crimsona

I wasn't allowed to change my destination with an involuntary change, but if I had changed a stopover it may have been ok

babo

Hi all,

Super excited to fly on J for the very first time! Happy to be able to try out a few different airlines well. Figured I'd share what I ended up with. Fees are a bit high, but managed to check out most of my wish list. Thanks for the help everyone!

YYZ - LAX (AC 789) stop
LAX - NRT (NH 777-300) stop
NRT - PVG (NH 788) layover
PVG - TPE (BR 777-300) destination
TPE - YYZ (BR 777-300)300,000 Aeroplan miles + $598.37 + $100 for my daughter + $60 for the telephone booking. I'll keep an eye out for any YYZ - LAX flights via United to reduce some of the fees, but I doubt anything will turn up. I switched from HND to NRT because I noticed that NRT - TPE has direct flights available with both NH/BR 2 weeks out and sporadically 2-3 months out. I figure I'll have more options this way in case part of my ticket get changed and I have the option to re-work the itinerary.
Tips that I found while searching who might be helpful to other first time who are looking to book a mini-RTW:

-Searching 330-365 days out doesn't necessarily get the best result / availability (this is the reason I couldn't find flights to TYO from any of the US hubs ... they're there but a bit earlier ~300-320 days)
-Don't have to necessarily start searching backwards, build your search around the segment with the least flexibility / availability
-Can't book a mini RTW that involves CA if you have an infant travelling with you (unless you want to purchase an additional seat for that leg). Originally wanted a CA flight from NRT-PVG; PVG-TPE legs so that I could avoid having to grab my luggage and check it in again, but the Aeroplan agents were unable to electronically ticket it due to issues with CA not releasing or accepting electronic tickets for my infant daughter
-Called a few of my Credit Cards (Amex Business Plat + TD First Class Travel Infinite Visa) to see if any of them cover award flights for flight delay/cancellation/luggage etc. Neither of them did. I found that TD's Aeroplan cards will cover Aeroplan award flights so I did a product switch to the Aeroplan Infinite Visa with no credit hit and a 15,000 Aeroplan bonus. Win win!

WestistBex

Hello, I am brand new here, so apologies if I ask stupid questions. I feel like I need a PHD to book a Mini RTW.

My destination is New Zealand from Winnipeg. Timeframe is February, for a total of a month. Ideally I would like to stop somewhere along the way for a week and I am fairly flexible.(Singapore/Thailand/ Vietnam/Malaysia/ Cambodia, Philippines/ Indonesia/ or even Africa), then onto New Zealand. Ideally I would fly into Christchurch and out of Aukland. Does that count as an open jaw? Then my goal is to stop in Fiji, and fly home to Winnipeg from there. (If this is not possible, I would fly back to AKL. Fiji can be a separate ticket from my Mini RTW if need be) If I cannot squeeze Fiji into my RTW, then I would stop somewhere else on the way home. Organizing all of this is tough as it is, in terms of finding plausible routings.

Additional roadblocks are:
*on the Aeroplan site, nothing comes up from AKL to NAN. EVER. But I can find this routing on Google with Air New Zealand so it SHOULD be available?
*I want to fly business or 1st class. I have just over 220,000 miles and have been saving them for a splurge, but finding business/ first is proving really difficult.
* When I search Aeroplan for a return flight YWG-AKL, it is telling me that it is 180K points in economy and 320K points in Business for Fixed Mileage, yet the redemption chart states 90K for Economy and 160K to 220K for Business/ 1st! Why am I missing??

I have no problem calling Aeroplan to book and inquire. Just hoping to draw on some expertise before I do so.

THANK YOU in advance!

ChrisA330

OK - lots here to go through. You should first understand what makes an itinerary valid, the most important thing is Maximum Permitted Mileage (MPM). This is the maximum distance you're allowed to travel between your origin (YWG), and the furthest stop in your itinerary. If AKL was to be the furthest point, you're allowed 12,836 miles in each direction. You can stop anywhere you want, as long as the total mileage doesn't increase that. Now, say you wanted to add a stopover in Singapore. SIN is now considered the destination, as it is farther away from YWG than AKL is. MPM for YWG-SIN is 14,407.

You need to figure out where you want to stop first, then we can help you determine proper routings.

Yes it would. I wouldn't waste an open jaw between these 2 cities. Just book a one way flight between the two, domestic NZ fares are reasonable

South Pacific stops are generally difficult to do, as you can't connect through the same city twice. There are only two *A options from south pacific islands to NA: RAR-LAX on NZ which only operated 1x/week, and PPT-SFO on UA starting in October for the winter season.

There is a difference between what is available for an award, and what is available for a revenue ticket. NZ can be notoriously tight with their award inventory.

Did you select 2 passengers perhaps?

Bohemian1

I recently completed an Aeroplan YVR-SYD-AKL-NAN (Non-Aeroplan flights: NAN-SVU-NAN-MEL) MEL-BKK-TPE-YVR trip for 2 PAX in J and you are right, the AKL-NAN segment was the hardest to book by far.

