pandaperth

FYI recent experiences booking an ex-CPT DONE5

So I wanted to book an ex-CPT 5-continent Oneworld Explorer
The salient features of it are:
- First segments CPT-xDOH-EZE…
- Last segments …BKK-AMM-TUN-DOH-CMN-DOH-NBO
- So it makes use of the allowed second transit of Europe/Middle East and in particular this rule- Because the first flight is with QR, I could not use the on-line booking tool

I had every intention of booking it via the AA RTW desk and paying through AA’s GSA in CPT (Mindpearl)
But just for interest, I asked QR to also price it up for me

FYI, here are my experiences.

Qatar Airways
Hopeless; really hopeless

Emailed the itinerary to someone in the Cape Town office of QR. Who sent it on the QR’s “Oneworld Desk”.

First response: Itinerary is invalid because it ends in a country different to the starting country
I pointed out that this was allowed and got the…

Second Response: Itinerary is invalid because it has multiple stopovers at the same point (DOH) and in addition because it begins and ends in different countries – the higher of the two countries fares must be used. And finally, because of the different start and end countries Amadeus cannot auto-price it

I pointed out that multiple stopovers are allowed and that there is no rule about the higher of starting and ending countries. That was on December 30 and I have yet to get a response (it’s now Jan 24)

American Airlines
Phoned the RTW desk and got the itinerary set up

Received a phone call a few hours later to inform me that the pricing desk flagged it as invalid – saying that I was not allowed inter-zone flights in Europe/Middle East (in other words the AMM-TUN, TUN-DOH, DOH-CMN and CMN-DOH flights were all invalid).

I disputed this, saying that would be the case only if I were making use of the 3.2.3 rule for the second transit of Europe/Middles East.

To cut a long story short, the issue was passed to more senior management, the RTW desk kept extending my hold on the flights I wanted – but in the end (we’re talking three weeks here!) I got frustrated and cancelled it.

British Airways
I tweaked my itinerary slightly (to start CPT-xJNB-xDOH…) so that I could use the on-line tool to book it (it now has BA as the first carrier).

Got the BA record locator from the tool, phoned BA’s JNB office and paid. The whole process only took a few hours.

(The only, minor, issue was that the BA phone agent wanted me to go and pay Qatar Airways – because it was the first international carrier! I got that double-checked and then I could pay)

One other point on paying: I phoned using my Australian mobile phone, and paid using my Australian credit card. Neither was questioned (I’m thinking here of the rule about ‘the higher fare of country of origin/country of sale’ rule). I was physically present in Sth Africa when I did this, but there was no way (I presume) that the phone agent could have known this.

Himeno

I've gotten things like this with CX, AA and MH as well.

It is problematic when the person trying to buy a ticket knows the rules better then the airline selling the ticket does.

jozdemir

I had similar problems with QR trying to get an itinerary priced up, they were absolutely useless.

I hadn't thought about putting CPT-JNB in there to get the QR flights needed...presumably the idea is to change the routing later.

pandaperth

No, I'm not intending to change the routing. I in fact start the journey on Monday Jan 26
Since that first segment is the only BA segment on the itinerary, I don't know how BA would react if I contacted them to change it

jozdemir

Haha touché, they might not be particularly pleased with that!

pandaperth

True enough

though on my last RTW (an ex-KRT DONE4 ticketed by AA) my only AA flight was its codeshare on RJ metal AMM-JFK. When there was a schedule change, AA quietly* switched me to the RJ flight number. The result was I had an AA-issued ticket with no AA flights on it

* I guess they had realised how little they were going to make out of that one flight; the all-in ticket price was under USD4000

checkerboard

So if you don't mind sharing this detail, when booking with BA, what was the (approximate) all-in price for your recently purchased DONE5.

serfty

I had a really frustrating time with the AA ATW desk a couple of years ago booking a oneworld explorer ex AKL.

This guy refused to let me have the stopovers in Australia that I wanted as "only one is permitted in each direction in the country of origin". I could not get it through the guys head that although Australia and New Zealand are in the same "Continent" they are actually different countries!

Himeno

You use America vs Canada = Australia vs New Zealand when trying to explain that sort of thing to Americans.

Kiwi Flyer

It was a real loss when AA closed their NZ office.

Himeno

Do they still have the office in BNE?

serfty

Well, it's an 07 number but connects to Mindpearl in Fiji and other Pacific locations.

They like to charge operator assisted booking fees.

pandaperth

Don't mind at all

Base Fare ZAR68,880
All-In Fare ZAR84,500 (approx.)

I'm flying all 16 allowed segments, so plenty of taxes etc
Haven't yet tried working out what the (sur)charges are

I've just flown the first two segments (BA CPT-JNB and QR JNB-DOH)
Very nice flight on the QR 787

Himeno

Shortly before my last LONE4, i got a call from "AA Brisbane" to tell me about flight time changes. (All of which I already knew about weeks before).
I started that trip with CBR-SYD-LAX with CBR-SYD on an AA code (And the tool let me book a QF coded AS LAX-PDX).

anabolism

Did the fuel surcharges go up a lot when you switched the first flight from QR to BA and ticketed via BA?