skipaway

I'd like to do another RTW starting in CPT. I've gone over the threads, did not understand AT ALL rule 3.2.1. I googled it and, lo and behold, was referred to a FT thread from 2 years ago. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/onewo...e-sheet-6.html around page 6-9 (thanks Pandaperth)
That really helped and I felt better regarding my inability to wrap my mind around what they meant--was it Moomba who said "I'm totally confused"? As I understand it,the rule is similar to the one transcon rule for NA; Heaven forbid you should rack up too many miles. I also searched Gardyloos other posts and the one in the Premium Fares thread (MR forum) was quite helpful. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/premi...us-4271-a.html

Another concern is the Mindpearl situation. Any recent good news there? Is it still realistic to count on being able to purchase at CPT fare?

I am going to a meeting in CPT in April, probably on an award ticket and returning on the RTW ticket. Could I purchase the RTW when I arrive from a travel agent there? Has anyone done this? That would be nerve wracking as I envision myself stuck in Capetown (I am employed full time) so I'd like to have ticket in hand before leaving US (or available for pickup in CPT as I did with my first RTW from WAW). Are there travel agents (non airline) in the US who are skilled with obtaining the city of departure fares?

My main goal is to see the world, and, secondarily, to maximize miles and qualify for EXP. Looks like this will still be doable even though EQP are history. I am doing the PLT challenge so will be PLT for 2016 if no more snafus on my flights. And I should be less than 50 K miles from lifetime PLT by year's end. So this trip should clinch it, if the lifetime program is not axed in the meantime. I have waaay too many banked miles, and plan to break up my trip so I'm not gone from work for one extended period. Are there any award booker types that handle mixed award/revenue travel? Or, although it seems more reasonable to travel west, I've thought of going CPT-*-NRT and starting a second RTW from there to facilitate the work burden. I'm sure I'll seek specific advice re optimization once I learn whether originating in another continent is still doable.

skipaway

Update: I've played around with the oneworld booking tool. it didn't like using QR as initial flight. However, it was pretty easy to change to CPT-LHR and I have a price of $US5771,56. I see in the oneworld how-tos that you have to contact Qatar directly to book if they are the initial carrier. Would this likely result in significant savings? I'm pretty happy with the price now, but wouldn't mind saving. I also hear QR is a "5 star" airline and I wanted to spend some time flying it.
Has anyone booked directly with QR? Is it truly a superior experience?
And, most importantly, if I proceed to booking, will I be able to purchase this fare? If I leave it for,say, 24 hours, will it time out?

CPT-LHR-BUD-LHR-LAX-DFW-ANC-DFW-SJU-JFK-HKG-CMB-NRT-CGK-HKG-DOH-CPT

MiamiPrep

What's the deal? Can we no longer ticket in South Africa????

cphurley

From personal experience and reading other threads in this forum, it appears that AA in South Africa / Mindpearl will no longer allow booking originating in South Africa at the South Africa rate unless you have a South African based credit card to pay.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/onewo...-anyone-3.html

wandering_fred

Any knowledge of their "walk-up" policies? VISA/MC/AMEX might have something to say if their cards were actually presented and refused...

Given the "ordinary" fares exJNB are quite reasonable, it might be worth a full visit to set up the xONEx. At least from Australia/SE Asia.

Happy wandering

Fred

MiamiPrep

Shame we can't find a South African travel agent to ticket it.

skipaway

I doubt they'd refuse your card, but sounds like they'd price it from your home country. I also recall in one of the several threads that someone did show up and couldn't get past the first desk.
I'm kinda stymied for now. Gardyloo posted over on the Premium Fares thread (Mileage running forum) about pricing a DONE4 out of JNB, avoiding BA and their fees. How that was accomplished, I know not, and I don't think it was actually purchased. It's a nice trip, and I'd go that way, but want to meet friends in Budapest after my meeting. I finally called Qatar today since they don't play on the oneworld tool. They told me to submit my route to [email protected]. He spelled it out phonetically, oscar, november, echo, whiskey....Still, didn't work, returned undelivered. I have another addy, and if it doesn't work, I guess I'll call again and read it off over the phone.

I'm planning to submit this:
CPT-DOH-BUD-LHR-DOH-LAX-JFK-DFW-ANC-DFW-JFK-HGK-KTM-KUL-MLE-HKG-JNB
But Mileage Monkey says it's invalid. Probably something obvious. I need to take up a simpler hobby, like quantum physics.

pandaperth

Good luck with getting it issued by Qatar (have you read the first post in this thread? - http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/onewo...cpt-done5.html)

Mileage Monkey only flags one error - your DOH-LAX flight; that is fair enough because that flight has not yet commenced
CPT-DOH-BUD-LHR-DOH-LAX-JFK-DFW-ANC-DFW-JFK-HGK-KTM-KUL-MLE-HKG-JNB
(tick the "Ignore Errors" box to get error information in Mileage Monkey)

Have you tried pricing your itinerary in the on-line tool with CPT-LHR as the first flight? This will give you a benchmark against which to measure the price QR (or AA) comes up with

skipaway

Yes!! I did read it months ago, and have been searching for that post. All I could remember was there was some trouble with QR. I bet I used 20 search terms on FT and on Google to no avail. It's worse even than I recall, and my experience so far parallels yours. My second attempt has apparently been delivered at least.

