Article: How to Book a First Class Round-the-World Ticket

[AFF Editor]

How to Book a First Class Round-the-World Ticket is an article written by AFF editorial staff:

How to Book a First Class Round-the-World Ticket from Australia

There are a few different ways to book a First Class round-the-world ticket from Australia, using either money or frequent flyer points.

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

You can leave a comment or discuss this topic below.

 

[Berlin]

Mhm, that Lufthansa ticket sounds quite attractive- I wasn’t aware it existed!

Thanks for the info, any idea of how easy it is to get the actual seats with that one from people who have done it before? I’m thinking of a rather simple SYD-SIN-Europe-USA-SYD route…

 

[Daver6]

Can you mix and match where you credit flights to with the Lufthansa Group special round-the-world ticket? Ie, can you credit the QF flights to QF, SQ to VA etc?

 

[Valuecreator]

Great article Matt, well thought out and good suggestions. Thanks kindly, much appreciated.

 

[Princess Fiona]

Can you mix and match where you credit flights to with the Lufthansa Group special round-the-world ticket? Ie, can you credit the QF flights to QF, SQ to VA etc?

Yes you can indeed

 

[RooFlyer]

Can you mix and match where you credit flights to with the Lufthansa Group special round-the-world ticket? Ie, can you credit the QF flights to QF, SQ to VA etc?

Yes.

EDIT: Ooops, PF beat me to it.

 

[AFF Editor]

Mhm, that Lufthansa ticket sounds quite attractive- I wasn’t aware it existed!

Thanks for the info, any idea of how easy it is to get the actual seats with that one from people who have done it before? I’m thinking of a rather simple SYD-SIN-Europe-USA-SYD route…

It is reasonably easy to get seats in the necessary fare classes (generally "A") on all of those legs EXCEPT between Singapore and Europe.

This is why the example in the article uses SQ J from SIN to BLR, then LH F from BLR to FRA. That requires an extra stop but is comparatively simple to find and book.

 

[mikeact]

How to Book a First Class Round-the-World Ticket is an article written by AFF editorial staff:

How to Book a First Class Round-the-World Ticket from Australia

There are a few different ways to book a First Class round-the-world ticket from Australia, using either money or frequent flyer points.

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

You can leave a comment or discuss this topic below.

And what about SkyTeam?

 

[AFF Editor]

And what about SkyTeam?

This is covered in the article.

SkyTeam also used to offer a round-the-world product called a “Go Round The World” fare. However, the alliance has suspended the sale of these fares – and there are currently no SkyTeam airlines offering First Class to or from Australia, anyway.

 

[asloh]

Super informative and interesting reading. Will take a while to get my head around it. Something to look forward to in the coming years. Thanks Matt.

 

[tinkybelle]

I wonder why you are even mentioning Qatar when QANTAS are not offering any Qatar seats now.
I have a couple of flights I need to change and no availability for a whole year in J or F

 

[BCons]

Interesting article, tho some of the Star Alliance stuff might be a bit theoretical ?

We hold an SQ booking in F for Sep/Oct (well, its seats only as T/A says we hv until early May to pay..) from MEL via TKO to LAX, and then from NY thru FRA and SIN back home. All 777 apart from a bit of 380.

One of the options we did look at, as part of this SQ fare, was taking ANA from TKO right across to NY, but neither the TA, or us directly, could find ANY fare that includes ANA in F for that leg to NY. The Star Alliance RTW tool defaults to economy for many legs and wont show F. I can see SQ codeshares TKO/NY on ANA metal, but a phone call to SQ says they only do codeshares in J. Looking at ANA website they have good fares in J from Aust direct to Jpn then NY, they have extortionate one way F fares Tko/NY, you cannot get the website to show a mixed-class fare (J from Aust, then F from Tko), their phone enquiry line never answers, the online chatbot thingy says it cant help on the mixed-class question, and an email enquiry to ANA gets an auto-response and nothing more.. So we'll stay with what we know, even tho we'd actually like to try ANA up the pointy end.

 

[AFF Editor]

I wonder why you are even mentioning Qatar when QANTAS are not offering any Qatar seats now.
I have a couple of flights I need to change and no availability for a whole year in J or F

You can still book Qatar award seats using Qantas points up to 3 days before departure.

As it says in the article, this is not practical for most people. That's kind of the point - to highlight how difficult it is to book one a Oneworld Classic Flight Reward in F, and therefore why it might be better to consider other options.

