RTW in First (with one small hick-up) Please advise...
 

Hi guys.

I've long been a great fan of these trip reports, and I'm finally getting ready to do a trip report of my own.

My friend and I are busy planning an RTW trip for later this year. The plan is to book it through OneWorld.
This trip would be a special treat and we are planning to be on as many First Class flights and on as many different airlines as we can.

So far, the plan is to leave from Cape Town for London Heathrow on BA First. After spending a few days, we'll fly to New York on BA First again (This way we can experience the Concord Room before our departure).

After seeing all the wonders the Big Apple has to offer (well, all the wonders you can fit into roughly a week), we thought a bit of sunshine would do us good, so from New York we'll be going to Cancun for a few
beach days and then back to New York on AA Business class (can't be helped, I'm afraid) before going to our next destination, Tokyo.

Now, this is where things get tricky! On the OneWorld RTW planner the flight from New York to Tokyo is only available on American Airlines (JFK - NRT), but on the JAL website there are definitely flights between New York and Tokia on JAL (with their First Class suites we'd love to experience) via HND (the other airport in Tokyo).

Now, for the more seasoned traveller, would we be able to book this stretch of our journey on JAL and how do we go about it?

To complete our itinerary, we head from Tokyo to Hong Kong on Cathay Pacific First and again on Cathay from Hong Kong to Johannesburg where we'll catch a short flight back to Cape Town on BA.

I can't wait to write my first trip report, but feel it would be disappointing if the journey didn't included that JAL flight between JFK and Tokyo.

P.S. Will we receive Executive Club Avios miles on these tickets?

Any thoughts or advice would be welcome.

I think you'll have more luck in the OneWorld forum, although I'm sure a mod will move this thread there in due course.

This should really be posted in the OneWorld forum, not Trip Reports.

You know you get up to 15 segments on an AONE ticket? You seem to have only listed 8 flights..

Consider flying LHR-SFO/LAX on BA, then backtrack to JFK (or Cancun).

I can see the JAL flight from NYC to Tokyo on the OneWorld planner. It may not operate on the day you are checking. But if it does and you can't see it online, you should still be able to book it on the phone.

You can credit to any OW program, so yes you can earn BAEC avios.

As this is not a trip report I shall move it over to the oneworld forum to have your questions answered.

Moomba
Moderator: Trip Reports

Thanks for the advice. I know 8 flights are little, but we are doing the whole trip in only 3 weeks. Never the less, Spending an extra day or so in the US could be fun and we can experience AA first class this way. Never even thought of doing something like that! ;)

Regarding the JAL flight, somehow they only show me JAL codeshare flights for AA. I've looked on the OneWorld website, but can't find an email address for Oneworld, only the individual airlines...

You will get Avios and Tier Points on your flights.

There needs to be A class availability on the JAL flights for you to book on them. It is up to the airline if they release A seats on flights. You could try other dates or a different routing (add an AA sector to ORD or LAX) and see if JAL have A availability on flights from those cities on the dates you need.
You could also book the AA flight and hope that JAL will open up A on the flight you want and make the change then. Of course this could be risky if they don't open up any A class.

First of all welcome to flyertalk!
Since this will be your first RTW i believe it would be much easier for you to use a travel agent for this. Yes, they charge a fee, but it is worth it, especially if you want to change things during the trip.

Did you ever consider to park your ticket somewhere, take a return flight home and then continue on a second trip later? These tickets are valid for one year after the first flight and you can even change them for not much money mid-stream.

Just a few ideas/observations:
- Try to travel on JAL F instead of AA from the US to Asia. Day and night difference to AA F. You could also take CX to Hong Kong, then do a side trip to HND and go back via HKG. CX F is even better than JAL (since the OW RTW is based on sectors andnot on distance you don't need to take the shortest flights.
- Why not go from LHR to somewhere at the west coast as suggested. More time to experience F instead of the relatively short east coast flights.
- Cancun is very touristy. There are several smaller islands in the caribbean which are significantly nicer.

From JFK, AA operates to HND (AA135/JL7007) and JL operates to NRT (JL5/AA5819).

There is a contact form buried in the website (hard to find...), but it is really only to report problems with the website.
If you're using the xONEx booking tool and it doesn't show a flight then it is most likely due to the flight not operating on the date you've picked or the required booking code (A/D/L) not being available.

I have contacted a travel agent and is awaiting their feedback. So far they were able to match the OW prices.

You've definitely given me a lot to think about with regards to flights. Cancun seemed nice because of Talum and Chichen-itza, but we were also looking at San Juan and even Bermuda.

Initially we wanted to fly Lon - Bermuda - New York, but realised that The flight leaves from Gatwick in stead of Heathrow, so we won't see the Concord Room. Maybe we can go LON - NY - Bermuda (If OneWorld would allow it)...

The agent and "OW" should offer the same base fare (plus extras incl tax, fuel, airport fees, security). The only diffeence really is whether the agent adds their own "booking fee". Of course, the agent may choose to offer a cheaper price if they cut into their commission - but that is unlikely if they have to do a lot of work to make the booking work.

A couple of notes.

Bearing in mind that you're paying by the continent, not the mile, and are allowed six segments in North America and four in each of the other continents, you could use the trip to earn BA Gold status quite easily. That would pay you dividends in Avios earned, access to first-class lounges, and many other perks. Attaining that status requires 4 BA-metal segments and 1500 Tier Points (long-haul in F gets you 210 TP, so you can figure the math.)

I too would use CX first class whenever possible, so if it was me, I'd go LHR-YVR (Vancouver BC) - JFK, using Cathay's YVR-JFK flight. There are far worse places to recover from jetlag than Vancouver.

If you want sunshine and Caribbean style, then if it was me I'd head to Barbados or Aruba from New York. BGI is over 2000 miles, hence 140 TP, and Barbados is gorgeous.

I'd also take CX from JFK to Hong Kong rather than waiting around for JAL to release A-class seats (seldom if ever) or riding AA to HND.

So one possible route would be CPT-LHR-YVR-JFK-BGI-JFK-HKG-TYO-HKG-JNB-CPT. That would get you to BA Gold only if the HKG-TYO (NRT or HND) were available in first class, otherwise you'd still be a little short (if my math is right.)

You could solve the problem by adding a couple of segments in Europe - LHR-MCT-LHR or LHR-DXB-LHR are both easy turnarounds that earn long-haul points. And you could add to the North America part of your trip by adding, for example, a couple of flights to the west coast before you head to Asia, for example ...LHR-YVR-JFK-BGI-JFK-DFW-SFO-HKG...

You're paying a lot for an AONEx - it would be a shame to leave segments sitting on the table, as it were.

16.


JL is pretty stingy with A availability. I'll put my vote with those who recommend CX JFK-HKG. You won't be disappointed with the flight. And you can use one of your unused segments HKG-NRT/HND.

Thanks. Is there NO other way (I tried MH) to get A class from JFK to NRT without using CX via HKG?

Even if via another US city from Cancun/BGI/SJU?

Preferably with CX/JAL/MH

Thanks

CX will always go via HKG.
MH will always go via KUL.

You can either try to find a date with A availability on JL, or fly AA direct.

Not true. MH has LAX-NRT service so OP can go via LAX instead.