When we started to get serious about our world trip and the route was roughly finalized, we were confronted with one big and difficult question: How will we book the flights?. We had set our budget for all flights to a maximum of EUR 4.000,– each. It was not very hard to figure out we had two options: individual flights or an “Around the World”-Ticket.
As we have already travelled a lot and have always booked all flights by ourselves and online, never facing any problems, we tended to this option from the beginning. After some research, we were definitely convinced that it was the right alternative for us.
When we started to get serious about our world trip and the route was roughly finalized, we were confronted with one big and difficult question: How will we book the flights?. We had set our budget for all flights to a maximum of EUR 4.000,– each. It was not very hard to figure out we had two options: individual flights or an “Around the World”-Ticket.
As we have already travelled a lot and have always booked all flights by ourselves and online, never facing any problems, we tended to this option from the beginning. After some research, we were definitely convinced that it was the right alternative for us.
When we started to get serious about our world trip and the route was roughly finalized, we were confronted with one big and difficult question: How will we book the flights?. We had set our budget for all flights to a maximum of EUR 4.000,– each. It was not very hard to figure out we had two options: individual flights or an “Around the World”-Ticket.
As we have already travelled a lot and have always booked all flights by ourselves and online, never facing any problems, we tended to this option from the beginning. After some research, we were definitely convinced that it was the right alternative for us.
Here is a short summary of all reasons, why we decided to go with individual flights
STA Travel offers many different predefined routes for world trips – none of which reflected our planned route. From easier tours (with about five stops) to highly elaborate routes with 10+ stops, they do basically offer everything.
With STA travel you can also schedule an appointment to create your individual route. As we have never been to a travel agency before and have always booked everything by ourselves, the idea of not doing so this time somehow felt peculiar. Bianca studied Tourism Management – so she somehow thinks that she is an expert, which she actually is because she learnt everything about flights and how to book them.
We do not only connect between many different continents and countries, we do also travel intercontinental as well as intracontinental and domestically (especially in Asia) which requires a potpourri of short and long distance flights. STA Travel, besides “Around the World”-Tickets, offers so-called “airpasses” but they also did not really cover the route/airports of our tour.
We do not always fly into or connect at huge international airports or capital/major cities. This is the reason why it gets more and more difficult to link flights together (instead of booking them individually). In New Zealand, we fly into Christchurch, in Australia into Cairns and in Asia into Ho Chi Minh City. Combining all these flights would either have been amazingly expensive or simply not possible. Flying into Auckland, Sydney and Bangkok would have been a totally different situation.
We are no students anymore, so there is no additional savings option we could have profited from when going with the “Around the World”-Ticket.
After carefully analyzing all the details and making the decision that we will neither adjust our route in order to make it more flight-friendly nor increase the budget, it was clear that we would have to take the burden and start searching, comparing and booking a massive amount of individual flights.
How we approached the process
Search: Bianca, as Chief Planning Officer, of course also had the honor to struggle with the flights, the very individual route (which was her own) and the tight budget (that she had set by herself). In this situation, she relied on her well-trusted and very reliable search engine swoodoo.com, that has helped her for years to get good flight deals and connect all across the world. The biggest advantage this platform offers, is that it basically compares all common flight search engines such as Opodo, Flugladen.de and Expedia. In addition to all major airlines, it has also low-cost airlines such as Air Asia, listed.
Compare: Due to the monumental size of this project and that Tom can still sleep well, Bianca decided to also look up all flights directly on the airline pages. Although he has been trying to get good deals on airline pages for years and actually never succeeded, he still has the unalterable opinion that they just got to be cheaper. The research has proven again, they aren’t and so we decided to go with “swoodoo” for most of the flights. The Inner-Asian flights, however, we decided to book on airasia.com directly – just because they are super cheap, offer incomparable deals and also swoodoo guides you to the airline page to complete the booking.
Book: The best time to book a flight is always around six months before departure. We have tested that for years now (looking up flights longer as well as shorter before the trip) and came to the conclusion that it is mostly correct and we can highly recommend it. We have heard that the second time frame to get the best deals is three weeks before departure. We have never tried that – so no recommendation at this point from our side – but if you are the more spontaneous type of traveler, you should go ahead, try and let us know if you got a good deal. For us, it is too close to departure to book a long-distance journey only three weeks before departure, especially when considering that we also need to make other arrangements such as booking a car or a campervan. Therefore, we booked the flights for our world trip six months before departure and got really good one-way deals.
International/Intercontinental Flights
We started with the long intercontinental flights – briefly, the ones that bring us from one continent to the other. As soon as we had roughly finalized the tour, we started to book these flights. After that, and at the time she knew when we will be where, Bianca planned the tour in more and more detail and was then able to take the next step and think about the intracontinental and domestic flights.
Domestic/Intracontinental Flights
Airasia flight prices do not vary so much (so no stress when booking these) – unless they have a special deal e.g. flying out of Bangkok to every destination served from there for only $ 1. Usually, this offer is then valid for a certain time frame only – so we did not grab any of these deals so far. What you need to consider with Air Asia is that it transports you all over Asia and connects you to Australia and New Zealand, however, it doesn’t connect all cities with direct flights. The major hubs are Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur and most of the flights have a stopover in one of these two cities. So when planning your trip, make sure to calculate enough travel time.
