10 ways to get the best value from Round-the-World flights
None of these points are earth-shattering but, collectively, they will help you get the best from a Round the World ticket - and most of the points apply equally to any long-range itinerary which has a number of stops en route.
1. When planning your itinerary, be careful not to arrange too many stops. It is tempting to think of Round the World tickets as some sort of “all you can eat buffet”. Without a little care, you can get indigestion and travelling can become hard work. Just because a ticket allows you to stop at X number of cities “without extra charge”, it does not mean there is no cost to you. Airport taxes and local charges have to be paid at each airport and these can really mount up. Also, each stop involves the cost of transport to and from a city-centre. A “free” stop in a city can easily cost £60 before you have even paid for a hotel or food.
2. Most people pay great attention to the departure time of their first flight and, maybe, the arrival time of their return flight. Obviously, these are important but you should also consider the timings of all flights on your trip. Remember, hotels normally only allow you to check in from early afternoon and rooms have to be vacated by 11 or 12. Early morning arrivals or late night departures can leave you “homeless” for hours on end. A couple of these might be unavoidable but, too many, could become really tedious.
3. Consider using airport hotels as a way of reducing cost. Let’s say you have a flight due to arrive in a city in the early evening. By the time you have got into the centre you will probably only want to have a quick meal and go to bed. Since an airport hotel might cost £50 a night compared to, say, £90, for a city hotel of equivalent standard, you are wasting the cost of the more expensive hotel because you are not going to be able to enjoy it. Spending the first (or last) night at an airport hotel cuts the overall cost and makes better use of your budget.
4. In big cities it is wise to stay as centrally as possible and book the best hotel within your budget. Better to spend three nights in a central New York hotel than four nights in a hotel in a poorer area. You are likely to get a much better experience of the city that way.
5. Work out which destinations on your route are “cheap” and which are “expensive” and try to plan accordingly. You also need to allow a few days for rest - it is good to have a break of five days at one hotel every so often rather than just darting from city to city for two nights at a time. For example, you could say that Bangkok is “cheap” and Hong Kong “expensive” so you might plan to have a longer stay in Bangkok, where you can find plenty of reasonable accommodation at all levels, and then just a couple of days at a good class hotel in the centre of Hong Kong.. Or you could choose Las Vegas as a cheap resting point in between visits to expensive cities like San Francisco, Chicago and New York.
6. If you combine all the points above, you can see that an eight-night trip through Bangkok and Hong Kong can be quite economical. You can spend longer in Bangkok, at a decent medium-grade hotel, maybe the first night of your stay in Hong Kong could be at an airport hotel and the saving on this would allow you to splurge a bit on a higher quality hotel in central Hong Kong for a couple of nights. Mixing the price and quality of hotels also adds some variety to the trip.
7. Whether you book your ticket direct with the airline or through an agent, the first airline you fly with is the “issuing airline”. Airlines like to boast of the advantages of the alliances and the “global, seamless service” they offer but if you need to make changes to a ticket you will very often be referred back to the issuing airline. It therefore makes sense to take your first flight with a well-organised, large airline with offices around the world. If only for this reason, we would chose to take a first flight, for example, with British Airways rather than Malev or with Lufthansa rather than TAM.
8. If you are trying to collect frequent flyer points on your long journey, you should give some thought as to which airline card you use, assuming you have a number of different cards. You can normally only use one card for the whole journey. Earnings benefits can vary quite significantly between cards so you need to work out exactly what you will get.
9. If you are not a member of any airline frequent flyer scheme then you should join the scheme of the airline you fly with first. Even if the journey earns you little or nothing it is worth registering just in case. A Round the World trip in Economy can - with some skill, and using the right airlines and card - earn you enough for a short flight to Europe.
10. Try to plan your trip with some consideration for the airlines and quality they offer. For example, if you are flying in Economy, you might prefer to avoid long, overnight flights - a Round the World ticket gives you every opportunity to keep these to a minimum. Similarly, if you have decided to fly Business Class, you should make sure that the longest sectors are on quality airlines that offer the best service available.
David Stone
