Custom vs Prepackaged?
There are a number of prepackaged round the world trips. Are these right for you? How do they differ from the the custom trips?
Round the World fares - an introduction
So, you’ve decided you want to travel around the world but you’re not sure what these basic or prepackaged fares are all about and how they different from a custom journey. Let’s explore both concepts, the pros and cons and when and where each is most appropriate. The basic itinerary is used by almost every travel agency when promoting round the world airfares. Always with the words ‘from’ proceeding the price. Yet, sales of the basic itineraries represent only a fraction of the overall sales of round the world fares. It’s worth realizing the total costs involved in travelling and really comparing the two options.
All of our consultants have extensive backgrounds as retail travel agents. When you first begin your career as an agent you have at least 2 days training on these fares, yet it takes at least 2 years to fully master the ins and outs of round the world fares. There are many options, pitfalls and traps to them, at RoundAbout Travel we try to keep it as simple as possible for you when dealing with this complicated yet exciting and valuable beast. The most basic premise is that you must cross both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans and not backtrack between continents. As long as you do that, you’re on a round the world ticket.
How the 'basic fares' work
Firstly, basic around the world fares are offered by Lufthansa, Air New Zealand and Swiss Air. Each has a set skeleton structure with some flexibility along the way. Air New Zealand is the more restrictive in terms of its route and Lufthansa is the most flexible. Let’s take Lufthansa as the prime example. Lufthansa are based in Germany and don’t fly to Australia – they use partner airlines to get you to one of a number of their international ‘gateways’. A gateway is basically a major airport they service. So, they basically buy seats off of other airlines to sell to you. Because of this, they don’t really care which airline they have to buy the seat off of to get to a ‘gateway’ whereby they can take you the rest of the way. The same goes for the return journey, thus meaning you can mix a ‘via America’ with a ‘via Asia’ and create a basic round the world fare. Lufthansa offer Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo & Bangkok as Asian ‘gateways’ meaning a stopover can be added as a base for Asia. For a supplement Shanghai, Seoul, Beijing and Johannesburg, South Africa can be added as alternatives. ‘Gateways’ in North America include Los Angeles, San Francisco and Vancouver. For additional cost many other points in the US and Canada can be arranged. Saying that, the additional costs to add in the premium ports takes the cost to be very similar to that of a custom round the world and thus defeating the purpose of the basic itinerary, cost effectiveness. If you are flying from Adelaide, Darwin, Brisbane, Perth or Hobart an additional domestic flight is needed to get to Sydney or Melbourne and thus additional costs start to add up and the gap between to two types of fares begins to narrow.
What's next?
From the aforementioned ‘gateway’ points you must fly straight to Germany, Lufthansa’s ‘home base’. All airlines bar Emirates will always retreat to these bases or otherwise known as ‘hub cities’. On this fare a choice of Munich of Frankfurt is available depending on where you are flying from. Thus you can see how the following itinerary can be achieved
Australia – Asian Gateway – Germany – West Coast North America Gateway – Australia.
Ok, so. Now that we have you in central Europe it opens many doors to either catching the Eurail network around the continent, picking up some cheap internal fares on low cost carriers such as Easyjet or Ryan Air or you can take advantage of the 2 coupons that Lufthansa will give you. Basically, Lufthansa include 1 flight FROM Germany into Europe and 1 flight TO Germany from Europe. You just have to pay the additional airport taxes making it a great value add. It also enables you to get back to Germany for the rest of your journey should your final destination not be Frankfurt or Munich. You can take advantage of these flights by leaving a ‘gap’ in the middle. For example, fly to London and make your own way to Barcelona and then continue with the Lufthansa ticket. There is no penalty and this is a good way to avoid backtracking when seeing the continent.
Custom designed itineraries
Now that you have a grasp of the basic itinerary with Lufthansa you can compare this to a 3-5 stop, 26,000 mile round the world. As we mention on several of our pages the airline alliances term these mileage fares even though our market uses the metric system. Yet, the custom remains. Also, very few people know how many miles 26,000 can really get you in terms of flying. Basically, the airlines worked out several ‘break’ points whereby any significant flying, backtracking or weaving around the globe would take customers over these magic numbers. The miles are calculated ‘as the crow flies’ or directly between two points. RoundAbout Travel has the experienced from working on many of these fares over our travel careers to be able to assist in both calculating your mileage but also key mile saving measures. Basically, by tackling the problem from a multitude of different angles the mileage can be brought down. This can be achieved by careful flight number choices, some flights between 2 points transit in 1 destination but if it remains the same plane and flight number the mileage is only calculated from the first and final destination with the transit point ignored. Also, there are a million ways to skin a cat and by using different routes and airlines we can maximize your value and try every way possible to keep you in the cheapest price bracket for your desired itinerary.
Saying that, basically a 5 stop, round the world itinerary with 26,000 miles will give you 2-3 stops in North America, 2-3 stops in Europe and any left over can be used in Asia. The key things to do to stop yourself from breaking the mileage barrier are…
· - Try to head in one direction when in a continent without too much back and forth
· - Try not to go from the top to the bottom and vice versa. For example, avoid going to Vancouver then to Dallas then to New York. This takes up vital miles. It can be done but limited miles would be left to traverse other continents.
· - Try to avoid Northern Asia stopovers such as Japan and Korea as these take extra miles due to the longer route between Australia and Europe.
· - Avoid Africa and South America if trying to combine with extensive travel in the other continents. These can all be done but will put you in higher price brackets.
A few sample itineraries which are easily 26,000 miles include…
Australia – Singapore – Phuket – London – Zurich – Toronto – Australia
Australia – Hong Kong – Paris – London – New York – Los Angeles - Australia
Australia – Bangkok – Phnom Penh – Athens – Munich – Los Angeles – Australia
Australia – Tokyo – Amsterdam – London – Chicago – San Francisco – Australia
As you can see, a multitude of options can be arranged and the above all have room in terms of mileage for more flights, but you are restricted to 5 stops on the cheapest ticket. On average, these fares range from $800-1000 more than a basic around the world. As the basic round the world fares are such good value, they tend to book out with 5-6 months in advance for high season and 3-4 months in advance in low season. As a general rule of thumb, low season are the times of the year that aren’t school holidays and are cold in the Northern Hemisphere. Here are a few of the benefits of the more expensive, custom airfares.
· - Higher Quality airlines, more in-seat audio and video
· - 2-3 months to pay for the flights
· - Free date changes except for the first flight out of Aus, once paid in full.
· - Better quality airlines
· - More choice of stopovers, can include east coast North America
· - You can include more internal travel and airfares to maximize value
· - Options for longer travel if needing 5+ stops or more distance to get to desired destinations
So, you could find that if you are including some internal travel and after a degree of flexibility that the prepackaged round the worlds don't suit you. We tend to find the value of the custom trips to far outweigh the prepackaged fares 9 times out of 10.
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Custom vs Prepackaged?
There are a number of prepackaged round the world trips. Are these right for you? How do they differ from the custom trips? Find out today in our prepackaged round the world analysis.
Round the World with RoundAbout Travel
A snapshot of what RoundAbout Travel has to offer for your round the world trip. Why you should be booking with RoundAbout Travel, Australia's only dedicated round the world experts.
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