Lessons

Lesson Info

Round The World Airfare

Now we also want to like level up in another area and how do you actually fly around the world? So we've got three goals for today's lessons to fly around the world on a single ticket to determine if around the world ticket is good for you and to help you map out a sample around the world itinerary also take it away chris okay let's do it so first of all let's talk about why a round the world tickets might be a good idea or at least some benefits of that I think I have three benefits here great around the world ticket is very flexible unlike award tickets and even unlike a lot of pay tickets if you have if you're traveling around the world ticket you can make all kinds of changes often at any time and either for a low fee or no fee at all. So for example, I often travel on these sixteen segment a round the world tickets which I'm going to show you here in a moment on these tickets once they're issued you can change the date at any time you can change the flight at any time and this is ...

all totally free. You could do that up to the day of the departure I have often been either in the airports or I've gone somewhere for two days and I'm like I want to extend for one day I call airline and they make the change no charge super easy I can change the airline if I want teo reissue the whole ticket and change the destinations that's also possible and there's usually a fee for that it's like one hundred one hundred fifty dollars but when you make the reissue you can make many changes as you wanted at that time so if you want to change three or four things you could do that offer one piece of super super flexible compared to a lot of other tickets they can be economical depending on your goals especially if you want to visit a lot of different places if you just want to go to a couple places maybe a standard award not a standard award but actually you're not standing you are not standard a saver you know frequent flyer ward might be better, but if your goal is to actually do something like really big and go a lot of places in my case I had to go everywhere going to every country in the world. So I used a lot of around the world tickets they can't be economical because it's a flat fair we'll talk about the pricing a little bit and also it's just kind of fun actually like the idea I really love the experience of having this ticket that has so many different segments that I'm like, I'm going to all these different places and I actually figured out a way of, like having one around the world ticket open and then kind of going home on an award ticket and coming back later to continue that the experience around the world ticket is valid for an entire year. I should have mentioned that before us, when I say it's flexible like once it begins, you know, got day one, you've got three hundred sixty four more days in which you can use all of those flights so flexible, economical and fun. We've been talking so much about miles and points in this course, but just to maybe sign up for a second is that a good value to use miles for around the world flight? The simple answer is can be in some cases, but actually what I'm going to talk about mostly today is a paid around the world fight when it's an award round the world flight is not flexible in the same way that a paid one can be. And though it's possible to do it as an award, it can be quite complicated with all of the different segments because you have to find availability in the last course that we did with creative lives, we actually had somebody call call in who had done their successfully, so when it's totally possible, he was able to book the award with miles. But what I'm talking about is a paid flight, and when you do that paid around the world that's also earning elite status miles, which will be talking about coming up so there's. Another benefit to that all three of the airline alliances that we've been talking about. Quick question, what are the three airline alliances? Who knows? All three raise your hand if you know all three of them. Yes, how many people know casey, I want to read about one world, sky team, star allegiance, donald lines that's good, good, good, perfect. So just you know, the reason why we stress that is alliance partners are often great for booking all these kinds of trips you do if you don't want to know that so all three of them have around the world products and as of now anyway, which is great, it didn't use to be this way. As of now, you can actually do a lot of the booking process for this online, so in some faces, depending on how it's booked and such, you may have to call, but all three of them have these really amazing. Around the world, planning tools that you can access online and you can actually go through and you can lose hours and hours and hours in this process. We won't spend hours and hours in this lesson. I'll come back to the one this is the one world I'm gonna show you that in real time in one second, so I'll come back to that. But just to mention that if you prefer star alliance, if that works better for your needs, you can also do that. My very first round, the world was with star alliance before I started using one world more myself and I personally have never done ah sky team around the world, but it is possible to do that, and they also now have a planner available so you can find the links to all these things just by googling sky team around the road planner or we'll probably