OK let’s discuss the origin-destination open jaw rule, which is:
4(c) Travel may originate at any point for which fares are published and must terminate at the same point, except that origin-destination surface segments are permitted as follows
(a) within the country of origin
(b) within the Middle East
(c) between the United States and Canada
(d) between HKG and China
(e) between Malaysia and SIN
(f) within Africa
(g) between Maldives & Sri Lanka/India
My opinion is that it is very generous to some origins and stingy to others
Generous Examples:
(f) within Africa – lots of us have taken advantage of this for our ex-MPM itineraries
(b) with the Middle East – lots of us took advantage of this for our ex-KRT itineraries
(c) between the United States and Canada – so start at HNL and end at JFK
Stingy examples:
Geographically small countries, such as Holland, Belize, Caribbean island nations…
I guess that we would all like to see the rule say:
4(c) Travel may originate at any point for which fares are published and must terminate in the same continent
Or even
4(c) Travel may originate at any point for which fares are published and may terminate anywhere
OK I know the ticket is named a Round-The-World ticket, but from the airlines’ perspective what is wrong with having flexibility such as these? After all, we are still limited to 16 flights maximum.
What do others think?
Other points:
In post #13 above headinclouds suggested a new exception
(h) within Europe
Which, with the current definition of Europe, could mean something like originate in Germany and end in Morocco
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Another issue with this rule has arisen recently – see post #144 in this thread
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/onewo...periences.html
The OP wanted to originate in Russia West of the Urals (in other words in Europe) and finish in Russia East of the Urals (in other words in Asia), but origin and destination are in the same country. This was on a Global Explorer, not a Oneworld Explorer, but both fare rules have the same words for this rule. The ticketing airline refused – presumably because it felt you had to return to the same continent and same TC area as well as to the same country. When the whole of Russia was defined to be in Europe, this problem would not have arisen.
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In my view, a couple of the exceptions could be removed:
(d) between HKG and China
– as pointed out by christep in post #7, nowadays this is covered by (a) within country of origin
(e) between Malaysia and SIN
– IIRC this predates MH’s joining the alliance
(g) between Maldives & Sri Lanka/India
- IIRC this came in when BA commenced its LGW-MLE service, it certainly predates UL’s joining the alliance, which has services to MLE, and the commencement of CX’s HKG-MLE services
So, what do others think?