Happy Healthy New Year to all and thanks to those that work tirelessly to keep this thread running and up-to-date.

Happy new year and thanks for all the efforts with the new thread!

Sorry but I was looking for some ideas yesterday just before the old thread got the axe, hope its ok to repost here:

Just finished the last of my booked travels, and am 210 TP short of gold, membership renewing on Mar 8th. I have feb half term which I want to book a family trip, and I could also do a separate quick trip to top up if required. Is there anything in the sale that would get me across the line in one go? We just did iceland otherwise that would get me a good distance there and not keen on malta at this time of year.

Was thinking something like LHR-MAD-SVQ plus another cheap CE return which gives 120+80 but that leaves me 10 TP short! Any ideas? I'm so close I'm really keen on getting gold!

teledude: unfortunately I don't think the missus would approve of MAN-LHR-MAD-SVQ as we live 15 mins away from LHR!

Why not wait and see what if a QR sale brings?

Excellent, and thanks for updating this invaluable thread and resource

It looks like the CAI-HNL fare, IRCME, is valid (again?). And it looks like four transfers are allowed, two in Europe, and two in the US (am I reading the rules right?). Presumably this would allow a routing of CAI-LHR-JFK-LAX/PHX-HNL (8x140TP=1120TP). But ITA Matrix will only give me CAI-LHR-LAX-HNL (840TP). Any idea why I can't route through NYC? There seems to be oodles of I inventory on all legs.

Per ExpertFlyer:
2 TRANSFERS PERMITTED IN EACH DIRECTION.
2 PERMITTED VIA AA/AB/AY/BA/HG/IB ONLY IN
EUROPE IN EACH DIRECTION.
AND - 2 TRANSFERS PERMITTED IN EACH DIRECTION.
1 PERMITTED BETWEEN AA/BA/IB AND B6 IN BOS/
JFK IN EACH DIRECTION
1 PERMITTED BETWEEN AA/BA/IB AND AS IN LAX/
PDX/SEA IN EACH DIRECTION
1 PERMITTED BETWEEN AA/BA/IB AND WS IN
CANADA IN EACH DIRECTION
1 PERMITTED BETWEEN AA/BA/IB AND HA IN
HAWAII IN EACH DIRECTION
2 PERMITTED VIA AA/BA/IB ONLY IN UNITED
STATES/CANADA IN EACH DIRECTION.
FARE BREAK SURFACE SECTORS NOT PERMITTED AND
EMBEDDED SURFACE SECTORS PERMITTED ON THE FARE
COMPONENT.


https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...9cc5ae2dd3.png

It was refilled on the 1st November with this nasty addendum added into the fare rules AND
IF THE FARE COMPONENT INCLUDES TRAVEL WITHIN THE UNITED
STATES
THEN THAT TRAVEL MUST BE ON
ONE OR MORE OF THE FOLLOWING
ANY BA FLIGHT
ANY IB FLIGHT
ANY AS FLIGHT
ANY HA FLIGHT.
AND
IF THE FARE COMPONENT INCLUDES TRAVEL BETWEEN CANADA AND
THE UNITED STATES
THEN THAT TRAVEL MUST BE ON
ONE OR MORE OF THE FOLLOWING
ANY BA FLIGHT
ANY IB FLIGHT.
AND
IF THE FARE COMPONENT INCLUDES TRAVEL BETWEEN HAWAII AND
CONTIGUOUS U.S.A./ALASKA
THEN THAT TRAVEL MUST BE ON
ONE OR MORE OF THE FOLLOWING
ANY BA FLIGHT
ANY IB FLIGHT.

I'm not doing a TP run as such but I thought this was the best place to post the two questions I have...

I used to be able to price up multi city itineraries fairly accurately on AA. Now however it seems to give me a load of nonsense especially ex-EU itineraries where it creates multi-leg journeys from the EU start to LHR. Has anyone found a way of avoiding this or getting it to price stuff accurately?

Second question, if you wanted the least risky option in a journey beginning at BRU, would you consider back-to-back, flying out a day early or Eurostar a day early? Very interested to hear thoughts on this. It seems fairly clear in my own mind, but a bit of sense checking never hurts!

TIA

Least risk - fly out day early. Have a contingency plan in case the flight gets cancelled which may include a Eurostar booking (not difficult at short notice). I don't altogether trust B2B if I have an expensive itinerary depending on it, as things can go wrong outside the usual rules of the game. I care a lot less at the end of a trip.

Agree re B2B unless it's something like BGO where you literally can't go wrong. However in my mind for ex-BRU getting the Eurostar out the day before seems the least risky, given that when things do go wrong, they go badly wrong and a day's grace wouldn't help. Obviously the chances of that are very minute, but it won't be much consolation all the same. Having almost had a horror story of my own (largely self-inflicted with a silly beginning to an ex-EU) I'm a bit more risk averse than normal.

BRU isn't of the AMS/BGO type, but tbh b2b there is fairly fool proof. You can either go up the ramp at the end of the jetbridge which delivers you right at the gate or if that's not open just go towards the end of the B pier and follow the transfer signs leading you off to the right and up to connections security. I wouldn't be concerned doing a b2b at BRU.

Goodness, benjai, you've rapidly ascended from the Silver you were on (or reaching?) when I had the pleasure of meeting you and your family last year :) Good luck in going for gold!

Haha I actually forgot to include my last flight so I now only have 170 TP to go, with the family trailing slightly behind with 260 left. Not sure I'll pull them across the line but I definitely want to get to gold now!

Thanks for sorting out again KARFA. May the gods bring many "really well priced fares" to us all in 2018 ;)

Just to be clear, is it definitely impossible to book (for example) lhr-nyc-lax-hnl all on BA primes? Even if calling the Gold Line?

I know that one cannot get this to price using matrix, but can it be done at all?