have the links available in our resource is a cz well tell you a quick sample itinerary, this is a trip that I just took recently actually have two, three segments still open. I'll explain how that works there's a whole lot of airport codes, you don't have to memorize all these it's just kind of talked through you know how this works and why I did it? I chose teo begin the trip in south africa and the reason I did that is because the price of the ticket varies based on a country of origin or the country that you're beginning the very first flight. So in some cases, you can actually say a lot of money sometimes several thousand dollars, especially if it's a business or first class award by repositioning teo, a country in which the pricing is more favorable. I'll talk a little bit more about that, but I won't get into all the details, but the point is I had to get to johannesburg, so I'm using the word I booked a no war ticket to go to johannesburg. I believe I booked that with united miles on south african airways, so I flew from portland to washington, d c washington d c to johannesburg stay there a little bit, and I began this trip and this trip went from johannesburg to doha, qatar was going on. Qatar airways is really excited about trying that I continued on to paris that's, my second segment cdg, and then I was going to go over to london, but I decided to take the long way because I could do that around the world ticket and also that I'm crazy it's, probably seven hours from go hot tio. To charles de gaulle paris and you like to fly in the new a three eight yes right on dh obviously could go from paris to london in just a knauer or something but I decide to fly back teo seven hours on in seven hours until london and I'll just like took a couple of days you know in between each each kind of points I'm working everywhere that I go and I just try to enjoy myself but so I did johannesburg toha paris back to doa and then on to london and then that kind of completed my european segments so a round the world tickets are usually divided by region so I arrived in europe and middle east the region that consists of basically everything you can see from continental europe all the way through north africa and the middle east in the persian gulf that completed completed those segments then I flew over to the states from heathrow to l a x I flew home to portland and there's no direct l e x p exploits on one world so I did los angeles to dallas dallas to portland took a break you know I did some other stuff and at some point I kind of began this journey again begin that journey again I did portland to chicago to jfk then jfk to lax back across for the west coast and then I went to one of my favorite cities anyone know what that is sydney great job sydney australia one of my favorite cities in the whole world went to australia by the way australia another side note but helpful australia is ah wonderful place but it's hard to get through on award tickets it often takes some more difficult especially when coming from the states one of the most competitive market so there are things you can do but in this case it was great because I used around the world ticket I was like I used around the world ticket it'll be super flexible I don't have to worry about my dates sydney to perth in australia for a little bit then I'm going back to asia I'm going I'm going to asia for the first time I should say perth to hong kong and hong kong to haneda small airport in tokyo city kaneda back to hong kong and then eventually hong kong's johannesburg so actually haven't done those lass segments I use a variety of tickets so I believe I left off this trip in hong kong so at some point whenever I go back to hong kong with bill I'm gonna be able to go to tokyo go back to hong kong you are going to johannesburg we'll probably begin another ticket at that point but I won't bore you with that the point is you could do so much right look at all these places they're all flights booked on a single ticket I'm earning elite status miles you know for all of these lounge access etcetera so we'll do a demonstration here in a second but first some common questions how many miles or segments can you have one world which is how I travel with these tickets you can have up to sixteen segments there are no mileage limits at all and this is really important every segment is the same regardless of whether it's a few hundred miles or whether it's ten thousand miles it counts toward that same cat right? So you want to kind of maximize and really, you know, put those flights towards long haul flights or flights that otherwise be expensive if you're flying from new york city to washington d c that's one segment if you're flying new york city teo london that's one segment so obviously going to have a few connecting segments but you want to maximize star alliance does have a mileage limit when you purchased the ticket you choose whether it's thirty four thousand miles or thirty nine thousand miles I think there's a special economy only version that's twenty six thousand miles and when you use that tool it will kind of count up your segment you'll see exactly like if your over under backtracking people always asked like when it's around the world and I just like fly all the time and the answer is sort of it's regional as I briefly mentioned eso if you're in the region of asia you can do a lot of flying in asia for a few flights but then once you leave asia and you go on to europe