Done4 itinerary help
 

I am new to this site and thus will apologise in advance for asking questions that other more experienced travellers would probably consider silly. Here is my situation. My husband and I are planning the itinerary for a world trip however he is unable to take longer than 8 wks at a time off work. On researching the DONE4, I have read that if we start our trip in Amman, the overall cost is substantially cheaper. This would be ideal for us as it fits in with our itinerary. It would also allow us to break the trip up into two 8 week holidays. Our major points of interest in the first trip are Jordan, Italy, France, North America. The second part of the trip we would focus on Turkey, Greece and New York.

Our itinerary is as follows:
AMM-FCO (surface sector to Vienna), VIE-CDG, ORY-EWR, LGA-ORD, ORD-SLC (surface sector to Los Angeles), LAX-SYD.
Then we planned take a 9 month "break" at home before recommencing the DONE4 as follows: SYD-HKG, HKG-AMM, where we plan to do some travelling in Turkey and Greece before heading back through New York (our daughter lives there) hopefully on a ticket purchased with QF points gained during the trip.

I have played around with the Oneworld planner and this itinerary came in at around US$16,500 for both tickets. I was able to choose mainly QF, AA or CX flights to maximise the FFP points with Qantas.

My questions are 1) can I purchase these tickets on line or must I have an american address on my credit card? 2) have I maximised the FFP points? 3) Is there a better way to arrange this itinerary?

Hoping someone can take pity on a beginner and give me some advice!

Welcome to the forum

Mileage Monkey can help with routes and miles/points earned. But may not be 100% up to date with routes.

You can have 16 sectors (including surface) You can add some more eg. SYD-PER-ADL-SYD, to give a trip to Perth. You have a lot of surface sectors

http://www.slfft.org/mm/award.htm?ow...G-AMM&cabins=y

Welcome to FT pye1201

I was like you back in 2008 when we were planning our LONE4 trip - a total noob:)
Happy to help where I can

Firstly - good idea to break the trip into two parts, and to start somewhere like Jordan, because it so much cheaper than starting from OZ.
I'm sure you realise that you have to somehow get yourselves to the starting point.

Next, fares are a bit cheaper if you start in Egypt (base fare of EGP40,900 about AUD6,300, compared to JOD5100 about AUD7750 - so a saving of about AUD2900 on two tickets). Of course you would have to start from Egypt, but you could still end in Amman - the rules say if you start in the Middle East you must end back there - but not necessarily in the same country

Next - your itinerary is using only 12 of the 16 allowed segments.
No self-respecting FTer would let that happen!
So perhaps during your 9mth stopover in Sydney you could have a couple of short trips? SYD-AKL-SYD and SYD-NOU-SYD come to mind

Do you have a reason for flying VIE-CDG,ORY-EWR,LGA-ORD instead of VIE-CDG-JFK-ORD? You are using 5 segments instead of three ('surface' travel between airports counts as a segment). The two extra segments could be used elsewhere - perhaps additional stopovers in Asia?

The on-line tool has a known bug with itineraries that start with an RJ flight (there's more on this in the 'tool bugs' thread). FTers have identified two workarounds:

1. Play with the tool to find a simplified itinerary that the tool will ticket, then later pay the USD125 change fee to get the itinerary you actually want
2. Set the itinerary up using the AA round-the-world desk, then use an agent in the country of origin to ticket it (AA has an agent in Cairo; not sure about Amman)

There is no requirement to have a US address for your credit card

I doubt you will earn sufficient QF points to do what you want at the end.
Your current itinerary is close to 25,000 miles, so you will earn about 31,000 points, which won't go far (25% bonus for business class; assumes you have no status with Qantas).

Mileage Monkey is useful for planning - as pointed out by Mwenenzi

FYI - here's a link to the fare rules

Thanks for the help!
 

Really appreciate your replies mwenenzi and pandaperth.

Will check out Mileage Monkey thanks mwenenzi.

Pandaperth - I'll check out the itinerary on an Egypt departure - can get a Cathay Pacific airfare to Cairo for much the same as an Amman oneway.

Thanks for pointing out the discrepancy re NY airports - I just didn't think of the difference given we were thinking of spending a week in NY with our daughter. Will redo with JFK arrival and departure.

So even flying business class with mostly QF partner airlines, you don't think there will be enough FF points to get us back home? We are only Bronze members in the QF program - we have about 32000 points each currently. I'll see if I can work it out on Mileage Monkey!

When I get to purchasing the tickets, is there a number for the AA world-wide desk? I have read that the AA desk is far more efficient than the other alternatives. I guess the AA desk will be able to provide me with contact details for an agent in Egypt, assuming it works out that way?

