How AirTreks builds complex flight itineraries, from your wish list through routing optimization, fare construction, ticketing, and ongoing change management.
How AirTreks works: the step-by-step booking process from trip idea through routing optimization, fare construction, ticketing, and change management.
AirTreks specializes in 5+ stop multi-continent itineraries where routing expertise saves money.
The process: submit wish list, receive 1-3 options in 1-3 days, refine 2-3 rounds, then ticket.
Consultants handle airline-initiated schedule changes and rebookings across all carriers.
Fare construction expertise can save time, peace of mind, and money like $1,000-$3,000 on complex itineraries vs. naive booking.
Simple trips (round-trips, 2-city itineraries) are not the key use case of AirTreks consultants - but you can book these on our automated platform.
Quick facts
Typical refinement rounds
2-3 before ticketingas of Jun 2026
Quote turnaround
1 business days or lessas of Jun 2026
Sweet spot
5+ stops, multiple regionsas of Jun 2026
DIY Planning
unlimited options/quotes on TripPlanneras of Jun 2026
Now I have the technical context. Let me produce the expanded guides.
What You Bring (Your Ideas)
You don't need a finished itinerary to start working with AirTreks. Most clients come to us with a wish list: cities they want to visit, a rough timeframe, a budget range, and maybe some constraints (school schedules, a wedding in Bali, a conference in London). That's enough.
What helps us help you: knowing how many stops you're imagining, roughly how long your trip will be, whether you have fixed dates for any legs, and your general comfort level with long flights and connections. You don't need to know fare classes, alliance rules, or routing logic. That's our job.
Some people come to us with a spreadsheet of 14 cities, exact dates, and preferred airlines. Others send a two-sentence email: "We want to take our kids around the world next summer. Budget is $5,000 per person." Both are fine starting points. The spreadsheet people sometimes need to be loosened up a bit (rigid itineraries often price poorly), and the two-sentence people need some structure. Either way, we meet you where you are.
A few things that genuinely help your consultant build a better trip: Tell us your "must-haves" versus your "nice-to-haves." If Machu Picchu is the whole reason for the trip, that's a must-have. If "maybe Greece?" is floating around in your head, that's a nice-to-have. The distinction matters because it affects routing. A must-have city anchors the itinerary. A nice-to-have city gets included only if the routing and pricing support it.
Tell us about flexibility. Date flexibility of even a few days can save hundreds of dollars on specific legs. If you absolutely must be in Sydney on December 20th, we'll work with that. But if "sometime around Christmas" is close enough, we can shop a wider window and find better availability.
Tell us your "why." This sounds soft, but it's practical. A couple on a honeymoon has different priorities than a family with three kids under ten. A solo traveler doing a gap year prices differently than a retired couple doing a three-month bucket-list trip. The why shapes the how: pace, comfort level, layover tolerance, cabin class priorities.
What We Do (Routing + Fare Expertise)
AirTreks consultants are fare construction and routing specialists. When you submit your trip idea, here's what happens behind the scenes:
First, we analyze your city list and identify the optimal routing. Sometimes that means reordering stops to reduce backtracking and lower costs. Sometimes it means suggesting a hub city you hadn't considered. Adding Singapore as a connection between Australia and Europe, for example, can save hundreds of dollars and eliminate a brutal 20-hour routing.
From plan to ticket
Ready to put this into a real itinerary?
AirTreks specialists turn planning into actual tickets. Start a conversation and they'll pick it up.
Second, we evaluate ticket strategies. Should this be an alliance RTW product or a custom multi-stop build? Should we mix cabin classes (business on the 14-hour legs, economy on the 2-hour hops)? Would a hybrid approach (RTW backbone plus separate regional tickets) work best?
Third, we construct the fare. This is the technical craft: combining fare components, checking mileage limits and routing rules, avoiding pricing traps like Higher Intermediate Point (HIP) charges, and finding the combination that delivers the best price for your specific itinerary. Two trips visiting the same cities can price thousands of dollars apart depending on fare construction.
