Originally Posted by
pye1201
Pandaperth - so first up - looking at the AA Other Airline Award Chart, I'm assuming we could book any Qantas flight not starting with N, G, S, O or Q to London before "commencing" our DONE4 and earn enough to qualify Platinum with AA? Looks like that might be a cheaper option than going with AA or BA or a full economy fare on a partner airline?
No.
Look again at the QF earning chart. For QF booking classes L, M and V you only earn 50% base miles and the EQP earn is a multiple of the base miles; so even though your earn 1EQP per base mile because you're only earning 50% base you would only earn around 5,000EQP on a SYD-LON flight in those booking classes.
I ran a query in
itasoftware - 1-way SYD-LON in mid-September on AA, BA or QF
and then looked for the cheapest booking class for each that would give 1EQP per mile. Results are:
BA booking class L AUD1262 (BA metal via SIN)
AA booking class M AUD1786 (via Nth America; QF metal/AA codeshare trans-pacific)
QF booking class K AUD2006 (via Dubai)
As far as gaining Platinum status, we would then use 45k of the miles earned on a business fare back home and possibly use up the remainder on a fare to either London or New York (45/40k on the AA Award chart?). Would there be any other benefits to being platinum?
Of course you could always start a new DONE4 and use it to come home
(maybe via Africa?)
South Pacific to Europe requires 45/60/80 K miles (Economy/Business/First)
South Pacific to Nth America requires 37.5/62.5/72.5
For us the big benefit of Platinum is the 100% bonus miles, second is the lounge access and check in at the business counter when flying economy
I like your DFW-ANC-DFW suggestion - you mentioned that last year and of course, I couldn't find it on the planner (obviously because it was the wrong season). If I take your suggestion to maximise the miles and go with the itinerary: CAI-NRT-SYD-NOU-SYD-WLG-SYD-JFK-YVR-DFW-ANC-DFW-MEX-ORD-CDG-AMM, I can book the rest of the itinerary with the RTW desk and leave the DFW-ANC-DFW as 2 spare segments? Then when the flights become available after May, do I book them with the AA RTW desk or the airlines direct?
This (northern) summer's DFW-ANC flights are already available for booking (they start in late May). NEXT summer's flights will not be loaded into the system until well after you want to buy your tickets
So yes - you could book a 14 segment itinerary now (which includes DFW - for example YVR-DFW-MEX) and add the flights to/from ANC later (paying the USD125 change fee)
You make the change through AA. You could phone its RTW desk, but better is to phone the Platinum desk
And is this itinerary OK as far as no. of sectors goes? I can't run it on my Planner no matter which way I try! I can however get the itinerary minus the DFW-ANC-DFW segments to run if I start it in Tokyo but it comes to 15 segments - does that mean I can't fit the Anchorage segment? And again, for mileage earning ORD-AMM-LHR - isn't this adding yet another segment?
You have to keep within the 16 segment maximum. So to fit in DFW-ANC-DFW you would have to drop one segment somewhere else. I suggested dropping London and instead flying ORD-CDG
You could change ORD-LHR to ORD-AMM-LHR (or even ORD-DOH-LHR) on your original itinerary because that was using only 15 segments.
Again many thanks for your very generous help - it means a great deal to me.
My pleasure