(Sorry in advance for such a long post)

I have just booked my first RTW ticket, I picked up the Oneworld Explorer fare (3 Zones),
The cost of the ticket (Business Class) came before taxes was 2,786,500.00 KRW (800KRW is about 1$CAD, and 1200KRW is around 1$US)
With taxes and millenium surcharge the total came out to KRW 3,475,700.00 (if I don't fly any segments between 10 Dec 1999 and 10 Jan 2000 the $450USD millenium surcharge will be refunded)

My routing is as follows,

SEL-TPE CX AUG12
(Half day stop in TPE)
TPE-YVR CP AUG12
YVR-YWG CP AUG12
(First NA stop in YWG)

YWG-YYZ CP OPEN
YYZ-MEX CP OPEN
(Second NA Stop in MEX)
MEX-YYZ CP OPEN
YYZ-YWG CP OPEN
(Third NA Stop in YWG)

YWG-YYZ CP OPEN
YYZ-LHR CP OPEN
LHR-LCA BA OPEN
(First Euro Stop in LCA)
LCA-LHR BA OPEN
LHR-CAI BA OPEN
(Second Euro Stop in CAI)
CAI-LHR BA OPEN
LHR-BKK QF OPEN
(Stop in BKK)
BKK-HKG CP OPEN
HKG-SEL CX OPEN

I booked my ticket though Cathay Pacific. I tried booking through Canadian but they said that the CX had to do the ticketing here as they are the only online carrier in town, but CP assured me that they could make changes to the ticket for me once issued (if required)

All my segments after are open after I arrive in Winnipeg for the first stop.

I also managed to convince the reservations agent give me a print out of all 14 pages of the fare rules.

As I am sure anyone who has booked tickets to/from Asia lately, pretty much all the flights have been running over booked for the last few months, so I'm quite open to flying out of any gateway that will get me from Asia to Vancouver. I decided to try with TPE because CP has the double points promo on until the end of August on that route.

Before heading into CX earlier today I looked through itn.net for TPE-YVR flights for availability, the only ones I managed to find were Aug 12 (still showing 7 in J and 7 in G) and Aug 15th, everything else was pretty much sold out.

I Went into Cathay and we started booking the flights, they called Canadian and said that I was put on a waitlist for the TPE-YVR segment (I thought that odd as ITN was still showing 7 seats - I can still pick them on their website). We went ahead and finished the ticket and they said to call CP tomorrow to confirm my TPE-YVR. (Meanwhile I'm thinking ITN has 7 seats so it must be a glitch over here or something)

I decide tonight that rather then wait till the morning I would make the long distance call back to Canada and talk to CP reservations, I thought that I could quickly confirm the reservation and also order the Lacto-Ovo Veggie meal. After sitting on hold for 5 min, then being transferred sitting on hold for another 5 min I get an agent, I explain that I want to get a confirmation and I am informed that I am still on a waitlist and it is a rather large one. I ask why I can book a seat, and see the available seats on a site like ITN (I mention that ITN is showing 55A, 60A, 55K, 57K, 58J, 59K, 60K as available) The CP Res agent informs me that those seats simply have not been assigned, but they have been confirmed to other passengers already.

I ask when the first flight with open seats that week to YVR is and he informs me that on the 16th is the first open flight. I don't want to get stuck in TPE until then (I have no reason to be there nor the desire to pay for a hotel for that long, plus I HAVE to be in YWG in the morning of the 16th!). I ask if he can tell me how many people I am behind on the waitlist and he tells me that he can't give that info out but it looks "very unlikely" that I will get on the flight on the 12th! I ask if there are any flights from Asia to Canada open that week and I am told NGO-YVR is "wide open" on Aug 13th and 14th (but that requires re-routing and an overnight in NGO to make the connection from CX)


Here is my big question according to the fare rules (I'm glad that I got them) (note the ticketing deadline is 7 days before your first flight)

"
(20) REBOOKING ARE REROUTING
A. BEFORE TICKETING DEADLINE - PERMITTED WITHOUT PENALITY
B. AFTER TICKETING DEADLINE - CHANGES TO THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL FLIGHT AND PRECEDING FLIGHTS IS NEVER PERMITTED. DATE/TIME CHANGES TO OTHER FLIGHTS PERMITTED AT NO CHARGE. CHANGES, OTHER THEN TO DATE/TIME PERMITTED ONCE AT NO CHARGE.. TICKET MUST BE REISSUED. ENDORSE TICKET - VOLUNTARY CHANGE ACTIOINED - FOR SUBSEQUENT ROUTING CHANGES, OTHER THAN DATE/TIME, CHARGE USD75/GP45/AUD120/CAD115/HKD580 PER TRANSACTION.
C. IN THE CASE OF CERTIFIED DEATH/ILLNESS OF THE PASSENGER OR PASSENGER'S IMMEDIATE FAMILY MEMBER, OR ACCOMPANYING PASSENGER, VOLUNTARY REROUTING IS PERMITTED FREE.
"

Correct me if I am wrong, but I assume that this means that I can change the routing of my ticket (FROM SEL-TPE to SEL-HKG THEN HKG to wherever CDN has an open seat and change the date to the 13th, 14th or 15th?) This will provide for the 7 day rule to be observed. So that if I make the change on Aug 5th (Thursday) I could catch a flight on the 13th, 14th, or 15th. Right?

