RTW tickets?

Complicated scenario but we normally live in LA, I'm flying to UK in September with two small children. Want to book a ticket London-Seoul-Japan-LA (preferably stopping there but if its cheaper to book leg back to London no problem as ill be back next year)

Thought about trail finders but they do phone calls from what I can work out, any other ideas for companies/websites I could try?

Thanks!

oneworld or STA travel do rtw tickets or you could book direct with star alliance?

the good news is your route is fairly standard si that will keep fare costs down but i would look at how much single ticket prices to each destination add up to too, just to compare.

Why would you not book LA to LA? You are starting from LA, not London. In either case, there is no problem finding places to get a price. Look online, talk to a travel agency, just like you would for any other trip. Why would trail finders taking phone calls be a problem? If it's the cost of the call, do you know what Skype is?

You can probably beat a true RTW fare by buying point-to-point, but it also might depend on the age of the kids. Kids under 12 receive a 25% discount on Oneworld Explorer RTW tickets - go to http://www.oneworld.com and follow the links to the online booking engine.

Alliance-based RTWs are priced differently depending on where they're purchased. At present the UK is much cheaper as an origin/destination point than the USA, so if this is an annual thing, it would be good to start the "cycle" in the UK. RTW tickets are good for a year.

The base price for a 3-continent/16-flight Oneworld Explorer sold and started in the UK is around US$2580 plus taxes and fees. A quick back-of-the-envelope investigation of LHR-ICN-TYO-LAX-LHR using one-way fares came pretty close to that, but fares are quite dependent on the dates traveled so not knowing your dates this is a stab in the dark. Most likely the "taxes and fees" would add another several hundred dollars to the total for the RTW, but that price will be fixed for a year, whereas the point-to-points can fluctuate all over the place.

The RTW's real advantage in this scenario is that 16 flights are included, of which up to six can be within North America. So assuming the Korea and Japan stops are both to be done in rapid succession, with no time for additional touring in Asia, but also assuming that your "stopover" in LA is for a longer period of time, before you "return" to the UK, then you could use the North America flight allowance for any other personal or work-related travel in the interim.

For example, say you fly from Japan to LA to go home. But before you return later in the year to the UK, you could use the North America allotment to travel to, say, Alaska, or the Caribbean, or Central America, or New York, or... you get it. ("North America" includes the US, Mexico, Canada, the Caribbean and all of Central America.)

So in that sense, the additional initial cost of the RTW has now potentially turned into quite a bargain. Instead of four flights for $2600+ or an average of $650+ per flight, you've gotten, say, 10 flights for the same price, including 3 intercontinental flights at $260 each, so much better leverage. You can amend the itinerary in an RTW for a small change fee ($125 in most cases) and change dates at no charge, so they're not as "inflexible" as many people feel.

It really comes down to your personal travel patterns. RTWs can be cost-inefficient, or they can be spectacularly cost-efficient, depending on how they're used.

That's really helpful and really useful, thank you....especially as we're also mid planning trips to Toronto and Mexico at some point in 2014

Trip would start in London rather than LA because that's the flight pattern we're on - it was cheaper to buy a return ticket when we emigrated than a single so our tickets are now LHR-LAX-LHR, wouldn't matter drastically if I lost this next flight and started over from LAX but seems silly to waste the ticket if we can use it

Ahhhh, you have an existing ticket. Now it's making more sense. LOL The more relevant info you give effieloy the more relevant responses can be.

Gardyloo2's suggestion makes sense to me. I don't know if you could include both Canada and Mexico in the routing though. For example, LA to Vancouver (visit for a few days) to Calgary (visit Banff and the Rockies) to Toronto (visit) to London though should be a feasible route I would think and the cost of doing that separately would be considerable.

As Gardy notes, you would have to plug in the route and dates to start with and could then change the dates at no charge later if necessary.

I also agree that it is worthwhile keeping the 'starting point' in the UK for cheaper prices if you intend to continue the cycle. We travel to Scotland frequently (my wife's home country) from Canada and invariably it is cheaper for her sister to fly to Canada and back than for us to fly to Glasgow and back. I don't know what airline or prices you are using from London to LA but here in Canada Air Transat has the cheapest prices trans Atlantic.

Here's a sample route using Oneworld's Global Explorer RTW product (which allows using Alaska Airlines) that would work for you. It's a different product than the one I mentioned earlier, but around the same price.

