§ Travel

Round-the-world ticket

also called RTW ticket · RTW

A ticket, often alliance-based, letting you circle the globe with multiple stops on one fare.

Multi-city ticketPositioning flightRound-the-world ticket
Solid lines are terms people actually mix up with Round-the-world ticket. The rest sit in the same subject, tickets with more than one stop. Multi-city ticket · Positioning flight

Right, in plain English

A round-the-world ticket, usually built on an airline alliance, lets you circle the globe with several stops on a single fare. For a long trip crossing multiple continents, it can work out cheaper than buying each leg on its own. The freedom comes with rules, typically that you keep travelling in one direction and stay within a total mileage or stop count.

You are planning months of travel across several continents and start pricing the flights separately, watching the total climb. A round-the-world ticket bundles the whole loop for less, as long as you keep heading the same way around the planet and stay inside its mileage and stopover limits.

Why it matters

For a long multi-continent trip it can beat buying legs separately, within rules on direction and mileage.

Not to be confused with

The difference is the whole point, so here is each one in a line.

Tickets with more than one stop · 3 terms

These are ways to build a trip that is not a simple there-and-back.
A multi-city ticket chains several flights on one booking, an open-jaw flies you into one city and home from another, and a round-the-world ticket circles the globe on one fare.
A positioning flight is an extra hop taken to reach the airport where a cheaper fare or award starts, and an ex-EU or ex-hub fare is the bargain that appears when a trip begins in a particular country.

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