If I recall, I booked about 11 months in advance and had to do a lot of searching (using KVS Tool, but other solutions are available) and juggling of dates to make it all work.

Once I had a routing with award availability that seemed to work, I called Aeroplan and stepped them through it segment by segment. But Air New Zealand is indeed very stingy and, unless you are willing to wait and risk not getting your other flights, you may end up just paying for that leg.

Welcome to FT, by the way!

rankourabu

A flight from HNL, with a stopover in Fiji to Auckland or Christchurch is ~$700. It could be worth just redeeming miles to HNL one way, then back from AKL as a one way.
It can cost $600 alone to fly roundtrip from AKL to Fiji as a separate ticket

erik19283

This is one tip I'll keep in mind!

yscleo

I called last night to book RTW. At first she was reluctant to deal with me, but I told her I got all the dates and flights, and just needed to read to her. I read to her this:
8/30 YYZ-LHR (AC868), layover to 8/31 LHR-BRU SN2096, stop
9/12 BRU-CDG-TPE SN3631/BR88; destination
9/27 TSA-HND BR190, stop
10/11 NRT-DEN-YYZ UA142/UA2026

The lady had a hard time with this, especially with TSA-HND, saying these are different airports than TPE and NRT. I kept trying to explain to her TSA/TPE are co-airports for Taipei, and HND/NRT are co-airports for Tokyo. She took a long time, then made a comment that there is no flight from TPE to TSA. When I explained to her that's right, I'm not trying to fly from TPE to TSA as they are co-airports, just like EWR/LGA. I'm not sure she understood.

Then she said this RTW trip is 200,000 points and pointed me to the link, where it said:

Around the World Reward

• Economy Class - 200,000 Aeroplan Miles

I tried to explain to her no, it should be 75k points. She said well, her screen froze, and she may have to re-boot, but it's getting late, so she cannot finish it anyway. Told me to call back today.


Before hanging up, I asked her if she had ever done this before. She said no. She said there are people there for more than 11 years, and never done RTW trips.

Is my itinerary ok, and is there anything I should be explaining different when I call ae again?

I'm trying to save YQ, but cannot avoid the AC for YYZ-LHR. Also in the last piece
10/11 NRT-DEN-YYZ UA142/UA2026; If replacing the last leg UA2026 with AC1040, would the YQ go up, or stay the same?

ChrisA330

Everything looks good. When calling, don't tell them you want to book a RTW...just give them the itinerary you want. mini-RTW is a Flyertalk made up term, not an official Aeroplan term. Co-terminal is the official way to describe TSA/TPE, maybe try using that term if you find you're having troubles.

Changing to the AC flight will increase YQ by ~$40.

JJonahJ

Agree. Don't mention mini-RTW. I usually just say I want to book from my origin to a destination of so-and-so, and with one or two free stopovers, then I rip off all the info.

If you've constructed your own itinerary using single segment searches, and if part of it is A-B-C, but say for instance that you can do an Aeroplan search for A-C and it comes back with A-B-C, just tell the rep you want to go A-C on your preferred dates, and when she comes back with her results you can say then that you want your preferred A-B-C option. This save a bit of time, sometimes, although it does depend on the agent. I'vd found that the ones that are very good/sharp, prefer it if I ask for A-C instead of A-B and then B-C.

After all the segments/dates have been collected, the rep will run it through a validation to verify it's all good (within/below the MPM, not back-tracking, etc). So just request for them to go to that step instead of arguing what is valid or not during the initial segments-collection phase. Let the system educate the rep.

yscleo

Thank you ChrisA330 and JJonahJ. I will use the term co-terminal, and won't say mini-RTW.

The MPM of YYZ-TPE 10554 should be good. If the CSR still cannot deal with co-terminal, I was beginning to think of changing:
9/27 TSA-HND to TPE-PVG-ICN-NRT (BR712/OZ368/ET672) because 9/27 TPE-NRT showed nothing.

I had to construct many of those, segment by segment of A-B then B-C, as A-C didn't show the desired flight/time.

What tool can I use to find out the YQ (as in the last flight if switching from UA to AC)?

ChrisA330

There isn't really a tool that can do that, unless you can construct something similar using the Aeroplan website.

Looking at DEN-YYZ on it's own, the AC flight charges $34.50 in YQ, where UA does not charge anything.

yscleo

Yes, for the individual flight, there is the higher YQ in AC. But if looking at NRT-DEN-YYZ together,
both UA142/UA2026 and UA142/ AC1040
show the same YQ at $119.20 Cad. Is there some good explanation on how this is calculated?

Pseudo Nim

tys90

Looking around for a while and I think I know the answer but I had a hard time finding examples of open jaw at the end of a trip.

If I open jaw at my origin, say fly out of DEN to Asia then back to ORD, do I have 1 stopover + destination left or 2 stopovers + destination? I believe it's 1 stopover + destination based on other open jaw examples but I'm not sure I understand the logic since the trip is over when I get back to ORD.