Current RTW and Circle Pacific Fares
 

I swear I have searched tons of combinations...and yet someone will post the exact link in seconds to which I will humbly apologize, but does anyone have the most recent fare tables for RTW and Circle Pacific ex-US?

They have disappeared.

Yep, in its wisdom OW has pulled the fare tables from the various products on its site. If you have an Expert Flyer subscription you can pull them up there. Not much has changed in terms of price leaders etc., but you're not going to find it easily absent some mechanism like EF or access to a GDS.

In the meantime people here on FT are very cooperative in helping with fare inquiries, if you know what I mean.

OW Planner Fares Gone
 

Ah, oh. What's up with that? You think this is temporary while they update tables or something? Why wouldn't OW want pax to have as much info as possible -- unless they are annoyed at people exploiting currency variations, etc.

Some discussion and OneWorld's response to one FTer can be found here:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/onewo...ows-fares.html

There you go:

[KVS Availability Tool 6.1.2/Diamond - Sabre: Fares/DotRes/US]
[KVS Availability Tool 6.1.2/Diamond - Sabre: Fares/DotRes/US]
[KVS Availability Tool 6.1.2/Diamond - Sabre: Fares/DotRes/US]

There used to be a really good excel doc that showed all of the fares for different countries. I've seen the one from ~2007, but there was also one updated in October 2010 if I remember correctly. I haven't been able to find it, searched a bunch as well.

It's around somewhere, there should be a link to it in a thread on this forum. Though my understanding is that it took the data from the price tables on the OW website. As those tables are no longer there...

Thanks, exactly what I was looking for.

We've been relying on the spreadsheet (linked above) to determine the starting continent/country for our annual RTW. Now that it no longer can update, because OW has removed the fares, I'm trying to figure out an alternative. I have an EF subscription, so I can do manual queries to get the DONEx fares from any starting point, but it's starting point by starting point, which gets tedious after a few, and relies on trying to think of them all.

Yep, it's a major pain.

One thing worth noting is that all the Euro-denominated fares are identical, so searching for one Euro-zone nation does for all;

All of South America, ditto;

US/Caribbean, ditto.

That leaves a pretty long list, to be sure, but one can look at past "leaders" such as South Africa, Israel/Jordan, etc. Otherwise I don't know an easy work-around short of EF or KVS pulling together some sort of method to summarize.

I assumed all Euro-currency countries would be the same, good to have that confirmed.

Playing around now, it looks like South Africa remains an excellent starting point at ~$7k for a DONE4, versus ~$8k for a DONE3 with a Euro country or NRT start. So, for less money you get an extra continent (which is good because you need an extra one if you weren't originally going to Africa).

In USD, a DONE3 in Israel is $6200 and a DONE4 is $7200; prices ex-Jordan are a few dollars less - vs. $7272 for a DONE4 ex-South Africa. Positioning costs should be considerably lower for TLV or AMM for most travelers.

As mentioned by Gardyloo, generally for RTW fares historically the best fares have been from S Africa and ME. AMM is the easiest to get to for the price. Sudan (KRT) is cheaper, but not as easy to get to. UAE (Dubai, Abu Dhabi) would be nice starting points but they are much higher fares so that is not an option. JMHO

CirPac fares are best out of HKG.

If there are changes in fares you will hear about them hear first. So until otherwise reported here on FT, I would set up EF Saved Queries for HKG, JNB and AMM. You could do the same for KRT and TLV too if you prefer.

Depending on where you want to travel, the CirPacs are a real deal ex-HKG. DCIR22 at $4997 is a great deal and so is ACIR22 at $7135. Needless to say CirPacs are limited to East Asia, SWP and North America (excluding Caribbean).

Or just call the RTW desk. They're usually willing to give prices for a few countries.

Per the OW rules that I saw, Egypt but not Israel (or Jordan for that matter) is part of Europe. Is that right? So for Egypt we wouldn't need to add an extra continent, as would be the case with South Africa, but we would if we start in Israel or Jordan?

If we do ex-JNB, I'd probably burn BA miles and do the positioning flights as awards. Israel is an option I hadn't though of. I did try Egypt, mostly because I wondered if prices were lower reflecting the unrest.

Thanks for the great tips!

All of the Middle East is regarded as Europe.

Due to currency fluctuations, in USD terms at the moment Egypt is a little cheaper ($100 - $150) than either Jordan or Israel for DONE3 and DONE4s.

