Looking to travel the world without spending a fortune? Round-the-World (RTW) award tickets are a solution that is often underutilized. Even though booking a single RTW fare isn’t always easy, we’ve got you covered with this handy guide. We’ll show you how to plan the perfect trip, whether it’s by piecing together individual award segments or grabbing one of those elusive RTW fares. You’ll learn all about RTW awards, get tips for planning, and discover how AwardFares can help you find and book the best flights across multiple programs. Let’s turn your travel dreams into reality!

Note: There are only a handful of airlines and frequent flyer programs that allow a special Round-The-World (RTW) fare for award tickets. However, this guide serves beyond that purpose. It is aimed at planning and working out a full round-the-world itinerary and checking availability, even if that means booking individual segments separately. AwardFares lets you find seats across multiple frequent flyer programs, which is perfect for taking advantage of miles sitting across different accounts, too.

In This Post

What is a Round-The-World Award?

A Round-The-World (RTW) award ticket is a special type of airline ticket that allows you to travel to multiple destinations worldwide for a single price (in points or miles). Even though they are hard to score, these tickets can be great for maximizing the value of your points, given that the price is usually fixed.

RTW awards are offered by airlines or frequent flyer programs within an alliance (oneworld, Star Alliance, SkyTeam). Each alliance has its own rules and restrictions. Still, they typically allow you to visit a certain number of destinations (usually between 3 and 16) within a set timeframe (e.g., up to one year). You can also choose your itinerary if it follows the rules (e.g., starting and ending in the same country, traveling in one direction only, etc.).

Airlines/Programs with Round-The-World Awards

In practice, just a handful of airlines and frequent flyer programs have implemented Round-The-World redemptions, some even with an online search.

  • Star Alliance: The Star Alliance Round-The-World Award allows members of any Star Alliance frequent flyer program (e.g., United MileagePlus, Lufthansa Miles & More, Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer) to book RTW trips using their miles. The trip must include at least three stopovers and can be up to 16 segments.
  • oneworld: oneworld offers two types of RTW fares. The Oneworld Explorer is based on the number of continents visited, while the Global Explorer is based on the distance traveled. Frequent flyer programs like American Airlines AAdvantage, British Airways Executive Club, Cathay Pacific Asia Miles, and Qantas Frequent Flyer can be used.
  • SkyTeam: The SkyTeam RTW program was closed recently.
  • Emirates: Emirates Skywards does not have a formal RTW program, but it is possible to book a RTW trip using Skywards miles by combining flights with partner airlines like Qantas and JetBlue.
  • ANA (All Nippon Airways): ANA Mileage Club has a special Round-the-World Award, which must include at least three stopovers and cannot exceed 12 segments. It’s bookable online.
  • Aeroplan (Air Canada): Aeroplan offers a RTW award for 200,000 points in economy class and 300,000 points in business class. The itinerary can include up to 15 stopovers.

How to Plan and Book Round-The-World Awards (Step-by-step)

Good news! AwardFares has a simple and powerful tool called Journey Planner. It’s perfect for building Round-The-World itineraries, as it lets you search for available seats in real time, accurately estimate the cost of each leg, and find options even across frequent flyer programs in a fraction of the time compared to using the airlines’ search engine.

1. Go to AwardFares

Creating an account is optional, but it gives you access to many more features. Make sure to sign up for one!

2. Select your favorite Frequent Flyer Program

In this example, we’ll choose American AAdvantage EuroBonus in the Loyalty Program picker. Let’s build an itinerary on oneworld airlines.

3. Choose a Route

Here’s a sample round-the-world itinerary with 6 stops, making the most of American Airlines AAdvantage miles and their partner airlines:

  1. New York to Tokyo: American Airlines or Japan Airlines (JAL)
  2. Tokyo to Bangkok: Japan Airlines (JAL) or Cathay Pacific
  3. Bangkok to Doha: Qatar Airways
  4. Doha to Casablanca: Qatar Airways or Royal Air Maroc
  5. Casablanca to Madrid: Royal Air Maroc
  6. Madrid to London: Iberia or British Airways
  7. London to New York: American Airlines or British Airways

We’ll start by picking flights from New York (NYC) to Tokyo (TYO). To make things simpler, we’ll use the Stops filter to only search for non-stop flights.

