Round the World Airfare

If you have ever contemplated taking a round the world trip, there are tons of things you need to take into consideration – where to go, how much to budget, how to save the money to actually do it, travel insurance, what to do with all your stuff – all are just a small portion of what goes into planning a trip around the world.

Once you do decide to take that leap of faith and commit to going on a RTW trip, your biggest expense is going to be airfare. There’s no way around it – you’re going to have to pay to circumnavigate the globe. Once you start researching, your head will no doubt start spinning and you’ll be asking yourself all types of questions:

• Should I buy a RTW ticket?
• If so, what company should I go with?
• But what about all those rules, terms, and conditions? They’re so confusing.
• Maybe I should just buy my tickets as I go.
• But then they’ll probably cost more, right?
• AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

I know what you’re going through. When my wife and I were planning our RTW trip back in 2007-2008, we were just as confused. When researching RTW tickets from the alliances, we were bogged down by all the rules – no backtracking, you can only travel in one direction, there are mileage limits, there are continent limits – the rules go on and on and on and on. It’s dizzying. There are other companies who sell RTW tickets as well, but what is the difference? How do you choose? Are there any options if you want to fly around the world in business class? So many questions, but unfortunately, it was hard to find the answers to everything.

With all this in mind, we at BootsnAll decided enough was enough. Long term travelers need a resource that summarizes all the options in one place. You need a way to determine which option is the best for you. So back in November, we got to work. We decided to do all the leg work for you. We researched all the options in depth. We made sense of all those terms and conditions. We interviewed travelers who bought RTW tickets. And best of all, we decided to price many of the options available for travelers looking for RTW plane tickets.

We posed as travelers and completed a secret shopping project for 8 different companies who sell RTW plane tickets. We came up with three different routes to search – from a simple, 4 leg, major hub city RTW trip to an ultra-complicated, 18 leg (13 flights, 5 overland) trip. We searched each route leaving from 3 different cities around the world – New York, London, and Sydney.

There is going to be a lot of content coming out in the coming weeks and months, and most will be hosted on BootsnAll’s sister site Round the World Ticket. We will also be offering a free ebook and authoritative report with our findings, and we will update prices and findings 4 times a year. So this will be an ongoing project that allows us to stay on top of changes in the industry. We started by publishing reviews of each company we shopped, and several of them are live right now:

• Oneworld RTW Ticket Review
• Star Alliance RTW Ticket Review
• SkyTeam RTW Ticket Review
• AirTreks RTW Ticket Review

The reviews will continue next week with the following companies:

• 1/23/11: Round the World Travel (based in the UK)
• 1/24/11: Roundabout Travel (based in Australia)
• 1/25/11: STA Travel
• 1/26/11: DIY (do it yourself) using Kayak

The coolest thing about this project is that we want to get you involved. At the bottom of each article, we give customers the chance to weigh in and rate each company. So if you or anyone you know has used any of the above companies for a RTW plane ticket, we want to hear from you. Also, if you know of other companies selling RTW plane tickets and want them to be included in our research, just let us know. So spread the word, like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, and sign up for our newsletter to keep up to date with all the new content we’ll be publishing having to do with this project.

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