Hopefully by now you’ve probably seen and read the RTW flight reviews we published back in January. If not and this is all news to you, let me give you the story of how we came to publish our free Around the World Airfare Report.
About six months back we were discussing round the world plane tickets and all the options available for travelers wanting to take a long-term trip. As someone who has taken a RTW trip myself, I knew all too well the frustrations that come with trying to figure out the best option for traveling around the world.
Do I buy a RTW ticket from one of the alliances? If so, what are all those pesky terms and conditions all about? Do I go with a company like AirTreks who doesn’t have as many rules and conditions but makes you set your itinerary in advance? Are there any more companies out there who sell RTW tickets? Maybe I should just buy one-way tickets as I go? But that’s sure to be much more expensive than going with a traditional RTW ticket, right?
All are questions I had back in 2008 when we were planning our own RTW trip. Fast forward three years – I’m back from my trip, working for a travel company who also sells RTW tickets, and I honestly still didn’t know the answers to those questions.
After discussing it more with colleagues, it seems that there aren’t many people who do know the ins and outs of RTW flights. Since we own this site called Round the World Ticket, shouldn’t we be the ones with authority on the subject? Shouldn’t we be the ones to provide these resources for travelers wanting to go on a RTW trip?
The answer was a resounding yes, so the research began. We started by coming up with three fictional itineraries. One was a super simple, 4-leg hub city RTW trip. One was a more complicated, 13 segment (9 flights, 4 overland) RTW trip. And the last was an extremely complicated, 17 leg (12 flights, 5 overland) RTW trip.
After coming up with the itineraries, it was time to shop them around. We didn’t do this as employees of BootsnAll, we instead posed as customers for the most accuracy. We spent the better part of two months emailing, calling, chatting, and compiling prices and information on the shopping process for these three RTW routes. We shopped these itineraries among eight different companies, including one in the UK for our British friends and one in Australia for our friends down under. We also wanted to see how the DIY model of purchasing a series of one-way tickets compared, so we searched via Kayak as well.
We began by publishing short reviews breaking down each company based on 5 criteria – price, search options, customer service, date flexibility, and route flexibility. We even asked you for your input on each company, so be sure to read through the comments to see what other customers had to say about each. And if you’ve used any of these yourself, please feel free to contribute your own review.
But we always had something bigger in mind. We had so much more information to share. So we organized it all and put out our Around the World Flight Report today. This 18-page report shows what ticket providers are cheapest for shorter or more complex RTW routes, offers nine sample routes with 60 prices checked, and includes a RTW provider scorecard, among other great information.
So if you are contemplating a RTW trip or in the middle of planning your own RTW trip, this is something you want to read. Taking 20-30 minutes to read through this report will save you literally hours, maybe even days of research. Our goal here isn’t to sway you one way or another – it is simply to provide the information. If it’s one thing that we learned from our research, it’s that there is no one best option for everyone. This isn’t a one-size-fits-all thing. Every traveler has different needs; it’s just a matter of finding out which one is best for you.
So go ahead and download the report, read it over, and please feel free to get back with us in the comments section of this post with any feedback – both positive and negative. Because the travel landscape is ever-changing, we plan to update this report 4 times a year, so any input you could offer to make the next version better, we’re all ears.
Thanks, and happy travels!