Building a round-the-world award flight with AwardFares.

AwardFares will show you the available seats and flights in the list below. One-way Economy Class awards start at 35k points, and 69k points for Business Class tickets.

Building a round-the-world award flight with AwardFares.

4. Add a leg to the Journey Planner

Once you’ve identified a good option, tap on the [+] icon to start planning a new Journey.

Building a round-the-world award flight with AwardFares.

You’ll see the new Journey created when tapping the Journey pill above the results. Note that this feature allows for creating and saving multiple journeys simultaneously, and you can switch between them from the dropdown menu.

Building a round-the-world award flight with AwardFares.

5. Keep adding legs

After adding the first leg, tap on Add Flight to search for the next flight(s). AwardFares will automatically populate your origin city (in our case Tokyo). Select a destination (Bangkok) and a date. Remember that Round-The-World itineraries have different restrictions and rules depending on the alliance, keep that in mind when choosing stops and dates.

The tool will search for available flights after the one added to your journey. To be extra clear, we display this information in the header of the search results. Once more, tap on the [+] icon to add the leg to the Journey Planner.

Building a round-the-world award flight with AwardFares.

Then we find options for the third leg from Bangkok to Doha:

Building a round-the-world award flight with AwardFares.

From Doha to Casablanca:

Building a round-the-world award flight with AwardFares.

Casablanca to Madrid:

Building a round-the-world award flight with AwardFares.

Madrid to London:

Building a round-the-world award flight with AwardFares.

Finally, from London back to New York:

Building a round-the-world award flight with AwardFares.

6. Check your plans and book

After adding all your segments, you can see the entire itinerary in the Journey section and find more helpful options. Our tool displays, among other things, the time gap between flights (in days and hours). You can quickly delete segments or continue adding more before or after.

Building a round-the-world award flight with AwardFares.

If you are ready to make your reservation, you can directly contact the airline’s call center or, for some programs, search for the routes/dates online on their search portal. Note that AwardFares’ Book button will be disabled for this type of itineraries.

Building a round-the-world award flight with AwardFares.

More Features

Another handy feature is the option to copy the itinerary to the clipboard. This way you can paste it into your notes in case you have to, for example, contact the call center and book via phone.

Copy to Clipboard

Building a round-trip award flight with AwardFares.

Route	Flight	Date	    Depart	Arrive
JFK-HND	AA167	2024-07-11	11:15	14:30 (+1)
HND-BKK	JL31	2024-07-26	10:55	15:25 
BKK-DOH	QR837	2024-08-08	02:30	05:30 
DOH-CMN	AT217	2024-08-12	01:35	07:30 
CMN-MAD	AT970	2024-08-20	15:50	18:35 
MAD-LHR	IB3172	2024-09-03	14:55	16:20 
LHR-JFK	AA101	2024-09-08	10:30	13:20

Share Journey

Moreover, you can share the journey with friends or family members. Use the Share button, and you’ll get a unique URL that you can copy and send over.

Share Journeys with AwardFares.

When opening the URL, you’ll see the full itinerary, plus a map with the route.

Building a round-the-world award flight with AwardFares.

In addition, you can create new trips, delete existing ones, unshare them, and more! Start exploring these features today with a Gold or Diamond account.

Become a Pro Travel Hacker

You can try AwardFares for free. We are rolling out new features and improvements regularly, so sign up for our monthly newsletter to stay on top of the latest news, announcements, and pro tips.

With our Gold and Diamond tiers, you can access premium features such as unlimited daily searches, alerts, seat maps, flight schedules, and more!

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