What are the best locations to buy RTW tickets. I live in England. What is the best way to go to the location to get the ticket? Lots of questions, any help would surely help me and others.

Regards,

Darren

I suggest you search this forum first, particularly the stickies at the top
of this forum.

I have the same question about RTW bargains, even though I skulked around the stickies. Since I am new to this, a lot is over my head.
My question is also: I should like to combine ff miles I have in various accounts. I guess AA (55,000+) and BA (136,000 household account) would take me from US to N. Africa and from there to ?
2 people could fly from US to Libya on BA, by land to Egpyt, on to S.Africa?
United (130,000+) and US Air (30,000+) can be combined.
I had hoped to convert NWA 60,000+ miles into an award ticket to Vietnam, but no luck so far. Will try for winter 07.
Can anyone point me in the right direction? Thanks.

No, they can't.

As for AA, BA, and NW, you should probably go to the fora that address those programs. None of those airlines are in Star Alliance.

Firstly, welcome aboard FT.
If you go to the first sticky (the post at the very top of the Forum entitled "Useful * Alliance References" or similar) and half way down the very first post you will see a large bolded reference to *RTW.
There are several useful links in that section including links to a comparison spreadsheet and links to worldwide prices. That should answer a lot of the initial questions for you - as to "good value agents" in the UK that discount these sort of fares, I have no personal clue !
Cheers.

Welcome to FT

As others have said, the sticky is full of loads of useful information. A search of the forum (or just looking back a few pages) will also give you a lot of help.

From my personal experience last year I would recommend you have a look at starting in Scandinavia. For me it was a toss up between Sweden and Denmark, and I eventually started in Stockholm. I haven't looked at the spreadsheet (linked in the sticky) for a while but I'd imagine it is still much the same. I booked direct with SAS and collected the tickets in Stockholm. The key point being that you have to physically go there and buy the ticket, if you go to an agent in the UK you will pay the UK price. The only exception to this is if you use travel agencies in Canada, but that's another topic you'll find many older threads about.

Bear in mind that it also depends on what class you are planning to fly in. My example (and many of the others you will find) are based on flying business class. If you're flying in economy then the UK is (or was) pretty much the cheapest place to start from anyway.

It is perhaps also worth noting that the *A RTW Mileage Calculator now provides fare information as well.

cheers,

Henry

ex-ARN seems to be the best value in Europe at the moment. CRWSTAR1 is ca. € 4.500 + tax.

Also play around with different ticket stock (UA / LH) because of the different fuel surcharges and taxes. My January RTW was ca. € 200 cheaper on UA ticket stock than on LH.

Anyone got current prices ex Tonga and Fiji by any chance?

I believe the excel sheet is outdated...

Thanks!

I too was looking at the best place to begin a Star Alliance RTW. I'm in Cailfornia so Fiji looked attractive, especially the first class prices shown in the spread sheet. Anyone know if that price is still valid?

Per EF: CRWSTAR1 SK D Round-Trip 5470.00 (USD)
CRWSTAR2 SK D Round-Trip 6295.00 (USD)
CRWSTAR3 SK D Round-Trip 7114.00 (USD)
FRWSTAR1 SK D Round-Trip 6949.00 (USD)

That's the lowest I see. Lower for Circle pacific.

im flying out of mexico and have really flexible shedulle but havent decide which one to use i want to go to or at least pass by nrt tpe hkg pek bkk bom dlh something like that and then go to europe via cai ist ath which one should i choose its going to be my first rtw trip and i want to do it right

thank you everyone

How ? I've tried the online version at http://www.staralliance.com and it requires you to email the Itinerary in order to be priced ...

Just download the software, input the itinerary as directed and the tool will calculate the fare (ex. tax and surcharges).

BTW, can anybody give suggestions on best starting location in far east or SE asia? I'm planning mine, thx!

Both version should provide the base price for the route you choose when you have a valid itinerary, however to get the full price including the taxes, you need to submit it.

However from what I can tell, only the downloadable version can properly send that off to the airline for pricing. I tried multiple submissions with the web version, and it always sent an email saying I needed to contact someone myself to book this. I tried the downloadable last week, and submitted my itinerary, I had a call from a reservations agent the next day.