Full route booked (for 4, cost per adult = ~USD7.5k; so a lot of fuel surcharges)
OSL-DOH-HKG // HKG-CMB-SIN-HKG // HKG-AKL-NAN-MEL-HKG // HKG-JFK-ORD-ANC-SEA-DOH-OSL
(Return from another RTW) // 1 week CNY Holiday // 2 week Easter Holiday // 2.5week Summer holiday and return
Other points to note:
- In general, even 9 months in advance, Alaska Airlines are very stingy with their D class availability on direct flights out of ANC - Near impossible to get even ANC-SEA, but the moment you do ANC-SEA-LAX or ANC-SEA-DFW, lots more space. This was frustrating as my ambition here was an Alaska visit in July, busy times clearly (maybe not helped with the football world cup)
- Continuing problems with Trans-conntential availability remains, over a 5 day period couldn't find a single flight (admittedly I need 4 business tickets) from JFK/BOS to LAX or SFO. In the end I had to accept defeat and do JFK-ORD-ANC, rather than JFK-SFO-ANC that I could find on EF). Maybe they're blocking for the world cup?
- No enforcement of AA codeshare across an ocean (all of my US flights were AA or AA codeshare)
- I had to do this twice as the first agent (after the HUCA) seemed to be doing a good job, but actually hadn't: She had missed an entire flight out; had one flight taking off before I landed, and misspelt a name (which leads to a restart). The second agent, who I've had before, was great and fixed it all as quickly as possible when I called back ten minutes later after viewing online (the other agent was too keen to get me off)
- The ticket cost vs fuel surcharge are wrong and so I'll need to call back when I have the energy (children's fuel surcharges are more than adults, but one adult looks to have paid a child fare). The overall amounts are probably correct, but not how they're split... Edit: Yes, looks like one of the adults was classed as a child when I called, maybe I entered passport details incorrectly, or the agent copy/pasted across. God knows what that means. The fuel surcharges are still the wrong way around too, so it's with AA to decide what to do. I have a horror of having to redo this all again, or splitting the ticket to fix the adult fare. Sigh
. Maybe the tip there is: Don't enter passport information until AFTER ticketing.