I’ve talked about organising your itinerary on your own thanks to the mileage calculators offered by the air alliances. I wrote about it on Preparation and Tickets. A couple of days ago Star Alliance – the one we bought our tickets – put on their website a new tool: Book and Fly. It’s pretty much the same thing you can do downloading the calculator to your desktop until the moment of booking it and purchansing it. Therefore, you can do the entirely process online. Maybe you still gotta have to exchange some emails to set up some changes on your reservation later on. But the new bit is the fact of being able of creating, booking and paying your Round the World ticket without any in-betweens.

I know it can be a tiring job to set up the routes, to find the hubs and to match the dates. But once we get to know how the whole ticket works – and how air lines work – it gives even more independence when travelling. I’m not saying we don’t need travel agencies anymore, but for those who want to do the most by themselves, the chapter where we exchange mails with some airline or travel agent representative telling him what to book and when is over. We can do it directly. I guess One World will come up with something similar really soon and it’s all great. The more the companies open up their engine box, the more we can handle it on our own.

Once you’ve flown away. The changings will still have to be done directly to the airline with whom you have booked your flight. Emails and phone calls will still be needed, but only for the exceptions of the process.

Have a good booking planner night!

Felipe Koch