for example you can't go back to asia until you come all the way around right? So if you're in north america you can do lots of flying you don't have to worry necessarily about where they're going easter west all that but then once you leave north america you can't come back uh did I mention changing itinerary mid route briefly touched on that it is possible to do so you just have to have it re issued usually a small fee for it so it can often be worth it if you change your mind about something, you have to make a lot of decisions when your first book around the plane ticket and people get overwhelmed like I don't know my sixteen segments so sometimes I will just book a lot of placeholder segments I'll be like, I know what I want to do for the first part of the trip this is five segments it's gonna take me a while you know, four months from now I might revisit this ticket and in four months from now I'm happy to pay one hundred dollars one hundred twenty five dollars change fee and just figure out the rest of it so that's very easy total cost varies a great deal this is something where around the world ticket can be is a slow is two to three thousand dollars again for sixteen segments all around the world super high value it can go up to ten thousand dollars or more depending on where you're beginning from and what class of service you're in but that's a general general range I would say for an economy or business class ticket depending on where you're starting from khun b three thousand to six thousand dollars so it's not that super cheapest thing in the world but again we're talking about value a lot of people are planning your long trips lot of people are planning to do something really big, so it can be great for that so far, so good I know that's a lot I'm going to show you something, but any questions thus far super didn't know I'm sorry I didn't know I was just going to say it seems that you could that there's real value in that if you could go back and forth the united states I mean, you know when you look at the price of the average taking the united states that's right and so actually not to get super technical but with the one world award of those sixteen segments up to six of them can be in north america so yeah great value okay wonderful. Any other questions? So I did that transition rolling my fault I tell you what, we're going to show you something you could do some more questions for us go ahead. I'm a flight attendant and I would like to invite two people to come on around the world trip with chris right so kendrick would you like to join us and in the trunk of my car got state on jen is also going to join us chris is gonna be our round the world trip planner excellent. Uh wait buckle up because we're going all the way around okay that's good. We've got some business class seats to get you guys that's right that's right? So we thought we'd just jen to join us and she's location independent and also often flies around to south africa in germany you know a lot we thought we'd ask kendrick because he wants to go everywhere basically so I'm gonna take you guys on a round the world trip and here's how I'm gonna do that if I could have my computer access that'd be great. And the first thing that I'm looking really simple I'm going to this complicated website called google we'll put the link for that in the course resource is and you can see exactly what I searched to get to where we're going to start I just sort of one world around the world planner not supposed to be a space in one world that's my fault but we're going to look around the world dot one world dot com and that's the screen that's going to come up and I'm gonna choose to travelers you guys don't mind traveling together is that okay? Just just met a few days ago that's right he's your apprentice that's great. I know you don't want to find economy class simon put your business class if that's all right? Okay. Great that's wonderful. So then the screen's gonna pop up it's going and basically tell me how to use the tool it's pretty intuitive I'm not going to read kind of all the things here but it would just kind of give you some guidance will say the important things are you can have up to sixteen segments you get twelve months to travel on a ticket on there are a few different rules for you know what cities can be used I know most of those rules so we're going to see how it goes and if I mess up then we'll start over. Um so the important thing is going to give a little guidance on how we're gonna begin this trip then you can tell me where we're actually going I mentioned the geographical advantage sometimes it starting from a place other than your home city or your home country and so I began that trip south africa but for the purposes of this trip let's begin from asia and if it's okay with you guys I'd like to start in japan is that alright? Okay japan's okay cool great on so the reason I mentioned that is things do change all the time the pricing changes it's quite dynamic but at least for the past few years japan has been a pretty good market to begin around the world ticket from aunt it's certainly great in terms of connections and things so here over here on the right you're going to start adding city's summit right in tokyo and sometimes the airport codes work and some of you have to write the city so we kind of figure it out so we're starting we're starting around the real journey here in east asia in tokyo and I'd like us to