One negative note, however, is that you'll probably have to have BA issue any RTW beginning in Egypt, unless your first flight is on RJ to AMM. Recently (say the past 3-4 years) BA-issued xONEx tickets have ended up carrying significantly higher taxes and fees - due to fuel surcharges - than those issued by AA. (Iberia also serves CAI but people have not had good luck trying to get IB to issue RTW tickets.) AA does the issuing on behalf of RJ when using AMM as a starting point, or you can use AA's GSA in Israel, Tal Aviation, to get AA-plated tickets out of TLV. On a typical DONEx, the additional cost due to BA's fuel surcharges can amount to another 5-7%+ of the face cost of the ticket, which is serious money with tickets costing $6000 or $7000 (or more.) Using AA as the issuer (or AA as RJ's proxy) tends to avoid those fees.

I thought only Egypt was regarded as Europe, with Israel (and Jordan) considered Africa, from the link just above:I thought that since Israel wasn't in the list for "Europe and Middle East" that it was considered to be in Africa.

If starting in the Middle East counts as Europe, and we wanted to stop off in Nice and Stockholm, is this possible? Does the rulemean that stopoffs in the continent of origin have to be on the way to or from the gateway, so both Nice and Stockholm would be out?

I'd want to book via the AA RTW desk and ticket via an in-country GSA, which we did last year for our ex-JNB trip this year. Sounds like this won't be possible for Egypt but would for Israel.

Thanks very much for your help. We've done a few xONEx trips, but realize there is a lot we don't know.

You're misinterpreting the phrasing. The named countries are to clarify which nations that are often not considered geographically part of Europe and the Middle East are considered such for the purposes of the Oneworld Explorer. For example, Libya and Sudan are geographically in Africa but are in Euro/ME for the purposes of this fare. Kazakhstan is in Asia, but is considered Euro/ME for this fare as well. Italy and Jordan, for example, are not listed as they are unambiguously located in Europe and the Middle East, respectively.

The countries listed (Egypt, Morocco et al) are there because they're either on the African continent or traditionally regarded as central/western Asia (ex-USSR countries). Israel, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, the Arabian Peninsula and the Gulf states are all treated as Europe. Iran comprises the first "Asian" country one encounters heading east.

The quote from the OW website has been goofed up and is not reflective of the rules. You're allowed a max of 2 stopovers in the continent of origin, full stop. You can make one of those stopovers within the country of origin before departing internationally, and/or one after arriving internationally at the end of the trip, e.g. for trips starting in the US you could fly LAX-oJFK-LHR... and/or ...NRT-oORD-JFK at the end, but not LAX-oJFK-oMIA-LHR on the way out. (Hope that makes sense.) I'd recommend ignoring the bumph on the website and just download (and print) the PDF file with the official rules.

I checked and AA lists a ticket office in Cairo - see http://www.aa.com/i18n/aboutUs/where...kets/egypt.jsp No idea if they're equipped to take credit card/wire transfers for RTW tickets, but they ought to be.

Using the online tool, tickets using RJ for initial flights ex AMM are actually issued by AA on RJ's behalf, and are automatically priced at the Jordanian price. You should play with the booking tool to see if it makes sense for your plans.

Stopping in both NCE and ARN would be difficult (but not impossible) because both require transfers someplace (e.g. LHR) and you'd run out of segments in Europe. If you decide to start in someplace like Cairo, I'd probably recommend hitting Nice or Sweden before you start the trip, i.e. en route to wherever your origin point is.

Quite a few of us have purchased xonex's starting from Cairo over the years. As easy, if not easier, than purchasing from South Africa. Do a search on this forum and you will get a lot of threads. Most are from several years ago when Egypt as a starting point was much cheaper than it is now although several people reported purchases from over the last few years. Here is a recent one from this year:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/onewo...out-cairo.html

This seems blindingly obvious in hindsight, sorry for being dense.

Great, thanks.

Good points. I tried to work in both NCE and ARN, but ran out of total sectors (and we'd have to buy extra sectors for Europe and North America).

One difficulty is that I'd like to also use miles for my partner, which is always hard -- in addition to the flight availability problem (even booking as far out as possible) there are additional restrictions on connecting through the same city.

ex-CAI AA Ticketing
 

Wrong! I have had at least 6 or 7 RTW's issued in Cairo by Emeco, AA's GSA in Egypt. Very easy agency to work with. I even had email from Inas, one of the agent's I've worked with in Cairo, a few months ago telling me she was fine.

