Round-the-World fares now available direct from Star Alliance

21Jul

Round-the-World fares now available direct from Star Alliance

Posted by roshodgekiss in Airline News, International Airfares

Star Alliance's new RTW booking engine - Sexier than your travel agent?

Star Alliance has just launched a round the world (RTW) ticket booking engine on their website, allowing consumers to purchase their fares directly, instead of via a travel agent as has traditionally been done. In response to the predictable dismay from travel agents (who rightfully believe this may eat into their trade), Star Alliance has reasoned that giving consumers the ability to purchase fares directly will “free up”* agents to perform other tasks. Like entering Star Alliance’s “Count your Lucky Stars” promotion. Or even better, Jetstar’s photo contest. Actually, sudoku sounds fun. Lets do sudoku!

To throw further gas on your increasingly uncomfortable relationship with your travel agent, access Star Alliance’s new “Book and Fly” RTW booking system here.

* from TravelToday, 21/07/09

2 Responses to “Round-the-World fares now available direct from Star Alliance”

Mark Says:
July 21st, 2009 at 3:47 pm
Interesting piece but I believe it was Oneworld that said it would ‘free up agents time’ [as quoted in the Travel Today 21/7/09].

I would advise against booking a round the world on the star alliance website. Generally we find that the major carriers [Singapore Airlines in Star Alliance's case or Qantas in OW's case] foot the bill for the online trip planners and thus this finds the tickets being issued with them. This isn’t necessarily the cheapest way for the tickets to be issued and any agent worth it’s salt can beat their price. I did two dummy itineraries [one East and one West] this morning and was able to be at least $250 cheaper and that was only on a 5 stop, 26,000 mile ticket.
To recap a few reasons I wouldn’t recommend booking on the Star Alliance website

- Price. Smart agents can combine the right airlines/codeshare flights etc to minimize taxes/surcharges. We like to think this is our specialty at RoundAbout Travel.

- Choices. The online planner won’t help with finding alternative routes that will keep your mileage down. You have to have some serious time on your hands and a calculator if you want to really mess around with it. If a fare isn’t available one day an agent can quickly and easily tell you a day it is.

- Changes. At we’ll do all your changes free of charge, just email us while we are overseas. Some agents won’t do this as they are unsure how to do it and will point you back to the airlines but again most good agents will do this…some will charge for it. But, it will save you calling the airline from overseas which can be very time consuming and annoying.

- Payment. We can take a deposit and let you pay it off later.

- Ticket choice. Star Alliance may not be the cheapest or best airfare for your trip. You could use the Swiss Air round the world and add on the train or some LCCs and be far ahead overall. A trained professional can assess the situation and provide multiple options looking at all available airfares.

Ok, that’s enough for now but I would leave self-managed online bookings to point to point fares.

Mark Trim, Director
RoundAbout Travel
roshodgekiss Says:
July 21st, 2009 at 8:59 pm
Nice points there, Mark! The main reason I still consult a travel agent is that it’s good to have that human interface. Agents such as yourselves have really worked hard to customise my trips, provide me with options and seek the best value fares, which is something that web interfaces can’t replace. Many thanks for your feedback, many readers will agree with you.

Now, back to newly-found sudoku time, eh?

Flighthacker