Thanks again for all the help - I'm very new to the RTW experience!!

I'm about to start a DONE4 ex-KRT in 2 weeks.

I will be using the AA program to accrue and redeem. If you signup for the AA Platinum Challenge a reasonable chunk of your trip will be at the 100% Platinum bonus. When it comes to redemptions, AA is also significantly cheaper than QF, both in terms of points required and tax/fuel surcharges.

I'll be ending the trip in Asia, and I think we'll each have about 50k points (I can't remember exactly, it's around that). A one-way business class ticket on Qantas from HKG-MEL is only 35k points + $60 cash.

Cheers

You're welcome

I would have expected Qantas or Emirate to be cheaper - maybe use itasoftware to check this. And if travelling in discount economy, the QFF earning might be better

The AA RTW desk is located in Dallas - phone +1 800 247 3247
It's best to do your homework so that you can feed the agent the flights you want and the dates you want. They are good - setting up our ex-KRT DONE4s last year took about 20 minutes.
Explain to the agent that you will ticketing in the country of origin (be it Jordan or Egypt). Otherwise the agent will assume you are ticketing in the US and it will be priced accordingly

The agent probably will not be able to give you the contact details of the sales agent in the country of origin, but a search in this forum should give you that. When AA has priced it, you contact the agent and pay.

Some ideas on maximising miles:

• As lcag08 said, AA's program has a much better earn/burn than QF's (we stopped accruing to QF in 2008)
• Look in the thread on the Platinum Challenge in the AA forum
• Some ideas for maximising points:

This itinerary is 15,000 miles longer AMM-FCO,VIE-CDG-LHR-LAX,SLC-ORD-JFK-HKG-SYD-NOU-SYD-AKL-SYD-LHR-AMM

For the OP: there is a 'gotcha' to watch out for (it got me last year whilst trying to book a DONE4). Once you get the booking in the system and are given a reservation code, there is a message something to the effect that 'this reservation will expire unless ticketed within seven days'. I got a fare from the AA rate desk but then got distracted for two or three days. When I then gave my local agent the go ahead to write the ticket, he came back and said that AA would not allow him to proceed. At that point I rang the AA RTW desk again and learned the following: while the reservation will keep for seven days, the fare quote is only valid for 24 hours! But no-one had ever mentioned that to me, earlier in the process.

cheers,

Henry

I just did a little back-of-the-envelope comparison of the benefits of this SAMPLE route: CAI-LHR-FCO-LHR-DFW-YVR-JFK-ORD-SLC-LAX-SYD-NOU-SYD-HKG-BKK-LHR-DXB using the AA v. the QF FF program, and assuming you challenge up to Platinum with AA before the start.

Bottom line, you'd earn roughly 87,741 redeemable miles with AA and have Platinum status (Oneworld Sapphire) whereas you'd earn around 68,200 points with Qantas and have Platinum (Oneworld Emerald) status with QFF, i.e. 1500+ status credits and 4 Qantas-metal sectors. (Note I am not an expert on the QFF, so I could be quite wrong.)

So I'd look at both airlines' redemption charts and decide if staying with QFF vs. "defecting" to AAdvantage makes any sense. AA is getting rid of its "soft landing" feature (you only fall one level regardless of how little flying you do) so if you didn't keep up flying 50,000 or more miles annually it would be a one-time thing; of course you won't keep Qantas status indefinitely either.

One note on the previous posts - VIE-PAR is operated by Nikki, which is not included in my copy of the OWE rules as an eligible carrier. Maybe something's changed?

Agree that the OP needs to do her homework on this
But her stated intention was to earn enough to redeem flights: from Europe to US and from US to Australia

With QFFWith AALatest version of the rules includes HG as an allowed carrier

Done4 itinerary
 

Thanks so much for all the help out there - I know you will roll your eyes at my next few questions but here goes:
Due to an unavoidable work commitment we have had to postpone our trip to the latter half of next year (and must fit in with paragliding weather in turkey for my better half which is apparently August/September) thus my first question is how far ahead can one book a DONE4? Obviously, using the Oneworld Planner is a guessing game as far as dates go if my trip finishes more than a year from now. Am I being completely ridiculous setting up the framework of this trip so far ahead?

Next, due to starting so late in the year, I have had to reverse our itinerary. I have (thanks pandaperth for suggesting I better utilise the number of sectors) come up with the following itinerary:
AMM-IST-KUL-SYD-HBA-SYD-LAX-SFO,SLC-DFW-MEM-ORD-JFK-LHR-FCO-AMM
I tried originating in Cairo however, the planner quoted me an increased US$8,000?? We intend to do Turkey & Greece in August 2014, head home for Christmas, quick trip to Hobart in February (thanks pandaperth) and then recommence the American and Italian content in May 2015.

