Done4 ex cairo
 

I thought I would recount my recent experience booking a DONE4 originating CAI for the benefit of those considering doing something similar.

With much help from several of the very generous folk here on FT who took pity on my considerable ineptitude (thank you Pandaperth and others), I decided on the following itinerary - CAI-NRT-SYD-AKL-SYD-HBA-SYD-JFK-PHX-ANC-DFW-MEX-ORD-OMAD-OLHR-DXB (leaving the ANC sector spare until the flights are listed next year) which covered all the bases my husband and I wanted and then some. This gives us two major holidays (Europe & Japan first, the States & Europe again at the end), and a couple of side trips from home (Sydney), Platinum status through to 2017 and plenty of redeemable miles.

I had no trouble booking the itinerary with the AA desk on 26 May and advised that I would be ticketing through EMECO travel in Cairo. Being mindful of advice on this forum that I should pay for our tickets as soon as possible due to the possibility of early cancellation from the system, I rang Cairo immediately.

I have never attempted to book such a complex trip before and was somewhat stressed even before booking the tickets that I would do something horrendously wrong. It was unfortunate that the Egyptian elections were to be held during the next few days resulting in several dozen phone calls, no internet access by the Emeco office for 3 days, closing of the office for extra public holidays due to the election, the tickets being cancelled, then rebooked – until eventually we received the Virtual Coupon Record from the Emeco Office on 6 June. That day the cost of the tickets appeared on our AMEX card – just under $AUS18k in total. Several days later, the charge disappeared and we were not actually billed for the tickets until 23 June.

The staff at Emeco (when indeed I could speak to someone) were very helpful and extremely courteous and I am certainly not complaining about having our money earning interest in our account rather than the airlines for a month, however if anyone else is contemplating doing something similar, it might help to ensure you keep a month or so free to deal with the process and be prepared to tie up a credit card for a similar period.

Thanks to all FT contributors - I had no idea we could do so many BC miles for so little. I have learned so much from this forum and would not have had the confidence to book this trip without the considerable experience and generous help I have received here. :D

You're welcome pye1201

For those of you who are wondering, the full itinerary is:Hate to burst your bubble, but we did a DONE4 last year for just under AUD8K for two tickets:D
(purchased in Oct'12 when it was really cheap ex-KRT and the AUD was high)

Room for improvement
 

So definitely leaves me room for improvement then!! I must aim higher for the next DONE4:)