Interesting article, tho some of the Star Alliance stuff might be a bit theoretical ?

Yes, finding availability in F on certain airlines/routes is very tricky. The Lufthansa/Swiss RTW example is quite specific as it's a permutation that you could actually book.

 

[tinkybelle]

I haven’t see qatar F from or 2 AUSTRALIA for months.let alone J
has anyone found one?

 

[AFF Editor]

I haven’t see qatar F from or 2 AUSTRALIA for months.let alone J
has anyone found one?

Yes, if you travel today (for example). You can book up to 3 days out if there are still any seats left.

I'm not saying this is practical for most people, it clearly is not.

 

[Gremlin]

Truly great article. I've bookmarked it for future reference. Pure gold. Thanks AFF Editor

 

[CaptJCool]

As someone who’s done the roughie of booking classic F to Europe 3 days out

know your seasons
When the figurative “everyone is travelling” during mid-summer or other school holidays or Lead into Christmas Reward availability is likely to be LOW or non-existent. May the Forth and Mid-September to October are often better options

will all the stars align?
much more difficult heading to impossible to hope all the sectors would line up perfectly in one fell swoop 3 days out. From the sounds of it, seems the logistics would defeat even the most intrepid booking warrior.

pay the price
If you pony up for late spontaneous bookings then it’s pretty guaranteed you’ll find a paid first class seat.

Precious little competition for paid F Seats.
The cheap prices tend to go early. your late convenience isn’t at the forefront of airlines minds but their profit from your late paid fare is. What’s the % of full F On flights ? I presume this would be like 5-10%?

the exchange rate is your friend
re-positioning to begin your adventure (many threads on checking out options via multi-city re-positioning and departing from Auckland or Singapore or Jakarta or Bangkok or Sri Lanka. This gets around the hurdle of the Australia tax. Alternatively, fly back via these locations for better opportunities. it also stands to reason the QFF membership base & FF partners are from high cost and relatively high wage economies thus more people can afford to fly J/F. Were we earning $1 an hour / day, we’d unlikely be jestsetters...

what worked then doesn’t work now
I checked out a larger range of european cities back to Australia - the hack I used then is not available today. Perhaps in time it’ll make a comeback but I suspect while capacity is diminished and loadings are high, essentially no need For airlines to reduce pricing. And without a current passport completely out of the question.

easy Earn falls into tragic Burn
points are plentifully earnt but it seems pent up demand to actually use the points is unmet. And I get it’s not as simple as redirecting spending - not everyone has the $ cash to do so hence the points chase to cutback the need to find the current $16,000 necessary to pay as you go. Hopefully in time, more is done to simplify for QFF consumers. I’m not holding my breath seeing AJ is preparing for his final $24 million of golden parachute per the AFR Rear Window commentary this morning.

 

[RooFlyer]

Precious little competition for paid F Seats.
The cheap prices tend to go early. your late convenience isn’t at the forefront of airlines minds but their profit from your late paid fare is. What’s the % of full F On flights ? I presume this would be like 5-10%?

Not sure if the heading matches what you say (which I agree with). High competition for the cheaper F seats, not much for the expensive ones (like all fare classes, I guess).
I booked a paid F seat on LX (SQ code share) about 8 months out through a TA; at that time I had choice of dates with the cheapest seats available. About 2 months later later, I wanted to change the dates by a few days, but the fare bucket was no longer available on any of the 2 days I could move to, and it was $$$ more to move the date. F cabins are small and probably only 1 or maybe 2 in the lowest fare bucket and they'll go early, as you say.

 

[meadowfield]

I'm interested in the Lufthansa group airfare, probably in business class. Is it possible to use Austrian airlines into Europe? What fare class is business class booked? Is it possible to fly via Asia both ways or must you return via North America or Africa? Thanks in advance.

 

[Mattg]

I'm interested in the Lufthansa group airfare, probably in business class. Is it possible to use Austrian airlines into Europe?

Yes. You could, for example, fly Thai Airways or Qantas to Bangkok. Then Austrian from Bangkok to wherever you need to go in Europe, via Vienna.

What fare class is business class booked?

Depends on the operating airline. For Lufthansa Group airlines (Austrian, Swiss and Lufthansa) it's P for Business.

For Qantas sectors, you need I class.

Is it possible to fly via Asia both ways or must you return via North America or Africa? Thanks in advance.

You can fly any direction you like for both legs. So yes, via Asia both ways is possible.