I just got it into my head that I want to do a RTW. I'm near LHR now and would like to include YUL, SIN, and TLV and as many other places as I have time for but I only have a month so I don't imagine I can fit all that many more.

However when I priced up even a simple 21k mile RTW on the staralliance tool it seems to price up to 2,300GBP minimum. That seems crazy. I could book three round trip tickets to those destinations from LHR for half that price. And that would be a heck of a lot more flying for that price (which isn't necessarily good for me).

Are they fleecing me because I'm starting from the UK? Is there somewhere better I should try starting it from? Is there some other trick I'm missing?

And anyone have any suggestions for what to fit on the itinerary between those cities? Incidentally I'll probably be headed West because I want to be in YUL the first week of September -- does that mean longer flights due to the winds or does that not matter for other flights (the only long flight I'm really familiar with is LHR-YUL/NYC which is a lot longer that direction).

Yes they are ripping you off because you want to start in the UK. Have a look at the posts in this recent thread for some advice - http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/star-...-cheapest.html

Hm, Jhawk's spreadsheet seems to indicate the UK fare should be about 1,500GBP. That seems more like what I was expecting, not 2,300GBP. Even 1,500 is probably slightly more than the three round trip fares around the world though, even including taxes.

It looks like Iceland would be the logical place to start a RTW. The innosked tool gives a price of about 2,124GBP which is still kind of ridiculous but is cheaper by more than the price of a flight to Iceland.

Except afaict there are *no* staralliance flights from Iceland to Montreal even with connections. Do any staralliance airlines fly to Iceland at all?

Lufthansa: DUS and HAM
SAS: Oslo

Ah, I found the Oslo flight (by looking at the arrivals and departures for Reykjavik). But one flight isn't enough since you can't visit Oslo twice as both the second and penultimate stop. I'll try to price one up with a DUS or HAM stop. Weird that it's not out of FRA and that BMI doesn't do it.

For reference the LH flights are both once a week on Saturdays (?!)

Hm, I do see those flights but the innosked tool doesn't seem to see them.

You can as long as one (or both) is a transit (under 24 hours).

Incidentally, for anyone else curious, I stumbled on the OZ RTW fare. You can get a significantly cheaper *A RTW fare ex-London on Air New Zealand. Their fare is about 1,050 GBP a.i. or less than half the *A fare.

You can actually make it all the way around the world on entirely OZ. If you add in any United legs (but you can't add arbitrary *A -- it won't get me to Canada ) they seem to add to the price, I'm not sure exactly how its calculated.

One thing that's annoying though, it's significantly more expensive going West than going East. I suppose most of the flights are in the northern hemisphere so they take longer going that direction?

Ah, the United segments cost 50GBP for SFO. segments to BJS or SHA cost 95GBP on KA (forget who they are).

4 FREE STOPOVERS PERMITTED - 2 IN EACH DIRECTION IN LAX/
SFO/HKG/SHA/TYO/OSA/AKL/WLG/CHC/YVR.
NOTE -
BETWEEN HKG-TYO/OSA SURFACE SECTOR IS REQUIRED.
SURCHARGE APPLIES FOR TRAVEL BETWEEN HKG-SHA AND
BETWEEN LAX-SFO. SURFACE ALSO PERMITTED FOC.
STOPS PERMITTTED AS PER SPECIFIED ROUTING ONLY.

I don't know why I was seeing westward travel being more expensive, but the ita tool doesn't show routing rules so maybe there are two different fares depending on which routing? Or maybe the routing landed on dates when different fares were available.

What trans-Atlantic route do OZ fly?

cheers,

Henry

Henry, I think you are pointing to that zkzkz is mixing up OZ and NZ!

Of course, there is no transatlantic route on OZ, but there are NZ1/NZ2.

Regards,

LH*GOLD

So now we have to be mind-readers, too?

cheers,

Henry

OZ, NZ, really, there is no difference. All those South American carriers are the same anyway.

Oops. Sorry, yeah, everyone from the southern hemisphere all look the same to me