Originally Posted by jonnny

Hi all,

I would like to share some information I discovered today and also would be grateful for some advice.

I am in the process of arranging a RTW OneWorld TKT and had sorted out my route (more or less) when I discovered that part of my route Santiago to Auckland was according to the travel agent Booked at least for the next 8/9 months.

I found this hard to beleive and called LANCHILE to find out why - and certainley wasnt expecting the answer I got!

Basically only 4/5 seats are allocated per flight for people who hold such a ticket - the reason is because of the lack of flights connecting the two continents. LANCHILE would not like to waste these seats on people who buy a ONEWORLD RTW ticket rather have as much full paying customers as possible.

The guy told me that at the moment there was plenty of availability in Economy (I asked abotu March) but it was pointless to get on a waiting list as he has been informed by his Airline that they are interested only in Full paying customers.

The RTW tkt I was interested in is £1350 the flight to Auckland (single) is £759.

I find this another cynical ploy by airlines cashing in as if I had bought the ticket I would have had to buy and additional ticket and pay for the change to my original tkt.

Now i know and have read on this board that it may not be that difficult to get a seat on these planes but I would be grateful to hear back from people especially those who had to deal with this problem - to help me decide what kind of tkt I should buy.

Also does this happen on other routes?

Many thanks and look forward to hearing from you

J