I did use the oneworld interactive tool through to pricing: CPT-LHR-xxx-CPT About US$5770. I obviously didn't book it, and wonder if they'll just let me pay or if there will be a problem with the country of sale issue should I decide to just cough up the extra grand it will likely cost to use BA as ticketing airline. Still a fantastic deal, imho.

Maybe I'll head over to the forums on Tripadvisor or Fodor's and see if I can get a recommendation for a good travel agent in Capetown. That sounds like an idea worth pursuing.

Thanks for the MM tip--I wondered what got their panties in a wad. QR does show that flight on their route map already.

skipaway

Since I'm going to a meeting in Capetown, I contacted the event company and asked for the name of the agency doing the travel and tour arrangements. I haven't heard back yet. If I do, I'll contact the agency about ticketing the RTW. If I don't, I'll keep trying to find an agent, or add CPT-JNB and call BA. I feel a case of expatitis coming on. Airbnb Capetown?

I did hear back from Qatar, fascinating in the way totally left field responses can be. It's posted in the second thread below, #108, page 8.

For those interested, here are some recent threads on the subject:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/onewo...-question.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/onewo...cpt-done5.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/onewo...ct-anyone.html

skipaway

In the thread re recent mindpearl contact, cphurley hasn't said whether he ever got ticketed. I had a valid trip with QR as initial carrier, but you have to contact them to ticket. When I did, they told me you absolutely cannot touch a continent twice, ever. I sent them the rules and the valid trip per ow. I am still waiting to hear from Qatar's reconsideration agent after their saying they'd get back to me in 24-48 hours. Somehow I doubt it's the Thanksgiving holiday slowing them down; I get the feeling they just don't want to ticket any of these fares.
So I went back to the online tool, and as suggested, changed my first flight to CPT-JNB to see if BA would ticket. I got an error message, not "call the local office to ticket", no PNR, just "choose new flights or new fare". So I did change up a little thinking maybe MLE-HKG was the problem (no direct flight). Same message from the oneworld tool.

So today I hear from, of all places, Award Wallet that I have a new itinerary. (No word from Tripit). There is a pnr attached. I searched my email and have no correspondence from BA or QR. The itin has all flight numbers removed but is the original itinerary I tried to price with the ow tool on Nov 25 with CPT-DOH as first flight. I suppose it's expired? Anyone have an idea where this came from, how Award Wallet got the news?
My plan is to email QR with PNR and ask to pay. Will report.....

cphurley

Payment processed by BA JNB office, not ticketed just yet but expecting it should be shortly. See Mindpearl thread for more detail.

skipaway

Congratulations! Glad to hear this.

Well, I emailed the second QR agent I'd dealt with back on the 25th, and almost instantly got a response from a new person. She said they had sent me an email on the 26th. I have again searched my inbox, trash, spam and can't locate it. But the fact that Award Wallet has it means they must have sent it. Anyway, they want specific flights and dates! Of course, not so simple since I want to change cities (not go to LHR). The original itinerary was CPT-DOH-Europe-NA-Asia-HKG-CPT. They didn't want to ticket it because backtracking is never permitted. Now I DO want to "backtrack" as allowed in rule 3.2.2. (HKG-DOH-CPT) I did tell them if they felt they couldn't ticket the new itinerary without further ado, to just go ahead and process the one they did approve. They wanted to know if I wanted my HKG stop to be on the inbound or outbound leg.
I still don't know why I couldn't ticket with BA, and I don't have a price from QR yet.
Anyway, fingers crossed that I will soon be joining cphurley as a ticketed pax.

skipaway

Still no joy from Qatar. They responded with a suggested itinerary, complete with flights and dates, (they had changed from my specified route by replacing a third HKG transit with CMB). I agreed and asked for fare and payment instructions. They said (several times now) they're working on getting it priced and booked. They say the latest road block is the DFW-ANC-DFW flight number which is the same both ways. This makes it seem to violate the rule that you can't fly the same city pair the same way more than once. Haven't heard anything now for two days.

As suggested by pandaperth, I changed my booking tool entry slightly with first flight CPT-JNB:
(CPT-JNB-DOH-BUD-DOH-LAX-DFW-ANC-DFW-JFK-HKG-KTM-KUL-ICN-HKG-DOH-CPT)
After getting the "itinerary complete, proceed to book flights" message, and booking all flights in the booking tool, I was met with an error message that I needed to pick different flight or fare. They did not specify the problem. So, again as suggested, I tried it in L and A. Got same message. I tried deleting the DFW-ANC-DFW to see if they had the same issue as Qatar, but still didn't work. I tried several permutations of the Asia flights to no avail. However, when I replaced the CPT-JNB-DOH with CPT-LHR, I did get an ok and instructions to call BA in JNB to book. IIRC, they priced it at 78KZAR about 24 hours ago.
Any thoughts as to what the problem might be with the initial itinerary?
My plan is to contact Qatar once more to see what they say next. If no luck, guess I'll go with the flights through London.

anabolism

It's obviously going in different directions!