LONE5 Itinerary
 

Hi all. Newbie here... I am trying to plan my first RTW trip and I've spent a decent amount of time with the online tool and reading these forums, but I know there is still a LOT to learn. Below is my proposed LONE5 itinerary.

Notes: I want to earn miles with AAdvantage, this is for 2 people starting February 2010, and we live in the US. We already booked 1-way award flights to SA in order to save $ on the LONE5 ticket.

GYE-EZE (LAN), SA 1/4
EZE-MAD (IB), Intercontinental (transfer only)
MAD-IST (IB), Europe 1/4
IST-AMM (RJ), Europe 2/4 (transfer only)
AMM-CAI (RJ), Europe 3/4
CAI-LHR (BA), Europe 4/4 (transfer only)
LHR-NBO (BA), Intercontinental
NBO-JNB (surface segment), Africa 1/4
JNB-SYD (QF), Intercontinental (transfer only)
SYD-WLG (QF), SWP 1/4
WLG-SYD (QF), SWP 2/4
SYD-HNL (AA), Intercontinental
HNL-LAX (AA), NA 1/6
LAX-MIA (AA), NA 2/6 (transfer only)
MIA-GYE (AA), Intercontinental
-----------------
15 segments

Here's my questions:

1. Any problems with this itinerary?
2. For the transfer in LHR, the online tool wouldn't let me book a 2-segment flight from CAI-LHR-NBO (maybe just because of seat availability?). So I manually added the LHR stop (flight BA 154 arriving at 12:00 noon), and then the flight to NBO (flight BA 65 departing the next morning at 10:05am). Since this stop is less than 24 hours, I will avoid the LHR taxes, right?
3. Any suggestions to optimize mileage? Mileage Monkey tells me 39,640 miles.
4. It appears that I can book this online with the tool - is there any advantage to that rather than over the phone? I know over the phone I can leave open segments... but I don't think that's important to me (except maybe the last 2 segments returning to SA since I don't know when/if I'll use those). Are there any differences in fees or ticketing airline, etc when booking online vs. phone?
5. I'm not sure I understand the significance (if there is any) of who the ticketing airline is. Since my first flight is LAN, does that make LAN the ticketing airline? If so, does that mean anytime I want to make changes to my itinerary that I have to call LAN (versus AA for example)?
6. How hard is it, really, to change the flight dates during your trip? It sounds like it's supposed to be easy & free, but is that really true in practice?
7. Finally, I've found with the online tool that some of the flights I want don't show up (in the booking tool, not the planner-only). I guess this is because there are no seats available. But my question is - if I call on the phone to book, is there any chance I could get on the flight I want (in other words, could the availability be different online than on the phone)?

I know this is a lot to answer. Thanks so much in advance for any help - this forum is great!

Alonna

Welcome to FT

Some answers for you

1. Itinerary looks OK in Mileage Monkey
2. Correct about LHR taxes - but double-check as reports here on FT indicate that sometimes the ticketing airline gets this wrong
3. Not without knowing which stops on your current itinerary are "must stop" and which aren't.
4. The main difference between ticketing airlines is what they charge in fuel surcharges. I understand LAN is one of the cheapest for this (as is AA)
5. We had no problems making three lots of changes to our recently completed LONE4. QF however did charge us a 'local service fee' (AUD60 each)
6. In theory there should be no difference in availability, but in practice phoning can help. During our LONE4 we wanted to fly LHR-PEK on a day which showed no 'L' inventory; the RTW AAgent sent a message to BA requesting two seats and within a minute had or two had an OK back

Welcome to FT, Alonna!

I'll try to provide some answers.

1. Yes, it's fine.

2. The online tool doesn't seem to like forced overnight connections, so don't assume it's due to lack of availability. You ought to be able to avoid UK passenger duty with a transit of < 24 hrs.

3. Yes, more on that later.

4. If you book it on the phone (with AA) you may be able to avoid some fuel surcharges. The way to test this is to take all the way to the pricing screen using the online tool, click to expand on the "taxes and fees" box, print it out, then phone AA and book it over the phone, and compare the final prices. You don't have to charge the credit card until you're satisfied with the best price.

5. Pretty sure Lan would issue the ticket; there are a couple of exceptions to the rule, e.g. AA issues tickets on behalf of RJ, but not with Lan IIRC. Since Lan uses Amadeus and AA uses Sabre, AA may not be able to see your itinerary if you want them to change it. This might be another reason to use the AA RTW desk in the first place; with Skype you can access the RTW desk from anywhere in the world; with Lan you might have more difficulty.

6. Supposedly; however some have reported that some carriers are charging "service fees" for doing things like flight changes; I know I got whacked by QF a couple years ago for a date change made at a storefront QF office in Sydney. Be prepared I guess.

7. Hard to say without specifics. Some flights are seasonal, some may be booked... using the phone would obviously be easier than playing roulette online.

Back to the miles thing - if you're seeking to optimize miles, you might consider altering your route to include some AA segments near the beginning so that you could try for the "Platinum challenge" - 10,000 eilte points (not miles) in 3 months gets you Plat, with 100% elite bonus miles on most Oneworld partner flights as well as AA, lounge access, and lots of other perks.

You can only use the challenge on AA-numbered flights, and in your route you don't have any until close to the end.