eventually get to hong kong but we don't have to go there right away so is there somewhere that we should go next from tokyo within asia get them? Yeah definitely you're gonna be okay. All right? Are we going to saigon? Are we going let's see it probably human city is it great warehouse that's going todo annoying right? Some type in illinois and I may add that and then it's okay, if we go to hong kong next sure I'll give you a decision you can make a lot of overland travel within asia, once you're there, you can use some of your some of your other points and do this. Use those distance based award charts and stick in some small segment so you don't want to use any of your big segments on the little trouble around there. Okay, great. So so far we start in tokyo way wanted to annoy you did some overland travel saw the sights? Maybe you went to allow that you went to cambodia and then eventually going to hong kong. So which which way we want to go next? We want to go to europe next week. I want to go to north america. We need to do one of those too. Uh really? What? Going to australia? I think we can have toured europe through more of asia maybe okay, like bangkok to you want to do that some way? I can change that up so far so here's what I want to do okay with around the world you can book it all all kinds of continents. What I'd like to do is book three continent worried so I should have told you that's my fault it is totally possible to go to australia and africa that's going to add some complexity to it so just for the purposes of this demonstration we're gonna just we're going to go to europe bye bangkok tried that's ok with you sure you guys need to talk this over like you know before you got here you made a decision way think that could work democracy yeah it's all right let's see if I can have bangkok okay um so then after this point that we do need teo got a little warning there but don't worry about that on the next plane that you know that works so they were like we actually do need thio continue to europe so is the middle east part of europe the middle and this is part of your that is correct do you want to go to the middle east on our way to europe here really really which what european city do you want your correction dubrovnik dubrovnik were going to rob mick but before we go to rob nick can you give me a major city can you get me london or frankfurter something like that to paris I think frank for it's probably the best way to get to the brother okay all right e no distance travel right great was not a direct connection but we're going to connect that up so okay brother make this british airways flight we're gonna find out okay we're gonna find a bus when I went there I discovered a problem that's fine. I'm pretty sure to get to dubrovnik we're gonna need to connection in madrid maybe somewhere else but we'll figure that out. And if this person you want to spend as well let me actually in this case let's see here madrid's okay. See what happens? All right. So for the purposes of kind of keeping the demonstration going, you guys going to do much other travel in europe? But eventually we need go to north america so much read his great madrid is a hub for iberia, so I'm gonna give you a couple options. We can go to new york, dallas, chicago, los angeles, dallas, dallas great big hub for american airlines. So lots of flights available from there. All right, so now we're in the states, we could do a couple things in the states we could go up to canada, but if we do that, we need to just plan it a little bit. So where do we where do we want to go? I've always wanted to go to halifax. Okay, I don't know if american airlines flies the halifax wait a table. Where were you from? The cover over in goober. Okay, let's not go there. Okay. Is halifax even okay? We're gonna find out you guys are giving me, like, a little challenge here. So that's fine, I respect that got some jet setters fearing apprentices going easy do you mind if I take you to new york? Next sure yeah I love new york it's been typing jfk but actually typing in y c because I want to see all the new york area airports it's a fun little tip if you ever like you know playing to go somewhere just talking in the small city like look at the whole thing great okay so we can probably you guys planning stuff negotiate you know yeah all right all right so we're going wrap up soon but eventually we're gonna get back to asia but we still have a little bit weaken do means we want to go to california do you want to go? You want tio we're already going to canada once we can actually go to canada twice you go back to florida did you like florida? Uh yeah I've been dead for so many years ago there were you not going to the states a big place for me I want to go we're side yellowstone national park where is that where's your tea first no no no sorry that's your summoning words it's uh near bozeman montana there's much. Um wait so it's a great big cities that's too funny all right, so we're gonna go denver and then way probably need teo and our north america trip in san francisco or los angeles either of those okay with you could you could actually back to chicago or something alright alright almost scared here guys, they're putting this to good use for you guys, okay? There in the audience you're dreaming about they're all around the world trip. So if you're watching this online, like, feel free to open a tab and do this yourself, I just want to show you how it