Originally Posted by
danger
As I mentioned in post 265
here I've been working with three Mozambique travel agents to see if they can correctly price a DONE5. As that thread is more about ex-CPT, I think this discussion is better suited to this thread.
I sent this itinerary for pricing: MPM-xDOH-CMN-DOH-CPH-xDOH-GRU-SCL-BOG-LIM-EZE-JFK-CUN-PHX-DFW-SYD-JNB.
Putting this itinerary into the oneworld booking tool but starting, for example, CPT-JNB-xDOH . . . and dropping one of the South American segments (in order to, (i) get a price with BA being the first carrier and, (ii) stay within the 16 stops) produces a valid itinerary so I believe the above is also valid.
The first agent has bowed out, it seemingly being too difficult for him. The other two have been very eager to assist and have admitted it's their first foray into the xONEx field.
One has come back saying she has been in touch with QR and they have advised: "The itinerary as it stands does not qualify for RTW product, due to following reason. Only 1 intercontinental departure and 1 intercontinental arrival permitted in Africa". The agent then included this image:
http://imgur.com/a/jvSnu
I went back to her saying the itinerary does indeed have only one intercontinental departure and arrival in Africa. She replied saying she would relay that to QR and get back in touch when she had more.
As others have suggested, instead of going through a TA it's perfectly possible nowadays to utilise the AA RTW desk for one of these bookings. And I have every intention of doing that when I return from my current travels.
In the meantime, I wanted to provide a couple bits of information further to my (earlier) attempts to price an itinerary through other means.
First, after the Mozambique agent came back with the above comment from QR, I pointed out the rules to them (via the agent). Qatar then came back with:
Kindly advise the passenger that his journey should end in the same country he initially originated from. If this criteria is met then the below itinerary would qualify for a oneworld explorer product with fare basis DONE5 as it includes 5 continents namely Africa, Europe/Middle East, South America, North America & South West Pacific.
Obviously, also wrong. So I went back to the agent with the appropriate rule where different start and end points are permitted. In a further sign of its incompetence the agent has come back with the following from QR:
After checking with my supervisor, due to the pricing issue, it is suggested that the passenger changes their departure and arrival points to either JNB or MPM only. Please be as kind to advise which route would suit the guest.
I have told the agent that if QR can't play by the rules then there's obviously no point in continuing.
Second, in an attempt to get a price through the oneworld tool, I had an issue with the tool displaying the direct flights between LIM and EZE. It would only display connections via SCL. I emailed LATAM and, to my surprise, they got back to me within 24 hours. Naturally, they didn't answer the question, but they did offer to price an itinerary for me. I thought I had nothing to lose so I sent them the above itinerary. A couple of days later they reverted with an outrageous base fare of USD10500 and a total fare of USD11508.61.
So I guess the takeaway is QR and LATAM are airlines to be avoided if you're in the market for an xONEx.