Http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=lhr-icn-nrt-lax-mex-lax-yyz-ord-lax-lhr

Intersting gardyloo2. I didn't know you could backtrack like that on a RTW ticket. Your route is doing LA to MEX back to LA then LA to Toronto back to LA then LA to London. I thought you had to keep moving in one direction ie. east or west.

Intersting gardyloo2. I didn't know you could backtrack like that on a RTW ticket. Your route is doing LA to MEX back to LA then LA to Toronto back to LA then LA to London. I thought you had to keep moving in one direction ie. east or west.

The requirement for east to west or west to east is between TC regions and/or continents, not within them. With alliance RTWs you have to cross both the Atlantic and the Pacific (and the Indian if applicable) in the same direction.

With the Oneworld products the restrictions within continents are fairly few, for example only one transcontinental nonstop in North America (in the above case LAX-YYZ) and in Europe only two flights between LHR and various Eastern Europe/Middle Eastern cities, such as ATH, TLV, DXB etc.

For example, here's a 4-continent route (or something like it - memory isn't 100%) that I took a couple of years ago. You can see how the zigzags worked in Europe, N. America and Asia. (Pasting URL 'cause the TT seems to have a bug on html links - just cut and paste the following if it doesn't hyperlink.

http://gc.kls2.com/cgi-bin/gc?PATH=JNB-LHR-HEL-LHR-MCT-LHR-LAX-DFW-ANC-DFW-SEA-JFK-NRT-SIN-NRT-HKG-JNB%0D%0A&RANGE=&PATH-COLOR=red&PATH-UNITS=mi&PATH-MINIMUM=&SPEED-GROUND=&SPEED-UNITS=kts&RANGE-STYLE=best&RANGE-COLOR=navy&MAP-STYLE=

Illuminating.

I am not a fan of pre-booking anything so it is not something I would ever use but it's interesting. Now if someone could just invent a site that tells me how much time I will need in X to see/do what interests me, it would be of some use to me.

Have you ever wondered how someone who has never been to a place can figure out how long they will want to stay there? I go, I stay, I leave when I am ready to leave and not before. Seems to work out to exactly the right number of days in a place every time. ;-)

Have you ever wondered how someone who has never been to a place can figure out how long they will want to stay there? I go, I stay, I leave when I am ready to leave and not before. Seems to work out to exactly the right number of days in a place every time. ;-)

Like all things, it's circumstantial. If people don't have to be in a certain place at a certain time, then of course that can be a great approach. But not everyone can have that unstructured a life. I know, for example, that you have very strong feelings about RTW tickets and the "structure" they impart to travel. But the majority of alliance-based RTW tickets are actually sold to people who use them for business, who have appointments, deadlines, and other "structures" imposed on them.

One night I was on a flight from Vancouver to London (was the last person to board because of a hideous mis-connect, but that's another story) and while I was catching my breath and thanking the travel gods, I chatted with the fellow sitting opposite to me (in a BA business class "pod" facing forward, while I faced aft.) He was on a trip to visit his company's offices in London, to be followed by visits to offices in Mumbai, Hong Kong and New York, before returning to his home base in Vancouver two weeks later. He does the same trip (with minor variations) six times a year, using RTW tickets in the process. Doing so saves his company something like $50,000 a year in his travel costs alone.

Certainly a different sort of travel than the kinds talked about on this forum, but maybe a little illustrative. Not all travelers can pursue open-ended itineraries or sing Val-de-ri nonstop.

Business travel is of course a different story altogether gardyloo2. But I am only referring to travel for pleasure which is what this forum is all about.

People plan 3 days here, 4 days there, 2 weeks in Y with no way of knowing if that will be enough or too much or too little time for what they find they are interested in seeing/doing when they get there. It really doesn't make any sense.

I'm not talking about someone who books a 2 week holiday to a sun destination using a package deal from a tour company. I do that myself sometimes. But when people are planning a 6 month to 2 year trip 'RTW', that do the same thing. They plan it all out ahead of time. There is no need and no way of knowing how long to give a place.

Why do people who CAN 'pursue open-ended itineraries' not do so?

