The Around-the-World Ticket

A brief synopsis of how this ticket works. After much research we are going with the OneWorld alliance (www.oneworld.com.) They are by and far the most flexible as you only have to book where you’re flying to and from, but not when you’re flying. This gives us the flexibility to stay an extra week or two (or month?) if we’re really digging the area. The only other ticket rules are you must book your original departure date and time and the ticket expires a year after that date. You get 20 flights total around-the-world and you can use 4 in each continent or region. International flights do not count towards the four available in each continent, but do count towards your 20 total, i.e. LA to Auckland is 1 flight total, but doesn’t count as a regional flight because it’s going from North American region to Pacific Southwest region. Got it? Probably not, but that’s ok. It took me 3 months to understand it after 11 phone calls with American Airlines.

Flight Itinerary

1. Los Angeles, USA to Auckland, New Zealand
2. Sydney, Australia
3. Cairns, Australia (Overland)
4. Perth, Australia
5. Tokyo, Japan
6. Beijing, China
7. Hong Kong, China
8. Bangkok, Thailand (Overland to Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia)

1. Mumbai, India
2. Amman, Jordan (Overland to Israel and Egypt)
3. Istanbul, Turkey
4. Budapest, Hungary
5. Athens, Greece
6. Eurail Travel (Leaving from Athens, heading North through Croatia and Slovenia, then west through Italy, France, Spain and Portugal. From Spain we are planning on taking a ferry down into Morrocco. We leave for Brazil from Madrid, so we have to return to Spain to depart.) Overland travel counts as 1 flight towards the 20 since we arrived in one airport and are departing from another.
7. Quito, Ecuador
8. Lima, Peru
9. Santiago, Chile
10. Buenos Aires, Argentina
11. Sao Paulo, Brazil
12. New York City, USA