The oneworld RTW in question appears to be from this link. Interestingly, it appears to be extremely recent.
Current Flight Deals for Qantas Gold status earn & most status credits
It's
from $5699, on
oneworld carriers in J. The main restriction is that it must include a AY J HEL-SFO (or other direction) leg, and since this service is seasonal, there are some date-based restrictions to be taken into account when planning out this RTW. Also, it appears that it cannot be directly booked online - you must apply to a certain travel agent for a quote. (Nothing inherently sinister as the blog is of decent repute, so they would be mad to associate with a crook).
Assuming the $7200 includes all taxes and surcharges, for a "first try", I think that's actually pretty decent. Without doing extra homework, that value is not bad, because you could have easily rocked up and spent between $9k - $12k for the same kind of fare. Star Alliance RTWs tend to be more expensive than equivalent
oneworld RTWs (though that idea may have changed by now).
However, let's analyse this in another respect. Travel agents have largely advertised RTWs on their display posters and so on but for most part these RTWs tend to be limited to about 5 stops or so, and quite often are one or two airlines (usually in different alliances) that just manage to string together a routing which crosses the oceans as required by a RTW. The more popular RTWs we know here are the alliance products, e.g. xSTARx or xONEx. These ones allow up to 15 stops - considerably more powerful - though of course their cost is naturally higher.
From experience, the "limited" RTWs I see at TAs often put the headline cost of a J RTW at $6k - $7k, though I have never asked whether this is the cheapest example of a RTW all-in, or whether this is the base cost without taxes, fees and surcharges. And we all know that the cheapest example (whether it's a RTW or a cruise) is nearly always one of the least attractive options that almost no one would buy.
It was interesting to see how the cost varied if I shifted the same flight a day or so. I could have saved about $300 by taking dates I didn't want, or spent $500 more with some other combinations around the same month (which is April/May next year).
