Round-the-World Award Fares: How to Think About Them

Circumnavigating the globe on a round-the-world adventure is the quintessential bucket-list trip for travel enthusiasts. In the points and miles community, RTW tickets represent the ultimate optimization challenge: stringing together flights across Asia, Europe, Africa, and the Americas in lie-flat business class for a fraction of retail commercial pricing. However, booking an official RTW award requires extensive patience, rigid route planning, and strict alliance compliance.

Round-the-World Award Frameworks Compared

Travelers targeting multi-continent itineraries have two primary paths: booking an official alliance RTW ticket or assembling independent one-way award segments.

The Legendary ANA Round-the-World Sweet Spot

All Nippon Airways (a transfer partner of American Express Membership Rewards) maintains the most mathematically rewarding RTW chart in commercial aviation. The mileage required is calculated strictly on the total cumulative flight distance (in nautical miles) of your journey:

A classic itinerary departing New York to Lisbon (TAP Air Portugal), Zurich to Cairo (Swiss), Cairo to Bangkok (EgyptAir), and Tokyo to New York (ANA) totals roughly 21,500 flight miles. In business class, this complete global itinerary costs only 125,000 ANA miles plus taxes and modest surcharges—replacing over $18,000 in retail commercial airfare.

Rigid RTW Operational Rules

To ticket an official ANA RTW award, your itinerary must satisfy every rule simultaneously:

• Continuous Directional Progress: You must travel continuously eastward or westward. You cannot backtrack across continents (e.g., flying from Frankfurt to Tokyo, then back to London, then to San Francisco).
• Ocean Crossings: You must cross the Atlantic Ocean exactly once and the Pacific Ocean exactly once.
• Stopover Limits: Maximum of 8 total stopovers (defined as a stay longer than 24 hours), with no more than 3 stopovers permitted within Europe and no more than 4 stopovers in Japan.
• Phone Booking Requirement: ANA RTW itineraries cannot be booked online. You must find saver award space for every segment in advance, write down the flight numbers and dates, and call ANA’s international ticketing desk to price and issue the reservation.

Why Piecemeal One-Ways Often Win for Modern Travelers

For most travelers with limited vacation schedules, booking 3 or 4 independent one-way award tickets using flexible bank points is far superior to an official RTW ticket:

1. Alliance Freedom: Fly Star Alliance across the Atlantic, oneworld through the Middle East, and SkyTeam across the Pacific, optimizing each leg for the best cabin product and lowest fees.
2. Independent Change Policies: If you decide to stay an extra week in Thailand, you simply cancel or rebook that single segment without endangering your flight home.
3. Stopover Programs: Leverage built-in stopover perks (such as Air Canada Aeroplan’s 5,000-point stopover option) to add destination visits without complex ticketing rules.

Planning an around-the-world journey requires exceptional command of global route networks. Learn how airline partnerships operate in our guide to global airline alliances, discover how to locate open seats in our guide to award availability timing, and master multi-city layovers in our guide to stopover flights.