Travel Agencies
RTW TRAVEL AGENCIES
The first step in arranging your air transportation, once you have chosen your initial list of desired destinations, is to find the right travel agent. That's the only way you can get the best prices on many routes.
There is an entire global market of discounted 'consolidator' prices for international tickets set by travel agents, not by airlines. For every published international fare, tickets can be available at lower prices. That is why you must always check with a good travel agent!
An agent who tries to convince you of a fixed itinerary without giving you options, or the opposite, who doesn't suggest a route based on your itinerary, probably isn't the sort of specialist from whom you should buy your ticket.
Smart travellers with a good travel agent can customize every kind of trip around the world. The more the agent understands your purpose, the better they can help you to fulfil it.
What a round-the-world specialist does in 2026
You can buy an alliance round-the-world ticket yourself from oneworld or Star Alliance, at roughly US$3,000 to $10,000 in economy. The catch is the seats. Those fares only use a few booking classes, and AirTreks, which runs about 100,000 searches of oneworld and Star Alliance fares a month, finds about 29% of them actually bookable. A specialist can also leave the alliances behind and build the trip from separate fares on whichever airlines fit.
At AirTreks, the process goes like this: you send a wish list, get one to three options, usually within a business day, refine them over two or three rounds, and then the trip is ticketed. After that the consultants handle airline schedule changes and rebookings across every airline on the ticket.
Questions to ask any agent
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Is it one ticket, or several? On one ticket your bags check through and the airlines rebook you if a flight is late. On separate tickets, a missed connection is your problem.
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What does a date change cost, and who makes it while you're on the road?
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Which legs are overland, and are they your responsibility?
The AirTreks comparison of RTW tickets, multi-stop fares and one-ways goes through the trade-offs. For the ticket rules themselves, see RTW Flights and RTW Experts.
Tags: RTW tickets, RTW travel agencies, tours around the world, World Travellers
Planning a round-the-world trip? AirTreks has built multi-stop itineraries since 1987. See sample routes or ask a specialist.