How to book round-the-world airline tickets: Are they worth buying?

The results were:

Star Alliance

Economy: $4391

Business: $10,699

Expedia

Economy: $9124

Business: $14,974

Kayak

Economy: $7848

Business: $16,068

The most likely reason the RTW fares from the search engines are so expensive is that they're computing the cost of the ticket from one-way airfares. A one-way airfare is generally based on 75 per cent of the return airfare. Putting together an itinerary based on one-way airfares over three continents is going to be vastly expensive.

I then asked Roundabout Travel to price the same itinerary. Flying economy class, their price is $2188. Flying business, the total price is $7218. Travel in both classes would be aboard Thai Airways, Swiss International Air Lines, Lufthansa and Qantas. This is a saving of more than $2000 on the best economy class fare from Star Alliance and almost $3500 on the best business airfare.

You'd be hard pressed to find a return business-class fare to Europe alone for $7218 aboard premium airlines, which is the reason that Roundabout Travel sells as many business-class seats as it does economy.

"To be fair to Star Alliance, you could have five stops for the same price so in your comparison you're not really getting the most value from those fares," says Roundabout Travel Managing Director Mark Trim. "The Oneworld and Star Alliance RTW tickets work really well for people who want to do a six to 12 month trip, with 10 to 12 stops to get the most out of their tickets, but there are a lot less of those travellers. The vast majority of our clients are travelling for four to eight weeks with two to five stops and they're happy to tack on another continent to the trip."

What emerges from this pricing exercise is the value of an RTW ticket over a standard return airfare, but not if you take the DIY approach.

"It's complicated," says Trim. "Although you can book it yourself, RTW ticketing is not something you should be doing online. We have clients who will take 10 or 20 hours online to do what we can do in half an hour and we'll come back with a better price. They don't have a system access that we have for one thing, nor the expertise. A client might start out with 10 cities where they want to stop, it might be hopping around Europe for example, and we'll be the first to say 'Leave those five out. Fly into Milan and get a discount airfare to Sicily, get the ferry from there to Malta, get another discount airfare to London and take the train from there to Paris then how about driving to Barcelona?' You need to have your finger on the pulse to get the most value out of an RTW ticket and to know what's going to work with their itinerary, it's something you've got to be looking at all the time. Our clients don't need to learn everything about how RTW works because that's what we do."

It would be very unusual to fly every sector of a RTW itinerary with just one airline, which is another good reason for choosing an expert to organise your ticket. "You're flying under one set of conditions, " says Trim. "You can make a change to a seat or an airline, when you go into immigration it's all under one booking so you don't have any problems because they can see your exit point, the booking is all in one place, you've got one piece of paper, one ticket, one reservation number and it just simplifies all your travels. Even when you're flying on a RTW ticket aboard a number of different airlines, if you're transferring to another flight you'll never have to pass through immigration, collect your bags from the carousel and check in for your connecting flight. If one flight is delayed you are protected for the next one."

Crucial to understanding the difference between a ticket from Oneworld or Star Alliance and one that chooses the airline with the best deal for each sector is how many stops you intend to make within each continent.

"Typically travellers buying an RTW ticket are looking to include three continents in their itinerary with somewhere between two and five stops," according to Trim.

"They might want to make multiple stops in each continent but they'll cover their long haul airfares with an RTW ticket. A basic RTW ticket will give you one stop on the way to Europe. You can have say Bangkok or Singapore or Hong Kong en route to Europe, you can't have Singapore followed by Phuket, Tokyo, Istanbul then Cairo.

"If you want to break up your journey the more inclusive RTW tickets like those from Oneworld and Star Alliance give you a lot more choices. With those tickets you get the internal airfares, and internal flights have become much cheaper with the likes of EasyJet and Ryanair and JetBlue and Virgin America in the USA. Where One World and Star Alliance work in your favour is where internal air fares are expensive, such as in South America, where One World works especially well. If you want to do lots of stops around the continent and travel by air, that's a cost-effective ticket."

Other points that Trim identifies with regard to RTW tickets:

RTW tickets are non seasonal. They cost no more in high season, but they are subject to availability. To get a really good deal you need to book further in advance. So for December/January we start our booking season in February. You can't leave your run too late.

Generally you must complete your journey within 12 months, as with most airline tickets. Occasionally there are three month specials for a slightly lower price but basically it's 12 months.

Travel is in one direction per continent, so travelling west from Australia, the most popular route would be Asia followed by Europe and North America. Within a continent you can do a little bit of backtracking. Not so much in North or South America but it's possible in Europe.

See also: Is flying premium economy worth the price?

See also: The truth about what Aussies pay for flights