

I focus on 29K C class since that's what I buy.

From the oops-files...
 

Eh, yes, Poland was wrong. :o I posted an update with the correct prices. Thanks for catching that.

I did not change any prices for either Denmark or Sweden, so it has to be a currency effect. The DKK/SKK cross rate is about 4% off its 04 maximum, and that's also roughly the current difference between the Swedish and Danish prices. So depending on your baseline, it may well account for the difference.

UPDATE: I did not change the Swedish prices this time around, but I did use Hagbard Viking's updated prices in the v1.1 November version, while Denmark stayed the same. That was a roughly 7% increase.

WearyBizTrvlr, again, thanks very much for this valuable resource! ^

Thanks for the info but the SEK strengthened versus the DKK (or EUR) in Nov and Dec but the gap has closed so the currency effect should not be significant. It must be the price increase that you mentioned. So maybe the Danish prices might not be up to date?

It's possible that I did not notice that S had overtaken DK.

Ex-Singapore *A RTW fares
 

STAR ALLIANCE ROUND THE WORLD FARES
Sales Period: 08 Nov 04 - 31 Mar 05 Fare Basis First Class Fares Basis Business Class Fares Basis Economy Class Maximum Mileage
( Inclusive surface sector )
- - - - YRWSPCL S$4547 26000
FRWSTAR1 S$13997 CRWSTAR1 S$ 9723 YRWSTAR1 S$4998 29000
FRWSTAR2 S$16097 CRWSTAR2 S$11183 YRWSTAR2 S$5744 34000
FRWSTAR3 S$18900 CRWSTAR3 S$13125 YRWSTAR3 S$6741 39000

ex-Sydney, Australia *A RTW fares
 

Star Alliance Round the World airfare
prices are per person. Conditions apply
Valid for sale and departures until further notice
Mileage Fare: Economy Class Business Class

Star 1:
Max miles - 29,000 $2769 + tax* $8306 + tax*
Star 2:
Max miles - 34,000 $3279 + tax* $9277+ tax*
Star 3:
Max miles - 39,000 $3819 + tax* $10355 + tax*

ex-Sydney, Australia *A RTW fares
 

Star Alliance Round the World airfare
prices are per person. Conditions apply
Valid for sale and departures until further notice
Mileage Fare: Economy Class Business Class

Star 1:
Max miles - 29,000 $2769 + tax* $8306 + tax*
Star 2:
Max miles - 34,000 $3279 + tax* $9277+ tax*
Star 3:
Max miles - 39,000 $3819 + tax* $10355 + tax*

Star Light Round The World Airfare
For routing up to 26,000 miles
Valid for departures until further notice (seasonal)
Seasons Price from
25 Dec'04 - 31 May'05
20 Aug'05 - 06 Dec'05
$2279 + tax*
07 Dec'04 - 27 Dec'04
01 Jun'04 - 19 Aug'05
$2669 + tax*

Yes, Lady Friend from Poland told me about the Zloty starting to catch up with the Euro now that it's part of the EU.

I was just rooting around in Galileo and comparing CRWSTAR1 fares in Europe. The cheapest that I found were out of Turkey:

FARES LAST UPDATED 10JAN 8:04 PM
$DISTIST-RTW+LH
IST-IST TUE-11JAN05 LH
TAXES/FEES NOT INCLUDED
PUBLIC FARES
CX FARE FARE CLASS
USD BASIS
1X LH 1995.00R YRWSPCL H
2X LH 2397.00R YRWSTAR1 M
3X LH 2762.00R YRWSTAR2 M
4X LH 3236.00R YRWSTAR3 M
5X LH 4550.00R CRWSTAR1 D
6X LH 5249.00R CRWSTAR2 D

FZSUSD4550.00EUR
EQU EUR3407.00

The next level was EUR3749 out of at least 9 countries:
TIA, PRN, SKP, LJU, ZAG, BEG, BUH, KIV and SOF.