ckpeter

In case of open jaw, if you depart from a city without having arrived into it, it doesn't count as part of your allowed stopover.

In your case, your second stop in ORD should be fine, as you only ever depart from it once as a stopover.

captaincool

Be aware that starting in HKG and ending in HEL counts as an open-jaw

0geek

I'm assuming you have to book the entire trip at once, correct?

Has anyone had problems with award availability for long trips? Particularly summer. I'm thinking about doing:

2 weeks Spain
2 weeks Italy
2 weeks Bali

LAX-JFK(C)-MAD(S)-GRX(S)-MAD(C)-FCO(S)// --- //LHR-HKG(C or S)-DPS(S)-HKG(C)-LAX
24876 miles (25000 award ticket - 150,000 Business)
First part on Iberia/AA and the second on Cathay Pacific.

I would start either mid May or mid June (more likely) and end at the end of June/July. With a 330 day award availability I would be able to book the last flight on Aug 30 if I left in June (Aug 3 if I left in May). What do you think the likelihood of scoring business award tickets (I would settle for coach if I needed to) would be?

I know that's prime traveling time and I worry that the first legs of the trip would get taken before the last parts become available.

1stClassFamily

I am wondering if anyone has ever booked an Oneworld Explorer ticket for a shorter distance, say 35,000 BIS ticket, then decides to extend traveling to a longer distance, say 50,000 BIS ticket, before starting of travel? I understand this will involve re-ticketing. If so, can one preserve the seats under original shorter distance ticket?

BrewerSEA

I'm not certain but I'm pretty sure this would require original award inventory. I'd be glad to be corrected.

1stClassFamily

I am not sure I follow you. Do you mean seats under original ticket cannot be preserved? And we need new seats available (for those booked already under original ticket) at the time of such change in order to get ticket re-issued to extend to a higher BIS ticket?

maizenblue07

The seats on the original ticket will not be preserved. They may drop back into inventory for you to reserve again on your new ticket or they might not.

frebay

Not sure this has worked for anyone else, but I was able to downgrade my biz seat to econ without paying the voluntary downgrade fee. First 2 times I called, CSR said I had to pay, but the 3rd time they just made the change.

Austinrunner

Did you get the miles back?

rmott1

hi, wife & I are planning similar RTW trip for next spring. Any suggestions on getting started. We have miles on AA allready. also, how did you do the video?
We plan to stop in Japan, China, Thailand, India, Turkey, France & back to DC.

1stClassFamily

As part of my RTW trip Planning using Explorer Award, I am trying to find a flight from GiG- EZE. EF search Oneworld availability shows LAN(JJ) has two direct flights. I understand JJ is really TAM flight. So do these two JJ operated flights eligible for Oneworld Explorer Award?

Austinrunner

No...

BrewerSEA

No, JJ operated flights are not permitted. The only non-oneworld airline you can fly is Qantas codeshare on Jetstar.

jpripcord

So the fiance and I are looking to book our honeymoon. Our initial idea was to go to Bora Bora in first or business class (we live in NYC). It looks like we'd be paying 125,000 AAdvantage miles for only 13,000 miles flown in business class.

That of course got my mind going, because for only 25,000 more AAdvantage miles, we could do another trip, flying 12,000 additional miles in business class. Seems like a no-brainer to me

So here's my proposed itinerary, looking for advice, suggestions, affirmation...

Use BA Avios, or pay for a 1 way ticket from JFK-MIA in November 2012 (I'm doing this because I need to keep the entire trip under 25,000 miles, and based on NYC being my true origination and final destination city, I need to make sure my trip is compliant with the rules)

AA Explorer ticket:

November 2012 (pre thanksgiving trip): MIA-GIG (Stopover) -SCL (Stopover) - JFK (Stopover)

June 2013 (Honeymoon): JFK -LAX - PPT (Stopover) - LAX - JFK - CMH

The reason I tagged CMH onto the end of my itinerary (and this is probably where I'm looking for the most feedback), is because I couldn't make JFK my final destination (because I'm stopping over between my November trip and my June honeymoon). My concern was that if I picked BOS/PHL/ORD or some other nearby international airport, they would check my bags the whole way through (and we don't intend to take the final leg of the trip).

All in all, the complete itinerary should be 24,708 miles. An extra 11,000 miles flown (basically a free trip to south america in November) in business class all for an extra 25,000 AAdvantage miles per person.

I think everything looks good to me, but I was hoping for some outside eyes.

-JP

guv1976

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.1030 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

Sorry, it's back to the drawing board for you: no oneworld carrier flies from LAX to PPT, and the only non-oneworld carrier you can use on an Explorer is Jetstar on flights that are Qantas codeshares.

And if you check bags in at LAX (after Customs) on an LAX-JFK (connection) - CMH ticket, AA will check your bags through to CMH. If, however, your ticket read PPT-LAX-JFK//LGA-CMH, well ....