I see your point tis, but there is a balance to be achieved on most backpacking trips. I absolutely agree with you about those who take 2 days in x, 4 days in y then a few days in Z, that itinerary is exhausting at best and you cannot travel in an open ended way like this. However, most people do have to travel with a semblance of planning. Long 6 month to 2 year trips even have to take this form sometimes, especially with the rules imposed on people with an RTW for example. But on my longer trips (say a year for example) I will book my major flights with say 3 months within A and B countries, then a month or two in C, then 6 months in D and E before I have to return to A to fly home. For example. I'll still have an extra month to play with, and overland border crossings that I can choose to take at any time. It is still relatively planned, but relatively open ended too.

To each his own mike, I have no problem with that. I'm just suggesting people think about it before deciding. Most don't, they just follow the herd mentality.

On my first long term trip I bought a one way ticket from Canada to London. My intent was roughly to 'see Europe'. However, I ended up crossing Africa from north to south, working in Cape Town and returning a year later via Iceland and New York to Toronto. Nothing was planned beyond that first ticket.

I am a big believer that itineraries and pre-booking blind people to opportunities. I always recall a guy in the south of France. In a bar, another traveller said he was looking for a couple of people to share costs and join him in his VW camper to go to Pamplona for the running of the bulls. This guy responded with something like, 'Wow, I would so love to do that but I have a hostel reservation in Rome for next Thursday and a flight to Istanbul the following Friday. I CAN'T go.'

He couldn't see that his 'itinerary' was getting in the way of the potential freedom of travel. Freedom from everyday schedules and responsibilities is one of if not the biggest plus of travel. Why then do so many people immediately throw that freedom away by self-imposing a plan?

Suppose on your trip mike you meet someone at your first stop who says, 'I have a boat and plan to sail it from here to Fiji. It will take me 9 months and I'm looking for crew to share expenses. Want to join me?' Are you going to answer, 'Wow, ......... but I've got 3 flights booked in the next 9 months. I can't go.'

That I am not in disagreement with at all Tis,on the whole I agree with travelling with the minimum of planning and going with the flow. Most of my advice on the TT is to first timers telling them to slow down and don't plan so much. All I meant was that sometimes some planning is necessary, and in some cases (ie first time backpackers) certain planning points can also be comforting. Sometimes the potential freedoms of backpacking takes time to ease into for some people.

ugh you're both making me seeth with jealousy

You can always join us effie? ;D Get a plane ticket somewhere with only a general idea of what direction to head in and no plans to go home until the money runs out! lol! You know you want to! Come on over to the dark side!

oh please!!!

annoyingly I have two wee people who apparently need an education and a partner who wants his career...we are planning a full year out in a few years though to go wherever themood takes us around South America

otherwise, see you in about 18years?!

Haha. Well in the meantime there are always snap years for you! There are plenty of backpackers now who travel with families for shorter periods (say the summer holidays) or professionals who have taken a year out of their career. I meet so many of them on the road now. Personally I fit my career around extended breaks.

That year around S.America does sound pretty good!

Joking aside, I hope you gained the answers you needed from earlier in the thread. Sorry it turned into a bit of a discussion! ;D

no the discussions are the best ways these threads go, so interesting to read and inspire me to crack on with that SA savings account!

Ah, but there is an alternative as well effiieloy. It's called early retirement, as in real early. I had a 'career' etc. but at 35 decided I was not interested in working till I was 65, retiring with a gold watch and a pension and then kicking the bucket a couple of years later. So I came up with a plan to retire in 10 years and in fact achieved the goal in 7 years. That was 24 years ago.

Financial independence is the only true freedom in our world. Free to travel, free to chose where you live and for how long. I don't fit travel around work, I chose to figure out how to not work at all. ;-) Maybe you need to give that some thought mike. Why have a slice of a cake instead of the whole cake?

The thoughts are always there TIS, I'm still searching for the means! ;D

It's simple but not necessarily easy mike. Spend less than you earn, invest the difference wisely and figure out what you need vs. what you want.

Of course if someone is a burger flipper it might take them a long time to save enough and invest enough to be able to live off their investments. LOL But for someone earning even a middle income it is entirely possible. For many people the hardest part is figuring out the difference between a need and a want.

For example, it happens that a company is coming tomorrow to install a new garage door on our house. The cost is 2.5 times the cost of the cheapest we could have bought. But my wife insists she 'needs' that door to get the 'look' she wants. ;-)

Fortunately, that cost is still within the income we have without having to work.

Well maybe in a few years then! lol!

and once the children have left home....

In a 'few' years and when the kids are gone are fine. But do you have a plan of how to get there, that is the first step. Otherwise it's all just dreaming and not likely to happen. Come up with a plan and make it happen. You can start today.