When I started inquiring about my flight tickets in September last year I had several options to choose from. The first recommendation from the travel agency I contacted to get detailed information was to book the flights individually. If it is properly done it could save you a little bit of money and is rather flexible in the selections of the locations. However, their proposal to fly from Osaka to Honolulu via Auckland scared me off.
I read through some information on the web about Round-the-World-Tickets before I went to the agency, so after this first setback I quickly started to try to get more information about that kind of ticketing. The various alliances offer different ways of pricing – mile packages or fees per continent – but the main difference is which areas the serve the best. After looking through the main offers it quickly was clear for me to go with One World.
Trying to find out the phone contact details of one of the participating airlines (you can book the ticket with any airline of the alliance) proofed more difficult than expected, but I finally ended up with Japan Airlines and in the middle of October booked my ticket there.
Looking back I’m more than happy about this choice and I would recommend the same to other people thinking about travelling for a longer period. Although you have to fix the route when you book the ticket (you can change it with additional cost) it is otherwise quite cost competitive, it makes it easy at emigration as you always have a ticket out of the country again and you are able to change the flight dates at no cost. Something I used the first time when I decided to flee cold New Zealand, then also when I wanted to stay longer in Japan and finally here in Los Angeles where I had to delay my flights a few times due to some dental problems.