I wonder if anyone here has done one of those around the world trips where you can land in a certain number of continents and fly within the area? Does anyone have any recommendations of the best company to use to do this or any info on how doing this trip went? We want to go to Australia and the cost is so high, I thought we might as well try one of those special around the world tickets. They used to be inexpensive. I'd appreciate any input. Thanks. Linda
I bought an around the world ticket with star alliance (air canada, singapore airlines, air new zealand and lots of others). There are at least 3 different kinds as well as circle pacific tickets which you might be interested in. You can check them out on the Star Alliance web site. I used a travel agency to buy the ticket because the agent was local and had experience with these tickets. I thought it was a great deal, but I also bought business class and compared to a return trip ticket at business class rates, it really was a good price with the perks of business class everywhere.
if you are travelling within Australia you might consider the One World ticket as Quantas is a member of One World (along with British Airways and I think American Airlines and lots of others). This would probably give you many more options for travel within Australia.
I thought I would reply to my own question as I have done the trip. We ended up using the One World Alliance with American Airlines. Traveling this way is not slow travel by any means unless you take the whole year to do it. Because of a couple of scheduled events that we had to make-the Australian Open and a new grandson's arrival-we traveled a little more quickly than I like. We flew to Hong Kong and from there to Thailand, Malaysia,Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii, then the States. Everything seemed to work out fairly well. We never missed a flight or had one cancelled. We made a couple of changes during the trip easily but at a charge. One thing that bothered me was that they sent you back to hub airports to get to certain places adding hours to the trip instead of letting you go directly. An example is that we had to fly all the way back to Hong Kong from Malaysia to go to Sydney. It was a great trip and my favorite country was Thailand. It was full of interesting places and things to see and do and I would go back in a minute. Malaysia I found less than exciting and with little culturally to see. Australia and New Zealand were great but so western that, after Thailand, I was a little disappointed. We did see some fantastic scenery though. Hope this helps anyone thinking of doing the same thing.
Topic Closed
