pandaperth

Time go give an update on the issue I reported back in post #73
And the SUCCESSFUL outcome

I made numerous phone calls to BA and got the runaround in various ways from customer service agents making things up when they didn’t know what the reason was (for example: the problem is you have too many visits to Doha), to the Fares Team responses that seemed like an attempt at the death of a thousand cuts (and got me feeling a bit paranoid!), to supervisors who were not at all interested in hearing my views on the matter and just wanted to repeat what the fares team had said and get me off the phone.

Finally on Tuesday I got a supervisor who was prepared to listen (a top guy – does BA have the equivalent of AA’s AApplause Certificates, because I want to acknowledge that he went the extra 1.6km for me (he’s based in Germany)
I asked if he was familiar with the Oneworld Explorer rules and he said he had some knowledge
So I started explaining, and he very quickly called a halt, saying “I’m sorry Sir, this is beyond my knowledge. Would you be willing to send me an email detailing all this? I will send it on to our Round the World Team and Fares Team for their views and I’ll commit to getting a response back to you by c.o.b. tomorrow”

Would I be willing!! You bet I was willing

True to his word, he emailed me late the next day – the Round the World Team agreed with me, and Fares Team agreed with the Round the World Team! By late Friday I had my new itinerary set up, paid for and ticketed. I’ve been into the Qatar Airways web site this morning and selected my seats for all the flights. So, all’s well that ends well I suppose. But it got painful at times.

Thanks to all who made suggestions and wished me luck. In the end I focussed on the obvious, to the layperson, interpretation that the first column in the table below is merely describing the type of backtrack and that it is the text in the second column that specifies the resulting restriction. I also pointed out that the on-line tool allows* new itineraries with inter zone flights and that there were a number of anomalies that arose if their interpretation were correct.
* The changes to the online booking tool, that I reported in post #89, have now been removed (testing in production?)

Kiwi Flyer

great news pandaperth

thanks for perservering so we can all benefit from the rule being applied correctly

SQ421

Anyone care to share a cliff's notes version of the rule that pandaperth has gotten successfully clarified? Does that mean a xONE5 starting in CPT can be

CPT/JNB -Europe - US - Asia - Oceania - xEurope - NBO

The bolded "entry" into Europe being a transit < 23h59m ?

pandaperth

Well I don't know what a "Cliff's notes version" is
but I can tell you that your proposed routing is invalid
It's using the backtrack provision of 3.2.1 (since you're going through the Europe zone twice)
and that backtrack specifically excludes itineraries that include South Africa or Mauritius

My problem was that the BA fares team (and the AA rates desk back in January) were saying that for the backtrack 3.2.2, I was not allowed inter-zone flights between Europe and the Middle East.

BA now acknowledges that inter-zone flights are allowed.
(someone needs to now convince AA of this)

Full Score

Are you sure this is correct? 3.2.1 doesn't stipulate "itineraries", simply "travel".

"Travel may not include Mauritius/South Africa" could refer only to the backtrack part of the ticket.

pandaperth

Well OK I stand corrected, the restriction does use the word travel not the word itinerary
Now by itinerary I was meaning your list of airports you're intending to touch (for example CPT-LHR-JFK-HKG-xLHR-MRU)
So I don't know what Oneworld means by "travel may not include South Africa/Mauritius" other than "Your itinerary cannot include any airports in either South Africa or Mauritius")

What do you think it can mean?

Edited to add:
Perhaps I posted too hastily
On reflection, I wonder if an itinerary such as this would be allowedI'm going to give that a try in the online tool
If it works, then

• BA is happy because it doesn't fly you from AND to the far South of the continent (which let's face is what the restriction is about)
• The ticket buyer is happy - gets the ex-South Africa price for an ex-NBO RTW - at the expense of a (cheap?) return flight NBO-Sth Africa in order to take that CPT-JNB flight

checkerboard

Look forward to hearing how that goes. This could well be an elegant solution for a trip I'm planning next year.

Dr. HFH

I predict that it won't go well. They know about the South Africa pricing. What they're really saying, I expect, is that they don't want you taking advantage of that pricing on that type of itinerary.

pandaperth

Well I gave it go and the tool does not allow it
The itinerary I tried was
JNB-LVI (surface) NBO-LHR-JFK-HKG-xLHR-NBO
Setting it up in the itinerary page the second visit to LHR was flagged as an error "Travel may not include Mauritius/South Africa"

So I removed the xLHR, leaving just HKG-NBO
and in the select flights page I chose an option that went via London - and immediately the tool flagged it as the same error

Switching the itinerary to JNB-LVI (surface) NBO-LHR-JFK-HKG-DOH-NBO worked fine
So this could be an option for those that want an ex-NBO (or perhaps elsewhere in Africa) at the South African price
However it does use up two segments and requires a positioning flight to South Africa and then the surface segment must be covered somehow

Dr. HFH

I don't understand. You booked it as JNB-LVI, then LVI-NBO surface? But you would still have to fly JNB-LVI, right?

pandaperth

Yes, it's with a surface segment between LVI and NBO
Whether you fly it on a separate ticket (no Oneworld airline flies it), travel overland, whatever is up to you
But the point is you're getting the ex-South Africa price, instead of the ex-Kenya price for your RTW ticket

For example, from EF:
ex-South Africa DONE4 base fare is ZAR58,940 (~USD4,514)
ex-Kenya DONE4 base fare is USD8,236 (ex-Kenya base fares are quoted in USD not KES)

So someone in Kenya could, for the cost of NBO-JNB + LVI-NBO plane tickets, plus two of his allowed 16 segments on the RTW ticket - save himself USD3,722, and have a southern Africa holiday too.

Dr. HFH

OK, now I get it. Thanks for taking the time to explain. Doesn't apply to me (or help/change my November AONE4), but interesting nevertheless.

Calchas

www.BA.com/welldone

Or if you are a BA Gold or above, use your Golden Ticket

The lack of knowledge in the BA call centres really is abysmal. Getting hold of a good agent is a real challenge. I'd hold onto that email address if I were you.

pandaperth

Thank you Calchas

The welldone has now been done

Dr. HFH

But it can also work in our favor, occasionally. Before BA centralized xONEx rate desks, each station used to do its own. The MRU people didn't understand the rules and routinely allowed us to use a routing which was specifically prohibited.