babyg_wc

agree, very straight forward and bookable on ba.com
to be honest, it almost impossible to book a quarantine hotel in NZ (you need to to "hire" people with bots to get a booking for you)..., so i hope the flights are cancelled and i can rebook to later date now..

Jayceegee

First off, thanks to everyone who posted questions and answers into this thread. It wasn't at all clear to me that the final destination of an open jaw doesn't count as a stopover until I came to this site. It's amazing how unclear the dozen or so articles on this process are.

I booked the following itinerary in J two week ago, with travel in March 2022:
JFK-HND (Stop1) JL
HND-TPE (Stop2) CX - via 5th freedom flight
TPE-HKG (Stop3 used as transit) CX
HKG-DOH (Transit1) QR
DOH-MLE (Stop4) QR
MLE-DOH (Transit2) QR
DOH-CPH (OpenJaw1) QR
MAD-SJO (Stop5) IB
SJO-JFK (Return) AA

Distance: 26977
Points: 210000 (via AMEX MR)
Taxes/Fees: Approx $1300 US. Mostly due to QR fees.

Key points:

1. CX booking agents were surprisingly knowledgeable and comfortable booking MCA
2. Points transfer from AMEX was instantaneous, but required a long and drawn out security verification process with AMEX.
3. The agent that booked my itinerary noted that our time in HKG couldn't count as a stopover because it was <24 hours, but was ultimately willing to book the itinerary anyway. Not sure why. FWIW we land in HKG at 5p and leave after midnight.
4. If you have difficulty fitting a CX segment into your itinerary, don't forget CX operates fifth freedom flights between Taipei and Seoul/Tokyo/Nagoya/Osaka, as well ask BKK/SIN.
5. CX are able to hold itineraries for up to at least 7 days, despite initially saying they could only do so for 36 hours. More on this below.
6. CX's email customer service desk is SLOW. Expect to wait several days before they get to your ticket.
7. Seats: We were able to use the CX ref code to reserve seats via royal jordanian (rj.com). They can interface with all of the different booking systems, including Iberia. There was an approx. 10-minute delay before the CX app synced with the changes.

The only true hiccup was entirely my own fault. Apparently I accidentally entered the wrong date of birth when I set up my AM account, and was told the only way to rectify this was to email their customer service directly with a copy of my passport. We were able to hold the itinerary because my husband called and made the booking instead of me, otherwise you will fail the security questions over the phone. Long story short: after you send the email, you need to call the booking agents and/or use the online chat to pester and prod them to address it. They were originally only willing to hold our itinerary for 36 hours and said the bookings would be canceled unless the issue was corrected by their service desk, whose default turnaround is 5 business days. Just before the 36 hours lapsed, I called again, and they extended our hold for an additional 7 days. Most importantly, the first two agents indicated that it was a separate service desk and that they cannot get involved, however this is incorrect. After contacting CX yet again (NYC evening, Monday morning HKG) using the chat function, that individual notified the service desk and asked them to prioritize it. It was taken care of in <2 hours.

Reserving seats without doing so via a CX agent was tricky because you can only reserve seats via the Cathay Pacific app on CX metal. I prefer to lookup seat maps for each plane and review recommendations online, which never really works over the phone. Before I read about the RJ workaround, we were only able to use the CX ref# to reserve meals and seats on JAL. We were also able to get into the Qatar app to reserve meals using the same ref code, however we could not reserve seats. I cannot recommend RJ's website highly enough. It's remarkable that RJ are able to interface with all of the different systems given the farcical cross-compatibility between the "major" OW carriers.

percysmith

Well done even tho I don’t see HK/JP/TW/QR/DK/ES all unconditionally opening travel to visitors in March 2022. Remember any one interruption and your tix is toast/has to be repriced

I wonder if a cancellation only occurs at the end of the routing, can passenger travel up to the last stopover before cancelled segments?

ernestnywang

You mean NRT-TPE right?

A stopover is indeed defined as > 24 hours. Anything =< 24 hours is defined as a transit. It doesn't matter whether arrival of the previous flight and departure of the subsequent flight are on the same calendar day. However, my experience has also been that MPO agents are usually willing to manually force a stopover on a transit when issuing the ticket. After all, they cannot stop you from subsequently changing a stopover to a stay =< 24 hours. You made the right choice in this case, since HKG tax is collected anyway for CX-QR transit when the QR flight departs after midnight, so there's no tax difference whether HKG is ticketed as a stopover or transit. Had you made DOH a stopover, you would have paid a higher tax amount.

I suppose one can always leave the last segment(s) open, so travel up to the segment of no service should not be affected?

AJ747M

Have the following ticketed in J, with first flight taking off in December 2021:

NRT-DOH (Transit 1) QR
DOH-GRU (Stopover 1) QR
GRU-LHR (Open Jaw 1) BA
HEL-SIN (Stopover 2) AY
SIN-SYD (Stopover 3) QF
SYD-DOH (Transit 2) QR
DOH-CPT (Open Jaw 2) QR
AMS-HKG (Stopover 4) CX
HKG-MNL (Stopover 5) CX
MNL-NRT (Done) JL

Distance: 48,744 miles
Miles burned: 240,000 AM
Taxes and fees: 6902 HKD

And then, just a few hoops to jump through...