I'd recommend therefore you use one of the fine-print options with the XONEX rules, that of the "N. America transit" - which allows transiting N. America to/from S. America providing you go immediately to a third continent and don't spend more than 24 hrs in N. America.

In your case, you could go GYE-EZE-xJFK-AMM-IST-MAD-CAI-LHR-NBO... using AA to JFK (5282 mi, = 5282 points since L earns 1 point/mi) and the AA codeshare on RJ, JFK-AMM (5738 mi/pts) . Codeshares count for the challenge (must be AA flight no.) and those two flights would get you to Plat bingo; you'd earn almost 17,000 miles for those two segments (the one where you cross 10K points gets bonus miles) vs. 30% miles on the Iberia segments and no bonus. Taken for the whole trip, you'd probably earn many thousands more miles compared to your current plan. See the thread on the challenges on the AA forum.

Anyway, welcome and happy planning!

If you book with AA they will only charge the Fuel "fines" that may apply to AA flight numbers within the itinerary, not those of any other carrier.

It appears other carriers, including BA and QF will charge fuel fines for all applicable segments, irrespective of the carrier.

LAN appear to have no fuel surcharges, or if they do, the are insignificant and they do not apply fuel fines to any segment at all, regardless of a segment's operating carrier.

Wow, thanks so much to all three of you for the fast & very helpful replies.

Sounds like starting with either LAN or AA should be fine.

Gardyloo - oooh, great tip about the JFK transfer and doing a Platinum Challenge. I had seen the challenge mentioned in another thread and spent time learning about it, but figured it wouldn't really work for us since our AA flights were at the end. I had NO idea about the fine print which allows a transfer in NA (every time I read the rules I learn something new!). I will definitely try this - if we can get the Platinum status near the beginning it would absolutely be worth the extra time on that route. THANKS!!

Now I've got some more work to do... can't think of any more questions at the moment but surely I'll be back :)

Yay for travel!

SYD-HNL is AA codeshare on either JQ or QF. Presume you have chosen one of the days QF flies (as opposed to JQ their low cost subsidiary)?

Kiwi Flyer - I chose AA 7359, operated by QF

Below is the taxes/fees listed from the online tool for my LONE5 ticket. Check out the $468 USD item below.... any idea what that is?

Adult traveller(s)
Air Passenger Tax for South Africa 20.01 USD
Tax description unavailable (NSAB) 1.42 USD
Tax description unavailable (WTSE) 5.00 USD
Tax description unavailable (TRAE) 15.00 USD
Passenger Security Charge for New Zealand 11.34 USD
Australian Passenger Service Charge 43.61 USD
Passenger Service Charge for South Africa 20.81 USD
Tax description unavailable (ECGO) 468.00 USD
Passenger Facility Charges 4.50 USD
Argentina Airport Tax 29.00 USD
Embarkation Tax for Egypt 15.00 USD
Egypt Departure Fee 9.09 USD
September 11th Security Fee 10.00 USD
Immigration and Naturalization Service Fee 14.00 USD
Jordan Civil Aviation Fee - Transfer Passengers 9.88 USD
Argentina Customs and Immigration Services Tax 10.00 USD
U.S. Animal and Plant Inspection Service Users Fee 10.00 USD
U.S. Customs Fee 11.00 USD
Argentina Security Tax 2.50 USD
Jordan International Sales Tax 14.13 USD
Tax description unavailable (EDLO) 5.00 USD
UK Passenger Service Charge 33.93 USD
Egypt Service Charge 1.00 USD
Australia Passenger Movement Charge 41.70 USD
South Africa Passenger Safety Charge 1.47 USD
807.39 USD
x 2 Adult(s) = 1,614.78 USD
total taxes/surcharges = 1,614.78 USD

BTW, this is for an updated itinerary:
GYE-EZE-xJFK-xAMM-IST-xAMM-CAI-xLHR-NBO, JNB-xSYD-WLG-SYD-HNL-LAX-xMIA-UIO

If you can give up a segment, consider starting the trip in WLG. LONE5 in New Zealand (4,099 NZD about $2,930) is almost $1,000 less than South America ($3,900). This will require 40,000 more miles for the positioning award tickets so it comes down to what is more valuable to you $1,000 or 40,000 miles

I'm not sure but it seems that airline tickets aren't exempt from Ecuador's 12% sales tax as they are in most countries. That fits exactly on a US$3900 base fare.

Sagy - good suggestion, I didn't realize it was that much cheaper for NZ. However, at this point I don't think that will work for us. We are definitely starting in SA (I am heading there next week for Spanish lessons!) and we don't have any more miles to get over to NZ. Plus we like the Eastward itinerary.

christep - Yep, I think you're right. I tried starting at some other SA countries and they all have varying amounts for the taxes. In the end I think we'll stick with Ecuador because once we buy flights to get to the new starting country the savings are a wash (we have to physically start in Ecuador due to other plans). But for anyone interested, here's the tax amounts I found in other countries, using the online tool:

Country, Sales Tax %, Sales Tax $USD for LONE5
------------------------------------------------
Ecuador, 12%, $468
Argentina, ~5.5%, $210*
Peru, 19%, $741
Brazil, <1%, $36
Chile, 0, $0
Colombia, 8%, $312

* When starting Argentina there was also a huge fuel surcharge, $300