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Thread: The oneworld explorer ticket FAQs
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Old Apr 9, 2019 | 6:27 am
  #2698  
pandaperth
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Originally Posted by yehu
Hi all
Trying to plan our OW Explorer RTW tickets. It seems Cuba is excluded from the planner, impossible to include, although there ARE regular flights of the alliance members to & from Havana etc...
So, Is Cuba really out of the destination possibilities of OW Explorer, and simply forget about it? Could not find an answer anywhere else.
Thank you!
Welcome to FT yehu

My guess of what the situation is:
  • You can include Cuba in an itinerary
  • But then cannot include AA in your itinerary (for ANY flights, not just the flights to/from Cuba)
  • The tool does not allow selection of HAVana, either because of sloppy work by those that maintain the tool's database, or (more likely IMHO) they explicitly excluded HAV

My thinking is:
  1. The Oneworld Explorer "Sales Restrictions" paragraph has the following words:
    If a ticket includes travel to/from/via Cuba it may not also include flight segments for travel on American Airlines / American Eagle (operated by Envoy Airlines, Skywest, Express Jet, Republic Airlines, Mesa Airlines, Compass Airlines, Trans States Airlines, PSA Airlines and Piedmont Airlines) due to U.S. Government restrictions.
    Any such ticket will not be honoured by AA and cannot be used to travel on AA.
    I do not believe this is any sort of hangover from earlier days; there are still US Govt restrictions in place with regard to travel to Cuba.

  2. The database used by the online booking tool omits a number of ports served by Oneworld airlines (I know of ZNZ and JRO, and there are no doubt others). If you try to select HAV you get the same error message as if you try to select say ZNZ "252: This city is invalid...".
    I suspect the omission of HAV is deliberate; the Oneworld organisation is based in the USA (in New York) and my guess is that it is either prohibited from allowing a Cuban destination in its tool or it just decided to keep it simple.

  3. So, IMHO, an itinerary that includes for example:
    ...MAD-HAV-LIM...
    is valid

    Also valid, IMHO, would be:
    ...MAD-HAV-LIM-LAX-HKG... provided the LIM-LAX and LAX-HKG flights are not on AA (this itinerary is making use of the allowed second visit to North America)

    To book such itineraries you would either have to use a travel agent or an airline (not AA of course!)
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