To give you a concrete example: a client wants to fly New York to London to Bangkok to Sydney to Los Angeles and home. Simple enough. But the transpacific leg from Sydney direct to JFK? That route has essentially zero bookability on RTW fare classes. Route it Sydney to Los Angeles instead, and suddenly you're at 80% bookability with Qantas. Add a separate domestic connection from LA to New York and the whole itinerary works. That's the kind of thing we catch before it becomes a problem.
Another example: routing through the Middle East. A client wants to visit Doha. Flying Qatar Airways from Doha direct to Los Angeles looks obvious on a map. But on an alliance RTW fare, that route books at roughly 10% success rate. Route it Doha to Hong Kong on Qatar (78% bookability), then Hong Kong to Los Angeles on Cathay Pacific (68% bookability), and the trip actually tickets. Yes, it's an extra stop. But it's a stop that makes the difference between a confirmed itinerary and one that falls apart at the pricing stage.
Our consultants also know which carriers to avoid entirely on RTW fares. Some alliance members look great on paper but have near-zero availability in the fare classes that RTW tickets require. Air India, for instance, is a Star Alliance member. Flights exist. But RTW fare class inventory? Essentially nonexistent. Same with South African Airways. We know this from thousands of bookings, and we route around these carriers automatically.
The sweet spot for consultant-built itineraries is 5 to 6 stops across multiple continents. At that complexity level, our routing optimization and fare construction expertise consistently saves more than our fee. Beyond 7 stops, alliance RTW products become very difficult to book (success rates drop below 6%), and we'll typically recommend a custom multi-stop build or a hybrid approach instead.
The Process: From Inquiry to Departure
Step 1: You tell us what you want. Use the trip planner, email us, or call. Share your wish list, dates, budget, and any constraints. The more context, the better, but don't worry about being precise. "Southeast Asia for 2-3 weeks, then Australia, then home" is a perfectly fine starting point. The more information you give us, your why, and flexibility or not on dates matters. Tell us in TripPlanner, or via email/phone.
A quick note on the trip planner: it asks structured questions for a reason. Each field feeds into our routing analysis. The cities, the dates, the budget range, the number of travelers. Fill in what you can. Leave blank what you don't know yet. Your consultant will follow up on the gaps.
Step 2: We build options. Your consultant creates 1-3 itinerary options with pricing, routing details, and trade-offs explained. This typically takes 1 business day depending on complexity. We'll explain why we chose specific routing and where the pricing flexibility is.
Each option comes with a breakdown: the flights, the carriers, the cabin class for each leg, the total price, and notes on what's driving the cost. If one option is $800 cheaper but requires a 6-hour layover in Doha at 2am, we'll tell you that. If another option costs more but puts you in business class on the 14-hour leg from Singapore to London, we'll explain the trade-off. You make the call with full information.
Step 3: We refine together. You review the options, ask questions, request changes. Want to add a stop? Change the order? Try business class on one leg? We rebuild and reprice. Most itineraries go through 2-3 rounds of refinement.
This is where the process gets collaborative. Maybe you look at Option A and say, "I love this routing but can we swap Istanbul for Athens?" We reprice. Maybe the swap adds $200 but eliminates a connection. Maybe it saves $150 because the fare construction works better. We won't know until we run it, and running it is what we do. Don't hesitate to ask "what if" questions. That's literally what the refinement stage is for.
Some clients go through five or six rounds. That's fine. Complex trips deserve careful planning. We'd rather get it right than rush to ticketing and have you second-guessing your itinerary from the departure lounge.
Step 4: You approve and we ticket. Once you're happy with the itinerary and price, we issue your tickets. Payment is due at ticketing. Your confirmation includes all flight details, connection information, and anything you need to know about your specific routing.
One important note: airfares are not static. The price we quote is based on current availability. If you sit on an approved itinerary for three weeks, the price may change. Fare classes sell out. Airlines adjust inventory. We'll always reconfirm pricing before ticketing, but the best way to lock in a good fare is to move decisively once you've settled on your itinerary.
Step 5: We stay with you. After ticketing, your consultant remains your point of contact. Schedule changes, rebookings, questions about connections: we handle it. This is especially valuable on multi-carrier itineraries where dealing with each airline separately would be time-consuming.