Or does this mean that I'm stuck with SEL-TPE on Aug 12, (my first international segment), but I can then add segments from TPE to HKG then onward to one of CP's Asian gateways, and hope that CP has an open seat on one of their flights from somewhere in Asia to YVR or YYZ on the 12th or 13th, or maybe CX will have an open from HKG to YVR or YYZ.

Regardless I don't think they will be pleased when I show up at CX's office to re-issue my ticket as it took 1 � hours to get the first one done!

I hope I've clearly explained myself. If anyone has any advice feel free to reply
Thanks,
-Ty

Ty

As you say the ticketing deadline is 7 days. so if you have a ticket to depart 12 Aug you can have it reissued free of charge up to 5 Aug or even have the ticket refunded and get yourself a new one but your first INTERCONTINENTAL sector and all sectors before it must then be 7 or more days ahead of your new booking date.

Just to let you know I managed to get my flights changed and re-ticketed.

Apparently I was not allowed to change the first international segment, but I was able to change subsequent ones.
My first three legs were:
SEL-TPE CX AUG12
TPE-YVR CP AUG12
YVR-YWG CP AUG12

They are now:
SEL-TPE CX AUG12
TPE-HKG CX AUG12
HKG-YVR CX AUG12
YVR-YWG CP AUG12

All confirmed flights!
Later,
-Ty

Hold you horses! CX and CP (and ITN) are all right. Yes, ITN showed availability with at least 7 seats to spare, but bear in mind, that on the OneWorld RTW ticket, Business Class for all carriers are booked in "D" class and not the normal "J" class as normal full Business Class fares are booked in.

So, even if the Business Class "J" class availability is still open, the "D" class allotments might be temporarily filled for now and may open up when the travelling time approaches.

Bear in mind that there are many special fares out there, that on CP alone, one can book a business class fare but actually pay for sitting in one differently. The full fare Business Class booking code is J. Next comes C, and then D. These are not upgrade seats either, so please do not be confused about it.

On Cathay, their Business Class codes range from J to C to D to I. On BA, you have J, C and D. On AA, it's C and D only.

Don't worry - you'll get your seat sooner or later.

Celestar340, what's "C"? (I'll ask CP the next time I talk to them.) I understand "J" is business class, "R" is BC confirmed upgrade, "Y" is economy (or at-the-gate upgrade), "B" is slightly-reduced economy with round-trip and no restrictions, etc.

Also, interestingly, itn sometimes shows weird things like this (an actual listing for YVR-LAX): J7 Y0 Q0 B7 H0 M0 V0 K0 G7

They actually allow me to choose this flight, but then on pricing it, there's no availability. (I understand what's happened, the back cabin is full; it's the B7 I find interesting and which undoubtedly is why they let me pick it.) I guess eventually they get to Y0 B0 and that's when they say "insufficient availability to book".

andrew

Having booked a couple of these before I've found the easiest thing to do is to get the first leg confirmed on a short flight (e.g. SIN-CGK or HKG-BKK). Then put in bookings for whatever other legs you want, or just make them up. This way you take the first flight, and technically "stop" there. Buy a cheap return ticket back to your starting spot, and then figure out the rest of the trip at your leisure. Of course once you've gone a long way into trip it get's more difficult. You need to be prepared to pay the ticket reissue charge if you have any route changes.

I've been fairly lucky with the waitlisting - usually confirmations come through within 24 hours. It seems that many of the carriers do not specifically carry the inventory (i.e. A for first and D for business) on all their flights. What happens (at least with AA) is that the request for an A or D seat goes through to inventory management. They look at the loading and decide whether to open up a seat or not. So far, touch wood, I've never had a problem. Beware that the booking codes for oneworld Explorer are not consistent between the carriers. AA uses J for first and S for business, they will change to A and D by the end of September.

Celestar:

CP and CX were correct, but ITN wasn't - I realize that the oneworld RTW uses D for business class (on CP) instead of J, but it turns out that there were no empty seats at all on the flight [Aug 12 TPE-YVR CP] (regardless of fare code).

I decided later that night to see what would happen if I tried booking the CP TPE-YVR through ITN, when I chose the "pick a seat" the "available" seats showed on the map, I picked one and told it to reserve the seat, their javascript closed my netscape window! When I re-started Netscape and went back to their site suddenly there were no available seats.

The moral of my story is I won't trust ITN when planning my trips and looking for available flights.

I miss easysabre (Life was so easy back then!)

On a side note I found a site that seems to show availability: http://www.amadeus.net/menu/en/1a-avail.htm
It doesn't show the fare code but it lists availability by class of service (first, business, econ)
I tried it with numerous CP flights that I was told were "completely sold out" and it seemed accurate.

Luckily it's all a non-issue now as I mentioned I've got my flights through HKG back to Canada, so I don't need to stress about being stuck in TPE for 4 days!

Thanks for all the replies.
-Ty

Andrew & Ty - CP uses C for 'discounted' Business Class fares as opposed to the full J class fare. It will switch to D after October 1st 1999.

I know that C has less availability than J because last month, I got an el cheapo Biz Class ticket from BKK-HKG return and I was on waitlist for over a month (flight was booked in June). J class availability was fine but CP could not even confirm C class and I hold Executive Platinum !

Most RTW tickets are considered 'discounted' - yes, even in First Class.