(Kingston, Ontario, Canada)

A few weeks ago, I explained how I chose a Round-the-World (RTW) ticket for my upcoming trips to Wales and Australia. This time, I’m providing some tips on planning such a ticket.

1. Stick to the main hubs, where possible.

The total cost of the RTW ticket is affected by the number of cities visited. Using major international hubs (Toronto and Montreal, rather than Ottawa) will reduce the number of stopovers…and also reduce the risk of luggage trouble! And it will reduce the total travel time too: you want to spend your time in your international destinations, not airports.

2. Book as early as you can.

The closer you get to your flight dates, the more likely flights will be booked up. This increases the price, reduces the likelihood of a desirable seat, and also increases the risk that you won’t have room in your preferred class (economy, premium economy, or business). That last factor is really important: if you buy a RTW ticket in a higher class, you don’t get a corresponding discount if you end up travelling in a lower class for part of the RTW journey.

3. Think two steps ahead.

I had to fly from London (U.K.) to Melbourne (Australia), but knew I could not fly direct. Alas, this was a logistical nightmare…how many different ways are there to travel between those two cities? It looked like Singapore and Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) were positioned relatively well. But this got complicated quickly. Either the London segment or the Melbourne segment just wouldn’t work with those cities.

It was time for a rethink. Rather than go through a long list of Asian cities to see if they would work for a stopover, I just asked for itineraries between London and Melbourne. It quickly became clear that the best connections were through cities that I hadn’t previously considered: New Delhi (India) and Bangkok (Thailand). But as we wanted to cover as much ground as possible with the first flight, Bangkok made more sense.

4. Travel together, buy together.

It may sound obvious, but it’s worth repeating: if you are travelling with others, buy your tickets at the same time. Even 9 months ahead of departure, it is possible that a one or two day delay between buying the tickets for your companions could force you to travel separately for part of the trip (or at least in different cabin classes).

5. Harvest the frequent flyer points.

This is a unique opportunity to accumulate a lot of frequent flyer points. So, it pays to understand how frequent flyer points will be awarded for each leg of the journey. At a minimum, make sure you have an account for an airline with the particular air alliance you have selected (Star Alliance, Oneworld, or SkyTeam). But seriously consider whether you should also earn even more points by using a credit card for that frequent flyer program.

Some premium frequent flyer credit cards offer a lot of useful benefits. There may be an extra fee, but it could be outweighed by the value of those benefits. Sometimes, the first year fee can be waived (as it was in my case).

Stay tuned – the next post may not be from Canada! (Today’s photos are all postcards that I’ve received in the Postcrossing project…for reasons that will soon become clear, the one at the top shows a Swiss International Airlines plane!)