Think about what happens when an airline changes your schedule on a 6-stop trip. That schedule change on leg 3 might break the connection for leg 4, which ripples into legs 5 and 6. Your consultant sees the whole picture. They rebook across carriers, confirm connections, and send you an updated itinerary. You don't call three different airline customer service lines. You send one email.
What Happens When Things Change
Trips change. Airlines change schedules, destinations get added or dropped, dates shift. This is where having a consultant matters most.
Date changes on a ticketed itinerary are usually straightforward. Most fare products allow date changes for $125-$200 per change, and your consultant handles the rebooking across all affected legs.
Keep in mind that a date change on one leg can affect availability on subsequent legs. If you push your Bangkok departure back by two days, that may conflict with the specific fare class we booked on the Bangkok-to-Sydney flight. Your consultant checks all downstream impacts before confirming the change.
Route changes (different cities) are more complex. They often require reissuing the ticket, which means reconstructing the fare. Your consultant evaluates whether the change can be accommodated within the existing fare rules or whether a new fare construction is needed.
Sometimes a route change is easy: swapping one European city for another on the same carrier rarely causes issues. Sometimes it's a fundamental rebuild: dropping Sydney and adding Johannesburg changes the entire fare construction. Your consultant will give you an honest assessment of the cost and complexity before proceeding.
Airline-initiated changes (schedule shifts, cancellations, aircraft swaps) are handled by your consultant at no additional cost. On a multi-carrier itinerary, a schedule change on one airline can affect connections on another. We coordinate across carriers so you don't have to.
These happen more often than you'd think. Airlines adjust schedules constantly, especially 60+ days before departure. On a multi-stop trip with 8 or 10 flights, the odds of at least one schedule change are high. Most are minor (a departure time moving by 30 minutes). Some are significant (a flight getting cancelled entirely). Either way, your consultant handles it.
What We Cost
AirTreks charges a service fee on top of the airfare. The fee varies by itinerary complexity. You see the total price upfront before committing. There are no hidden charges.
The question isn't "does AirTreks cost more than booking myself?" Sometimes it might. Depends how you value your time too.
It's whether the routing optimization and fare construction expertise saves more than the fee costs. On a simple 3-stop trip, probably not. Book that yourself on our automated platform. On a 6-stop multi-continent itinerary, the fare construction difference alone can save $1,000-$3,000.
Here's a real-world way to think about it. You could spend 15 hours researching flights, comparing carriers, trying to figure out why the price jumps $900 when you add Bali, and still end up with a suboptimal routing that costs more than it should. Or you could spend 20 minutes filling out a trip planner, let a specialist do what they do, and get back options with clear pricing. The fee pays for expertise and time savings. For complex trips, it almost always pays for itself in better fare construction alone.
When AirTreks Makes Sense (and When It Doesn't)
AirTreks makes sense when your trip has complexity that exceeds DIY tools: 3+ stops across multiple regions, mixed cabin classes, tricky routing (Africa, South America, the Pacific), peak-season legs where availability is tight, or when you simply value having an expert manage the logistics.
It especially makes sense when your trip touches regions with known routing challenges. Anything involving the transpacific crossing, the Middle East, intra-Asia connections, or the Australia-to-Europe "kangaroo" route benefits from expert routing. These are areas where the obvious flight (the one you see on Google Flights) often doesn't book on the fare class you need, and the workaround requires specific knowledge of hub routing patterns.
AirTreks doesn't make sense for simple trips: a round-trip to London, a one-way from New York to Tokyo, a basic 2-city European itinerary. Do check out our DIY/Automation tool for that. Other online booking tools handle these well, and there's no routing complexity where expertise would add value.
There's a middle ground too. A 3-stop trip where all the cities are in Europe (London, Paris, Rome) is probably fine to book yourself. A 3-stop trip that crosses two oceans (New York, Tokyo, Sydney) has real routing complexity and is worth a conversation with us. The number of stops matters less than the geographic spread and the oceans you're crossing. When in doubt, submit a trip idea. If we think you'd be better off booking it yourself, we'll tell you. We'd rather have you as a happy future client than oversell you on a service you don't need right now.
How AirTreks Works: Our Booking Process | AirTreks | AirTreks
