General Travel Advice group posting on GLOBOsapiens

RTW tickets - backtracking?

Postings 1 - 10 of 12

Page: 1 2

wojtekd Premium account Joined: Oct 02 Points: 74920 Posts: 411 Posted: 2007-06-18 16:36:00    Hi Globies A question to our air travel experts: there are several Round-the-world tariffs (RTW). Most of them do not allow backtracking on your route (going west you cannot turn east on one segment and then go again west). Do you know any RTW tariff which allows backtracking? Thanks Wojtek --- You can lose everything, but nobody will take away what you saw and what you experienced... W.D. Reply    Reply with quote    Contact wojtekd   rangutan Premium account Joined: Aug 04 Points: 34752 Posts: 1044 Posted: 2007-06-19 10:01:00    Hi Wojtek Both the two major airline alliances allow backtracking on round-the-world trips if they are WITHIN A CONTINENT. Check current "Star Alliance" and "Global Explorer" deals at your local travel-agent or see: www.travel-overland.de/specials/roundtheworld/sa.html €2099 (excl. Taxes) Maximum 26000 miles (41600km) www.travel-overland.de/specials/roundtheworld/gex.html €2000 - € 3400 (excl. Taxes) depending on miles Also, what other operators mean is "no backtracking on the ticketted route" That means one can backtrack at a point if one purchases the required return flight to backtrack and rejoin the RTW route. Example, many travellers passing westwards in Australian on a RTW trip puchase an extra Qantas National Pass to zig-zag through that country or backtrack east to visit some pacific islands on extra charter deals. RR --- Rudolf "Rangutan" Graspointner Reply    Reply with quote    Contact rangutan   wojtekd Premium account Joined: Oct 02 Points: 74920 Posts: 411 Posted: 2007-06-22 10:13:00    Thanks a lot - Rudi. This link is very useful - I tried to go with a dictionary through the German. Now I'll try to check what the other alliances offer. Wojtek --- You can lose everything, but nobody will take away what you saw and what you experienced... W.D. Reply    Reply with quote    Contact wojtekd   rangutan Premium account Joined: Aug 04 Points: 34752 Posts: 1044 Posted: 2007-06-22 16:09:00    Hi Wojtek ....sorry about the German links, they were intended only as examples. Instead of using a dictionary try http://babelfish.altavista.com where one can translate whole internet pages to English or a few other languages, not very accurately but quick and useful. See also www.airbrokers.com and specially www.airbrokers.com/html/around_the_world_travel.php for a lot of tips for round-the-world tickets. The service and deals seem to be for US citizens only but act as a good guidline. What is your basic intended route? Perhaps members can help specifically with your intended tagets. RR Does any member know of a "round-the-world" specialist in Europe? I'd like to do this oneday too! --- Rudolf "Rangutan" Graspointner Reply    Reply with quote    Contact rangutan   wojtekd Premium account Joined: Oct 02 Points: 74920 Posts: 411 Posted: 2007-06-24 16:06:00    Thanks again Rudi. I found english rules fot Star Alliance RTW tariff. (8 pages - ufff!). Very useful. But at the end they printed something I cannot understand: ... OPEN JAWS. Fares can be combined on the half round trip basis to form single open jaws.... I know what open jaw is... But I do not understand what they are writing about? OJ at the and of the route in the origin country? Do you understand? Cheers Wojtek --- You can lose everything, but nobody will take away what you saw and what you experienced... W.D. Reply    Reply with quote    Contact wojtekd   rangutan Premium account Joined: Aug 04 Points: 34752 Posts: 1044 Posted: 2007-06-25 15:22:00    Wojtek, check with your travel-agent/service or staralliance itself but I think they mean that; 1) if you travel westward starting in say example Frankfurt and ending in Warsaw, the RTW fare will be the average of the two fares FRA-FRA and WAW-WAW, or; 2) if you choose to travel part of the RTW-route on surface (specially on cruises or execive noth-south displacement)or say for example Rio to Lima through the Amazon jungle, the fare is the average of that flying via Rio and that of flying via Lima on the RWT. As recommended, please check this with your ticketing office or agent, they know best. Just found: one can now backtrack and zig-zag if one designs ones own RTW trip using LC (low cost) airlines. This was not possible till recently when now "Oasis Airlines" announced their Hong Kong - Vancouver connection closing the global circle. Combining "Oasis" with LC flights across the Atlantic and the Australian-Asia and Asian-Europe connections one can now fly around the world for as little as €800! Interesting for the courageous and patient "self planner" and does not include exotic travel targets, only well populated hubs and routes! Ref: www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2007/may/05/saturday.travelwebsites RR [ This Message was edited by: rangutan on 2007-06-25 15:45 ] --- Rudolf "Rangutan" Graspointner Reply    Reply with quote    Contact rangutan   spaceout Premium account Joined: Jun 02 Points: 20307 Posts: 56 Posted: 2007-06-25 15:31:00    Hi Wojtekd The best website is actually directly with the companies themselves. e.g. www.staralliance.com The sales the Travel Agents promote are on the website, but directly with the airlines you dont have to pay them commissions. Commissions with agencies are sometimes also applicable on changes which most of the time are free with the star alliance. Also on the Star Alliance website you are able to book the other passes e.g. South Pacific Passes, Europass.. etc.. You can calculate the mileage and also when you imput the cities you want to visit, if one isn't applicable it will indicate it. Vicki-Krista --- Festina Lente (Hurry Slowly) Reply    Reply with quote    Contact spaceout   wojtekd Premium account Joined: Oct 02 Points: 74920 Posts: 411 Posted: 2007-07-06 07:45:00    Thanks dear Globies... One more problem for the experts: In the rules of RTW tariffs they write "maximum 20 segments" or "maximum 24 coupons" allowed. What do they mean by segment? Segment of air travel like stopover to stopover with possible transfer in the middle? What do they mean by coupon? Ticket coupon? So to fly the segment with one transfer you use 2 coupons? Yes, they are very smart to limit the long trips... Thanks. Wojtek --- You can lose everything, but nobody will take away what you saw and what you experienced... W.D. Reply    Reply with quote    Contact wojtekd   spaceout Premium account Joined: Jun 02 Points: 20307 Posts: 56 Posted: 2007-07-06 16:14:00    Hi, Segments/coupons means 'from one city to the next city'. For example: non stop flight, London to Paris, is one segment/coupon. The maximum amount of coupons/segments will be determined taking in account if a paper ticket or an electronic ticket will be issued, and which airline will issue the ticket. That is why you will see different numbers of 'coupons/segments' as different airlines have different computer/ticket limitations. Hope that helped :-) VK --- Festina Lente (Hurry Slowly) Reply    Reply with quote    Contact spaceout   wojtekd Premium account Joined: Oct 02 Points: 74920 Posts: 411 Posted: 2007-07-06 17:29:00    Thanks a lot, dear Spaceout... :) So segment means a flight without transfers... Now, they have also limitation of stopovers and transfers... I understand the difference between two but do they count each stopover also as a transfer? So if I have a limit of 15 stopovers in the fare but I use also 10 transfers because there are not direct flights it means that I can make only 5 stopovers on my route... Am I right Dear Professor? :) Thanks... Wojtek --- You can lose everything, but nobody will take away what you saw and what you experienced... W.D. Reply    Reply with quote    Contact wojtekd   Page: 1 2