Use low-fare departure cities and routes to get Round-the-World Business Class flights for 1.4 cents-per-mile flown
Don’t ask me how or why this began, but now is the time to take advantage of huge savings on Round-the-World (RTW) tickets that originate overseas. That’s right. If you buy your ticket for departure from a foreign destination you can land planet-size savings on worldwide trips.
No Telling How Some Fare Anomalies Come to Be
I’d love to pretend that I knew the genesis of this fare sale, but all I can say is that certain cities, like Cairo or Colombo, Sri Lanka, for example, sometimes offer far cheaper premium cabin fares when originating from their airports.
That’s great news if you happen to live in one of those places, but why should you care if you don’t live across the pond? Well, if you get creative and buy (or use miles for) a “positioning flight” from your home to one of these international departure points, and perhaps stay there a few days as the first stop on a grand escapade, you could save a bundle.
Here’s the thing: The way that airlines structure airfare is based on numerous factors including local demand as well as competition between two points. If an airline thinks there is enough demand between two destinations that people will pay a higher fare, they’ll price tickets that way. It’s the good-old fashioned law of supply-and-demand.
On the other hand, if local economies are only willing to withstand a certain price point, airlines will have to lower the fare to stimulate demand. Add in the dollar’s strong exchange rate at the moment, and here’s where this creativity comes into play.
What’s strange about this deal is that the lowest fares are from Italy, not Cairo, and only with Star Alliance, leaving me to think that this is a Star Alliance-battles-SkyTeam thing. But so what, their fares are worth grabbing no matter how they came about.
What kind of savings are we talking about?
You can actually fly around the world starting and ending in Europe with stops in the United States (chill at home for a while before picking up your next trip), and trips to New Zealand and South Korea for around $3,373, in Business Class. Take a look…
It may seem impractical to start a RTW trip in a foreign destination like Milan, just to save money, but sometimes it can make sense — especially if you have always wanted to visit Italy, too. Milan is amazing for many reasons. If you haven’t been, now’s your excuse. If you have been to Milan, take the opportunity to visit again or go first to Bologna, Florence, Lake Como, Verona, or Venice and hop a quick train to catch your flight from Milan.
Want to depart from Stockholm, Paris, or Bucharest instead? No problem. The price for these RTW tickets in Business Class originating in Europe may be cheaper than the price of a simple round-trip Business Class ticket between the U.S. and Europe. Now that’s a hard deal to pass up.
10 Sample Itineraries with Star Alliance Anomaly Fares
*Valid at time of publishing and sure to change over time.
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So if you’re a bang-for-your-buck traveler, consider that you’re getting Business Class for just 1.4 cents-per-mile flown. Now compare this to the typical cost of a Los Angeles-New York route, at 4,908 flight miles round-trip (at around $2,498), which costs about 5 cents-per-mile flown.
Grab this deal while it lasts, and I’ll see you up front.