works, okay? So los angeles and no, uh, we're gonna go back to where we started and where do we start? Great let's. Go there. Right. Itinerary complete. Look at that. So sometimes you do this, you see little warnings that pop up, but you should just kind of keep going. Sometimes those resolve themselves on something they have to do with these weird connection rules. You don't have to worry about all that. The next step, and this is the last one to look out for the demonstration, is you click on, proceed to choose flights, and then everything that we just selected is going to pop up. Don't worry if you can't read all of this, but these are all the cities that we just talked about. We talked about starting in tokyo, going to vietnam, going to hong kong, then going to bangkok over to europe, doing some stuff. They're eventually going to the states making a little side trip to halifax, new york city, new york, denver denver l a and back to tokyo there's so much more that we could do with this we could optimize this itinerary we could add more segments was actually only have twelve segments here and you can use up to sixteen so you actually pay no more except for the airport taxes to have sixteen segments instead of twelve so it's usually in your best interest to do that, but the next step which I'll just show you a little bit about only pick one of these let's see so you don't choose flight when we're going on this trip, by the way, let's see you're something and see what comes up checking flight availability don't actually know a lot about the flights to annoy from japan, so if it doesn't work oh great there's so many options perfect. So here everything's gonna pop up the best option here is going to be to choose the first one, which is the direct flights on japan airlines from narita teo annoy booked in booking class d, which is business class right? So there's a bunch of other options below these air all connections. So if you wanted to connect through somewhere we could do that connect their osaka, we could connect I can't give you an extra segment on that dragon air flight through hong kong because business class you'd get to go to that nice lounge okay, so you might do it this way. Wait actually we do have a next segment, right? We'll leave hong kong later something sure worked. Well, try what's right way do that you're gonna take that segments on that should be a dragon here fight well, just go a couple of days later I'm gonna fast forward this process just want to show you guys how to do this and then there's another dragon air flight back to hong kong. We're not sure if it will let me skip ahead and choose a different flight but I'm gonna try that. So let's say when I'm flying madrid to dallas you done all this stuff we did asia back over it's a couple weeks later now you should see some iberia options if that works I should see some american options. I might see some cochair options through london might see nothing at all we'll see sometimes the tool takes a little while to load and it may actually forced me to do all the others, in which case I won't actually do that hoping that a bunch of stuff with pop up anyway when you do this yes, wait for that comet what I'm what I'm coming to learn in it I'm also having had this experience myself of trying to play an around the world trip is like you say chris figuring out the segments is is really is really challenging and can be but using these tools is really incredible but just, um it just it's it's interesting to see this and you know the way that you're going through um how hard it is to choose a place right? It can be so just a couple quick no it's like there are various little rules that you kind of learn as you go along you can't have too many stopovers in the same place you usually can go back somewhere you're saying less than twenty four hours it doesn't kind of start over various rules about connecting between cities you can't just fly back and forth in the states like from l a to new york l a to new york back and forth like that the idea is the idea is like you supposed to hop around but you learned all that as you do it it's something that if you want to immerse yourself in it you can so this is the trip that we've got we can work out the rest of the flights later but basically we started you in asia we took you around a bit, we did some stuff in europe, went to north america and eventually made it all the way back all in business class was that okay? Is that all right guys, thanks so much help me plan this well done crawl. So I know that was a lot of any any questions at this point about this process? Yeah. Scott there's some other alternative planning tools beyond those two alliance tools that you like. I know boots and all I am they have a great example right there. So I like these tools for all those reasons I mentioned, but there are certainly alternatives. It is it is totally possible to piece together and independent around the world trip, and lots of people do that. I like the tool because it's simple, you know, it's just like plug it in and do it but boots anil booty nelle dot com is a great resource it's run by friends of mine in portland. So that's that's the way you can kind of do that independently. I don't know any others that's all I know questions yes or longer term travel. Do you think it's better to get around the world ticket or to do one way tickets? If you don't know exactly what I think, it really depends on your needs. I really relate