Originally Posted by
trav
hi there,
i've been reading as much as i can in this forum but am starting to suffer from an information overload. i've devised a rtw departing next january using the online booking tool and been given me a quote for the price which i'm more than happy with. so basically after i decide upon a ffp, i'm ready to go ahead and book it. it seems a very straight forward process and the tool says its validated and ready to book but i thought i'd run it by the expert opinions on here just to double check.
i'ts as follows
GOT>MAD (transitting through HEL)>GUA
surface sector
PTY>LGA (transitting through MIA)
JFK>PER (transitting through HKG)
surface sector
DPS>HKG (transitting through OSA)>KTM>GOT(transitting through HKG and HEL)
i'm wondering about a few things in particular:
1.does changing plans without stopping in a destination count as visiting a continent? for example does the JFK>PER flight that goes through HKG count as visiting asia. and if so is it backtracking to return after PER?
2.is it a problem to fly in and out of different airports in the same city? i.e. LGA and JFK.
3.do transit flights count as segments within continents? if so then do i have too many in asia? or is it only stops?
so any comments/help would be appreciated.
also whats the general opinion about booking online as it seems the majority of posters either go through travel agentsor deal with the airlines directly.
cheers
First, welcome to FT.
Some answers to your questions -
1. The online tool may say it's okay to go JFK-xHKG-PER, and later returning to Asia, but it's not supposed to. The only time you're allowed to transit Asia and then return to the continent is when the transit is between Europe and Australia/NZ, not between N. America (or S. America) and Australia. You could easily substitute JFK-SYD-PER without creating this conflict. If the ticket was issued via the online service showing your proposed route, the odds would be great that at some point it would be invalidated, leaving you with the need to pay for a re-issue using the "legal" routing.
Yes, whenever the wheels touch a continent, it's counted.
2. It's not a problem to use "co-terminals," however every time you do it it costs you a segment (out of a max of 16.) In the case of PTY-xMIA-NYC, there are plenty of flights from Miami to JFK, so if your next flight departs JFK you can save a segment by just setting it up to fly there in the first place. Same goes for LHR and LGW in London, NRT and HND in Tokyo, and similar situations in other cities.
3. If your route is ...DPS-KIX-HKG-KTM-HKG-HEL... you're okay, 4 flights in Asia. Surface segments count against the 16, but not against the per-continent total.
So clear up the JFK-SYD-PER thing and you should be good to go.