So you’ve decided to travel around the world, and through some cursory research you’ve discovered that the airline alliances have special round-the-world fares. Which may be the reason why you ended up at AirTreks—because you knew there were alternatives to this market-rate ticket. While there may be reasons for using an airline alliance to purchase your ticket, there are downsides that must be revealed.

Say you were thinking of purchasing your around the world ticket with Star Alliance. They likely would give you a fare based on 3 things: how many miles you’re flying, whether you have a minimum or maximum number of stops and if you’re flying the same general direction around the world. The problem is, you want your trip to look a certain way and you know that by purchasing it from the airlines you may be alienating yourself from getting the trip you really want.

AirTreks’ RTW fares differ from the alliance’s in a few key ways. Let’s start with the most important of them—it’s cheaper. About 90% of the time AirTreks multi-stop ticket ends up beating an alliance RTW in price.

Here are a few other ways you benefit with an AirTreks ticket:

• It’s versatile. You can fly anywhere, in any direction with any combination of destinations, at any time.
• You are not limited to the cities served by your selected airline alliance.
• It’s okay to travel overland on your own. (For example, in Australia, flying into Sydney and out of Melbourne is perfectly okay, thus saving time and money not having to get back to the airport from which you arrived.) This last point often isn’t possible with an alliance RTW ticket and if it is, you still have to pay for the miles you traveled on your own.

The alliances don’t always force you to choose your dates ahead of time. While AirTreks does require you to have all your dates preselected before any tickets can be issued, things are not set in stone. No matter where you buy your ticket, it’s rare to get date changes completely free. An AirTreks ticket is no different. Our change fees range anywhere between $50 and $250 depending what airline you’re traveling on. The AirTreks staff will advise you of all date change fees before any payment is taken, no matter what. If AirTreks has to reissue the ticket for you, we charge an additional $100.

Regardless of the alliances’ advertised date flexibility, it doesn’t mean you can hop on any flight at any time. There must be the correct seat inventory available on the date you want to go. Often you will need to wait days or even weeks for it to open up, depending on the season and the passenger loads at the time of travel. Plus you often have to contact the airline from which you purchased your tickets to make the changes (not necessarily the one your flight is on). It’s up to you to figure out who to call to make changes to your ticket. Changing dates on an AirTreks ticket is simple. You simply call or email our customer service department.

Finally, AirTreks has a dedicated customer support team that will immediately recognize you and your booking. Perhaps you’ll even know them. While an airline agent can assist you, you won’t get the same treatment from them. If you run into problems while you’re traveling on an AirTreks ticket, call or email customer service and they’ll help out in every way they’re able, every time.

If you happen to be tossing around the idea of using AirTreks to get your around the world ticket, call up one of our skilled Travel Consultants and get the skinny on the process. They’ve got answers for all sorts of complex travel questions.

Dial 1-877-AIRTREKS, or go to our homepage and start a TripPlanner session. It’s fun tool that will price out your given itinerary, no matter how complicated, within seconds.