For months we’ve been simultaneously grimacing at the bad economic news and rejoicing at the fantastic travel deals that resulted from said bad news. We know we’ve been repeating ourselves on this subject, telling everyone who’ll listen, but some of the prices on airfare, cruises, hotel rooms, and vacation packages were just too good not to go on about. We kept wondering when the deals would stop.

We might be able to stop wondering now.

To be fair, it’s unlikely that the deals are gone for good, or that there won’t be another dip in prices after the peak summer travel season is over, but we’ve noticed prices creeping back up a bit over the last couple of weeks. If only this meant the economy was rebounding, then we might be more excited about an uptick in the cost of airfare… But alas, we doubt the two are so linked.

In any case, the good news for long-term travelers is that there are still great deals to be had on RTW tickets. These multi-stop trips didn’t see the recent steep drop in price that simple round-trip tickets did (although there was a bit of a drop), so there also won’t be a corresponding rebound upward. And because these long-term trips are almost always about being more flexible, your chances of scoring a deal are better overall.

Here are the new special deals on multi-stop airline tickets available through BootsnAll – these deals are good through July 31, 2009:

• Miami – Rio de Janeiro – Buenos Aires – Santiago – Lima – Bogota – Miami, from $US1299 plus taxes
• San Francisco – Hong Kong – Bangkok – Singapore – Bali (Denpasar) – Sydney – San Francisco – Honolulu, from US$1999 plus taxes
• New York – Beijing – Hong Kong – Singapore – Bangkok – Bombay / Mumbai – Nairobi – Cairo – Athens – Rome – Copenhagen – Berlin – London – New York, from US$2499 plus taxes

And if none of those itineraries suits you, stop by the BootsnAll RTW site to play with our RTW travel planner. It’s interactive and fun, and – fair warning – kind of addictive.