Yes I should have edited or amplified this point subsequent to blathering. AA doesn't list a GSA for Egypt; they list their own office (which maybe is Emeco for all I know.) If AA issues the ticket the chances are good that it will end up costing less than the same ticket issued by BA due to AA's treatment of fuel surcharges.

We really need some current data points on this, however. The AA/IB/BA JBV is already generating some convergence in treatment of fuel surcharges (with TATL AA redemptions, for example) so it would be good to know if this trend is seeping through to paid RTWs.

Does ticketing in Canada exception still apply?

Yes..

AA seems to be playing the fuel surcharge game (at least TATL) now. Also reflected in xONEx?

Unrelated: the new 2-stopover rule suggests that starting in a "boring" place (one that doesn't figure high in your travel plans, e.g. Africa) can yield a cost offset for the extra tickets you won't have to buy in your "popular" continent e.g. Europe.

I found their contact details on aa.com but there is no email address listed. Do you have an email address for them?

What's the best way to arrange purchase through them after having the AA RTW desk set it up?

You could try the email for the sales manager listed on this page:
http://www.talaviation.com/info_page.asp?info_id=867

In other threads Gardyloo has recommended using Skype and calling:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/onewo...israel+gsa+tal

http://www.talaviation.com/info_page.asp?info_id=867

Yes, set it up with the RTW desk and have them give you the PNR, then after it's gone off to rates (Dublin) contact the GSA and have them do the ticketing. Make sure first (use email or Skype) that they'll take a credit card over the phone or via email, as opposed to wanting wired funds. I haven't dealt with Tal in Tel Aviv, but had no problem using this approach with some of their other offices (WAW and ARN.)

Faced with this challenge I updated the OneWorld map last year - don't think it's changed since - click through for a larger version.
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1102/...c3270d6b8b.jpg

No response to email, so I phoned them up. They are happy to take a credit card by fax, but do charge 2.5% for using a credit card. This is separate from the ticket surcharge (which they waive for EXPs).

Since i'll be in Montreal at the end of July, I'm thinking it might be better to issue the ticket there. Thoughts?

I've purchased twice in Toronto. Call AA RTW desk in early July and have them set up your ticket ex-TLV for purchase in Canada <--- this is important. Ask them to put it on hold for the requisite time.

You could also try booking it now and they will put it on hold and then you can call back and have them extend the hold. They only extended mine once; two 21 day holds for a total of about 40 days (I called a couple days before the first hold expired). Unless inventory is low on one of your routes and your dates are not flexible, I would go with the first option.

I assume this will be an electronic ticket. One of mine was a paper ticket and it took a lifetime to purchase it in Canada.

At one point you eluded to AMM (Jordan) being a possible point of origin. If you did and flew RJ as your first segment, then the RTW ticket would be issued by AA TTBOMK which means you could purchase it online on the OW site and have it AA issued.

Thanks for the advice^

We decided to start in TLV rather than AMM because the cost difference is low and we want to visit Israel.

The trip starts Spring 2012 and right now D space looks good on all flights except two on AA to/from the Caribbean. I've booked award flights for my partner for everything that's within the 330 day window, with those Caribbean flights in Y because there isn't any business award space yet. I'm going to set EF alerts for D space dropping (so happy to see this just announced). Also, not sure what threshold to use. Maybe D<5? Also maybe additional alerts for J<6? Not sure.

Do you think the AA RTW desk might let me keep it on hold waiting for those AA flights to open up? Also, is the 21-day hold pretty routine?

Question

If I book a DONE starting in a country where the price is quoted in US$ on the one world online booking system will I be charged any fees by my US bank ?

Many Thanks

If you are paying a US$ transaction with a US$ credit card, then you shouldn't.

You're welcome.
No, they would not hold it conditional on the award seats coming available for your partner. They will hold it for a specific number of days. However, you can always ask the AA RTW desk; who knows?

It was back in Feb and Mar 2009 when I did that. I haven't needed long holds since then.

Thanks DownUnderFlyer. I am really curious as to where the one world payments are processed for the many countries whose RTW fares are quoted in US$. I am planning to buy a DONE5 out of Tanzania and wouldnt want my US$ transaction to be processed in the local Tanzanain currency by the local BA office as it could prove to be very expensive.

Well, it would add between $0 and $250 to the bill depending on your credit card.