1. Entry into Japan. Waiting to hear back on my visa application which (should...) fall under special exceptional circumstances due to family living in Tokyo.
2. Transiting through LHR. I plan to purchase a separate ticket onwards from LHR to any EU country that will accept me. Worst case scenario, Sweden, where I'm a resident. Currently it's ok to transit through LHR when originating in a red list country, and hopefully this doesn't change before January next year.
3. HEL-SIN flight operating. Currently it's not...
4. Entry into Singapore. The only reason I'm stopping over in SG is no other flights are available from Europe to Sydney (if I booked just three days earlier, HEL-HND-SYD was available without any need to stop over...arghh). Hopefully I will be allowed in (Feb 2022), else I believe I can quarantine in a hotel for the entire four day period.
5. SIN-SYD flight operating. Currently it's not...
6. Australian quarantine. I'm from Australia, but will not be happy if I have to do hotel quarantine there for two weeks. The government promises this won't be the case by the time I arrive (Feb 2022), but who knows.

Won't be easy to pull this one off, but my fingers are crossed.

The joys of attempting to circumnavigate the globe these days....

cgo

Hi all,

First time attempting the oneworld multicarrier award, (and what a great time to travel, no?!)

I just would like to ask, in general, how much time in advanced did you book for your multicarrier award trips? I know the answers to this question may be dependent on the availability and what-not, but i would appreciate even a very vague/nonspecific answer. I am planning for a trip this coming May 2023, and I would like to know when I should start calling CX to book these segments.

To give you an idea, here are the sectors I will be taking:
MNL-HKG on CX (Transit 1)
HKG-SYD on CX (Stopover 1)
SYD-YVR on QF (Open Jaw 1)
YUL-CMN on AT (Stopover 2)
CMN-CAI on AT (Stopover 3)
CAI-MAD on IB (Stopover 4)
MAD-LIM on IB (Open Jaw 2)
GRU-DOH on QR (Transit 2)
DOH-MNL on QR (end)

I initially was hoping for SYD-SCL, but i don't think they are operating that route yet.

Travel seems to getting better and better right now (avoiding HKG due to its draconian covid measures, but transiting is ok), but what happens if some ports close without a moment's notice? Has anyone experienced rerouting multicarrier awards due to disturbances like covid?

Insights welcome.

percysmith

Have you considered circuit breaker? Rules are still >3 passengers infected inbound to HKG --> 7 day flight suspension https://hongkongfp.com/2022/04/07/ho...ht-ban-policy/

Same as start of pandemic - passenger's responsibility to reroute. If you can't find a reroute, SOL.

CX HK

Hope your trip went ahead smoothly and that you had a great time!

Just a few questions:

1) Could you do this booking entirely with Asia Miles on the phone? Or you had to phone each airline?
2) Did you research and determine which airline to take in advance, or just asked which airline was available as you booked?

AJ747M

Thanks! In the end the itinerary changed a bit:

ARN-LAX (Stopover 1) AY
LAX-SYD (Stopover 2) QF
SYD-DOH (Transit 1) QR
DOH-GRU (Stopover 3) QR
GRU-LHR (Open Jaw 1) BA
ARN-DOH (Transit 2) QR
DOH-CPT (Open Jaw 2) QR
HKG-HND (Stopover 4) CX
HND-HEL (Stopover 5) JL
HEL-ARN (Done) AY

Distance: 48,340 miles
Miles burned: 240,000 AM
Taxes and fees: 12,382 HKD

So far I've flown the first seven sectors, and fingers are crossed that HK at minimum allows separate ticket transit by September. Else I'll lose the last three flights...

Answers to your questions:
1) Yes, I booked everything with Asia Miles/Marco Polo Club on the phone.
2) I researched in advance which flights were available and with which airlines. Then just recounted the entire itinerary flight by flight to the booking agent.

CX HK

Fascinating, thanks for sharing. Is there a reason why you went for Asia Miles over say BA Avios? I'm currently planning a trip of my own and am thinking of whether to transfer my AMEX MR to Asia Miles or Avios.

AJ747M

I left HK in 2018, and transferred all my Citi PremierMiles points to SQ and CX. I had already accrued quite a few miles with CX because of another card (can't remember which one exactly, but it was an AMEX) that only gave points to Asia Miles. So that's the main reason I used this program. I'm not very familiar with the Avios program so can't comment there unfortunately. But I do believe when you max out the Asia Miles oneworld Multi Carrier ticket, it's one of the better RTW tickets you can get with points.

db07mufan

They won’t let me ticket a transit in lieu of a stopover now

Psychiatrist

Try telling them to charge you the taxes/fees for a stopover (i.e. over 24 hours), even though it's a transit (i.e. under 24 hours). Or hang up and try again with another agent.

AJ747M

Question of my own now. As mentioned above, I have three segments left in my ticket: HKG-HND (CX), HND-HEL (JL) and HEL-ARN (AY). I'm very likely facing one of the following two scenarios:

1. HK won't allow separate ticket transit by the time my ticket expires.
2. The HKG-HND flight by CX won't be operating by the time my ticket expires.

What do you think the chances are that CX will let me do any of the following?

1. Skip the HKG-HND sector, but still fly HND-HEL and HEL-ARN.
2. Let me change my flight to JAL on HKG-HND
3. Extend my ticket expiry until it's actually possible to fly HKG-HND on CX

I'm guessing none of these options will be possible, but thought I'd ask anyway. Of course, I understand things can change and I won't know for sure until I contact CX closer to the date of my flight.

percysmith

1. No (my answer will be different if XXX-HKG was included in your tix) 2. No 3. Maybe