Flying domestically within the US is affordable and usually you do not need to book a long time in advance either. Of course, it is again all about the cities you would like to travel from and also to. Major cities are well and regularly connected. Also flying within Australia is pretty cheap and can save you a lot of time. We decided to drive down the entire east coast because we wanted to save the time of bringing the campervan back in Sydney, fly into Melbourne pick-up a new one and setting it up again (fridge, bed, …).
No matter what flight you book and given that you plan on travelling with more than just hand luggage, make sure the check-in bag is included in the trip fare. Paying for the luggage at the airport can be a lot more expensive. If it happens that it’s not included and you already booked the ticket, you better contact the airline and try to add it prior to getting to the airport. It is not always possible because it depends on the booking class if you can add it or not.
| Flights (all inclusive) | per Person | Total |
|---|---|---|
| Vienna - Cape Town | 430 | 860 |
| Johannesburg - Windhoek | 98 | 196 |
| Johannesburg - Windhoek - Auckland | 844 | 1688 |
| Christchurch - Cairns | 234.25 | 468.5 |
| Adelaide - Hobart | 125 | 250 |
| Hobart - Melbourne | 47.89 | 95.78 |
| Melbourne - Ho-Chi-Minh City | 219.5 | 439 |
| Chiang Rai - Yangon | 118 | 236 |
| Mandalay - Siem Reap | 112 | 224 |
| Siem Reap - Bali | 126.5 | 253 |
| Bali - Yogyakarta | 46.5 | 93 |
| Yogyarkarta - Singapur | 44.5 | 89 |
| Singapur - San Juan | 770 | 1540 |
| San Juan - San Francisco | 194 | 388 |
| San Francisco - Calgary | 170 | 340 |
| Calgary - Chigago | 150 | 300 |
| Chicago - München | 330.5 | 661 |
| TOTAL | 4060.64 | 8121.28 |
Here are our top travel hacks for flights
– Make sure you delete your cookies and search history for cheaper fares.
– Make sure you have all cosmetics, cremes, pastes, powders and every item that has a somehow liquid texture in small ziploc plastic bags that you can buy at IKEA for 1.99 EUR. Of course, containers must not have a bigger filling capacity than 100 ml.
– If you have a long-distance flight that is not direct, avoid connecting in the US – because you will need an ESTA-Visa even for transit. If you, nonetheless, have to connect in the US, make sure you have at least three hours between flights because the entry to the US, picking up the luggage, dragging it through customs and going through security again might take a some time.
– Check the flight times thoroughly before you finalize the booking – sometimes the really cheap flights have awful times e.g. you fly into one city in the evening and the connecting flight to your final destination is scheduled the next morning. This saves you money regarding the flight costs but you will have to book a night in a hotel – which can be expensive (especially in airport hotels).
– Having a Diners Club credit card (and a certain annual turnover) will give you access to selected airport lounges.
– Economy booking classes Y and B are the most likely to grant you an upgrade.
– Bring your own earplugs – the ones they provide in the airplane are usually very uncomfortable and never noise-cancelling.
– Investing into a neck pillow that with an adjustable string that can be closed up front for perfect neck support will definitely pay off.
– If you are facing a long-haul flight (8+ hours) pack a light snack to make sure you won’t starve between the first and the second meal.
– Always bring a jacket and socks – especially when going on US-airlines as they tend to cool them down to a freezer.
– If you are flexible, prefer flying on weekdays (especially Tuesday and Wednesdays) and try to avoid Fridays and Sundays – these are usually the most expensive days for air travel.
Here are our top travel hacks for flights
– Make sure you delete your cookies and search history for cheaper fares.
– Make sure you have all cosmetics, cremes, pastes, powders and every item that has a somehow liquid texture in small ziploc plastic bags that you can buy at IKEA for 1.99 EUR. Of course, containers must not have a bigger filling capacity than 100 ml.
– If you have a long-distance flight that is not direct, avoid connecting in the US – because you will need an ESTA-Visa even for transit. If you, nonetheless, have to connect in the US, make sure you have at least three hours between flights because the entry to the US, picking up the luggage, dragging it through customs and going through security again might take a some time.
– Check the flight times thoroughly before you finalize the booking – sometimes the really cheap flights have awful times e.g. you fly into one city in the evening and the connecting flight to your final destination is scheduled the next morning. This saves you money regarding the flight costs but you will have to book a night in a hotel – which can be expensive (especially in airport hotels).
– Having a Diners Club credit card (and a certain annual turnover) will give you access to selected airport lounges.
– Economy booking classes Y and B are the most likely to grant you an upgrade.
– Bring your own earplugs – the ones they provide in the airplane are usually very uncomfortable and never noise-cancelling.
– Investing into a neck pillow that with an adjustable string that can be closed up front for perfect neck support will definitely pay off.
– If you are facing a long-haul flight (8+ hours) pack a light snack to make sure you won’t starve between the first and the second meal.
– Always bring a jacket and socks – especially when going on US-airlines as they tend to cool them down to a freezer.
– If you are flexible, prefer flying on weekdays (especially Tuesday and Wednesdays) and try to avoid Fridays and Sundays – these are usually the most expensive days for air travel.