Originally Posted by
pye1201
...my husband and I intend to do a lot more travelling now that the kids have all moved out and started paying for their own flights!
LOL. Mrs pandaperth and I have been in that happy situation since 2008. And yes we have done a LOT of travelling
Thanks GARDYLOO - I had already thought about doing our Turkey/Greece content first before staring the DONE4
Duh!
The penny's dropped!. I hadn't got the point of
gardyloo's suggestion. Now I have; and it's a very good suggestion
PANDAPERTH - you would be proud of me - the last itinerary I came up with I managed to use ALL 16 sectors
I am proud of you
Just a couple more questions (for now that is) - when I book in January, intending to start the itinerary later in the year, for dates which then fall outside the required time - you mentioned dummy dates. Would I just book in earlier dates and change them when I commence the itinerary? And if I book in a dummy finish date, will I incur a fee pushing it out to near the end of the 12 month ticket?
Yes - you've got it
There is no fee for pushing out the finish date
A small note, the airline doing the change for you can charge a "local service fee". Qantas charges $60 per ticket. AA does not charge a service fee.
And regarding the taxes and fuel surcharges, is there a listing somewhere of these charges for each airport?
Not that I know of.
What I do is either use the online tool, which gives a breakdown of the taxes and surcharges or I make use of the
itasoftware.com web site
- Plug in the individual flight - say SYD-HBA on Qantas
- It will give a fare and an itemised list of the taxes and surcharges (surcharges either have that word in their description or they have a YQ or YR code)
- Ignore the fare and usually ignore the surcharges (see below)
- Also ignore any sales tax (GST, VAT or the like)
- The remaining items are the taxes for the segment
Fuel surcharges are trickier
Whether you pay them or not is driven largely by which airline you ticket with
Qantas and BA are the worst - they collect lots of surcharges
AA collects its own surcharges and BA's surcharges, and it charges a fixed EUR30 for any Iberia flights
So using itasoftware, you can work out what the surcharges on your itinerary will be
I have no idea how you know the system so well - you must either work in the industry or have put in many many hours of research!
Back in 2008 I knew next to nothing. Then I discovered this web site; and I've learnt a heck of a lot in five years
(No - I don't work in the industry)