I would have liked a stop in Paris however, I think I can only have 2 stopovers more than 24 hrs in the origin country - thus IST & FCO are the two best ones for us. Am I correct or is the bug that plagues itineraries starting with an FJ flight responsible?

I ran this itinerary through Mileage Monkey and came up with 28,247 miles - would I be better switching to the AA program and forego QF? Icag08 advised me to look into the AA Platinum Challenge, however, even after reading up on this forum and elsewhere I'm still not sure if it will benefit me in this situation as I think we have to fly 25,000 miles before we qualify? So as we are only flying 28,000 in this trip, is it worth it? Of course, it could be me incorrectly deciphering code with which I am totally unfamiliar.

Thanks again for those of you brave enough to wade through my ponderous list of problems, undoubtedly caused by my own ignorance!

I would come back in Jan-Feb 2014 and start again. By then Qatar will have joined OW and possibly Sri Lanka. Prices & routes will be different

Flights can only be booked 355 days out (330 days for AA). And be completed 365 days after the first flight (or is it 365 days after reservation?). You can move dates out: many people do this.

SYD-HBA-SYD is cheap fare so a little wasted, Head for PER, as my sugestion above or as PP's NOU suggestion to get more value. Effectively costs very little to nothing for an extra trip.

Unless a transit, a business class departure from LHR costs a lot (APD tax). If you want to go to London / UK take the train fom Paris

A minor tweek to get 35377 miles AMM-IST-KUL-SYD-HBA-SYD-JFK-SFO,SLC-DFW-MEM-ORD-LAX-LHR-FCO-AMM. JFK & LAX swapped. Easy to do more.

MM shows some sectors with business class not available. But for KUL-SYD I think this incorrect. For USA dometic flights DONE* tickets book into first class IIRC if business is not sold (more SC & miles). Most fliights in the USA do not have business class

A lot of changes are going to be happening in the next year and I think if you're postponing you should assume you'll need a full re-do of the whole thing when you're ready. In addition to Qatar and Sri Lankan being members by then, AA will (probably) have completed its merger with US Airways, increasing dramatically (or not?) its transatlantic reach. So who knows what the route system will look like? The same goes for the AAdvantage program and things like the Challenges - no idea if they will look the same post-merger as now. Frankly I wouldn't sweat it.

If it were today I'd visit Turkey before Jordan, so that you could conserve a European stopover and not use a short (but expensive) segment of the RTW. Istanbul to Amman is an inexpensive and short flight.

The bump in cost for the CAI origin reflects a bug in the online booking tool (one of many.) It seems that when you exercise the option of finishing in a different country than where you started (e.g. in the Middle East or Africa) the tool picks the finishing country's price rather than the starting country's price (which it should do.) The work-around for this is (a) use the RTW desk at AA, or (b) have the trip end where you started, then once booked just do a re-issue with the desired endpoint instead.

For theses trips you need to decide
- what cities you absolutely want to go to
- what cities you would visit if possible
- what cities / airports you would transit to get more miles

- Also getting to an adjacent city and then going by train or separate air fare to your destination can be worth while (Europe is small)
- Close land segments like SFO- SLC are best avoided to maximise mileage
- Be very aware of taxes and fuel surcharges
- Flying codeshares can be beneficial to mileage - status e.g AA flight number on BA CX aircraft

AA freq flyer programe is calender year. Not based on the month you join like Qantas. AA challanges start January or June IIRC

Agreed
If ticketing with AA, then certainly long-haul BA is to be avoided, because AA collects the hefty fuel surcharges for BA
The more stops you have, the more taxes you will have to pay
If flying in business class then it generally doesn't matter whether you fly the AA codeshare or not; you still get the 25% class of service bonus. And with AA you get the status bonus with all OW airlines (unlike say the QF elite status bonus)
One circumstance where it would matter is if you are doing a challenge - flying the AA codeshare on a CX flight will count towards the challenge whereas flying the CX flight number will not count (CX is not one of the airlines eligible for the challenge)
Yes AA membership year for gaining status runs from 1 Jan to 31 Dec for everyone - elite qualifying miles/points/sectors accrued in the year count for gaining status. At the start of the next year, you have to start accruing all over again
The elite status year runs from 1 March to 28/29 Feb

Things are different with the challenge

• you can start any month of the year - and either on the 1st of the month or the 16th of the month. You then have three months from the starting date to complete the challenge requirements
• successfully completed challenges that are started before June 16 will give you status through to the last day of Feb the following year
• successfully completed challenges that are started on or after June 16 will give you status through to the last day of Feb the year after next