to this version of doing it because of my style of travel. Not everyone likes my style of travel I e actually have never booked a round the world ticket I've always booked um just because I never know where I'm going or where I'm going from, and so I usually just typically do one world, one away awards and piece them together. So every time I flown hallway around the world, I've done it unfriend awards you book that in business class, can you tell me the price differentials are give me an idea that because back in the olden days when we had circle pacific, you have around the world fairs and you could do those have all gone away except for where still circle pacific it's still out there, some of those regional project still exist, so just briefly, circum pacific is like around the world ticket, but just like north america and asia and australia, new zealand so basically, like beginning in vancouver, canada, we're traveling to asia, china or something. We're going down to south asia that we go to australia, new zealand eventually come backto maybe los angeles and circle so so those tickets still exist. The pricing really ranges there's so many different products and it all depends on where you're going. The price differential is this is gonna be an estimate, but I would say it's probably about a three thousand dollar difference between economy class in business cuts in that example, but again that's not that huge of a difference, considering those price differences of individual flights that we looked at when we were looking at first class tickets last week it is completely possible for around the world ticket in a premium cabin teo cost less than a single round trip ticket in a premium cabin you know and I know most of us here and probably most of us watching we're not usually spending five thousand dollars on a plane ticket we wouldn't buy that five thousand dollars round trip ticket but the point is you know if you were going to do that I've got something you're really trying to work toward why not go all the way around the world and have all of those segments and all those miles that you're earning as well we're going to basically and has an elite member of that airline even if you never were before we'll talk about that later yes to buy the round the world tickets or is it better to use uh the points because I was looking online and they have some guide about meaning around world strategies where you can use air plan and do a multi city option so let's say one city in asia in one city as in europe and in once you're in dose particular cities you khun do another meanie multi city in itself so you know it's like this that the options are endless right? Three options it really is like what your goals are you trying to to do do you care about at least status or not? Is it's a once in a lifetime thing or are you trying to make travel a lifestyle? Are you working along the way? Is that a vacation? Is it it is so many different things so this is one great auction but there are others too and you gotta follow so by buying the around the world ticket then is the best way to get elite status is that it's not the best way to get elite status? No, we'll talk about that later but as a side dish around the rollers you will also in a lot of late status miles through the option on that ticket meaning like that's great we don't even talk about circus tickets surface route options so what a surface route is is on around the world ticket if I want teo go somewhere that's not part of the itinerary or something I can do that on my own and that just counts as a surface segment ondo that counts against you on the sixteen segments but you can do it how often have I done it? Probably thirty percent of the time they get a third of the time or something out there be something some reason why I want to do that I don't like to do it it takes away my segments you know but it is often a good reason for it okay, we could talk about round the world tickets all day, so every lesson has an activity. If you have your workbook, we're calling this round world brainstorm it's a lot of what we just did. What? You could do this on your own way, you can pick three continents, it can be four continents. We didn't even talk about going to africa going to the south pacific or going to south america on around the world just before we did. This lesson was talking with jan and she was talking about going to easter island on a round the world ticket which you can totally do that's what I did, I flew to santiago, chile, and I flew to easter island it's like a six hour flight from santiago and then back and then so there's all kinds of other stuff you can do your brainstorm used these tools list five cities or countries for each continent list airport codes. Bonus points include your dream destination and what's. The most important thing we learned today that round the world trips exist. That's really great, yes, yes, starting in a different airport starting geographic based on that, she said, a starting in different areas well is also being flexible and maybe spending, you know, the two, three thousand dollars on the round the world trip as well as utilizing my wars as well, so kind of balance in that act. Anybody do anything? Yeah, in the same. But that, specifically, starting in japan sounds like could be a good strategy, at least the time that we're filming this. But that that had no idea, didn't even consider that when I was was planning mine, great.