OneWorld Explorer Advice
 

Hi Guys,

First of all apologies if this question has been asked a hundred times - I've been doing a bit of searching on the forum and found some really useful stuff but I would still appreciate all of your learned opinions!

Me and my girlfriend are planning a RTW adventure starting in July this year. I've got an itinery that works on the Oneworld planner - but there are a few issues (I've read the tools bug thread so at least everyone is experiencing them!). One of my big problems is that there are missing flights that I know exist - but the alternatives require connections which are taking up my number of segments unnecessarily. Eg London to Colombo is directing via Frankfurt and Auckland to Santiago is directing via Sydney which takes up an extra two segments! I also have Buenos Aires to El Calafate on the list - but this flight doesn't seem to exist at all in the planner, so how could I book it?

What would be your advice on this - would it be better to get an agent to book, would this cost me much more money?

My final question surrounds the segments allowed on each continent - I believe it's four, but is this four cities that you are allowed to stop in or is it the flights between the cities that count!?

Appreciate any help you could offer,

Andy

I'm seeing no L class availability on some AKL-SCL QF321 flights (eg 25 July). This could be why you are being directed via SYD to hook up with the QF direct flight. Perhaps other dates may give more favourable results?

An agent is likely to add a "booking fee" to the price - after all, their time costs money too. But, if you do the prep work, you might be able to negotiate a cheaper fee (ie tell them exactly what flights you want and know whether there is availability). Expert Flyer (subscription) will help tremendously.

Its segments and not cities. Check the rules, its 4 segments and IIRC its 6 in North America for the xONEx fares. Stopovers are a separate issue. Some cities have 2 or more airports (eg London). Moving between the airports counts as a segment. Stopovers are >24 hrs and transits <24 hrs - even 23 hrs 59 minutes. Transits can be used to your advantage.

Hi Og,

Thanks a lot for the reply. I've tried quite a few dates for the AKL-SCL leg but still having no luck - perhaps I'll have to take book the extra segment via Sydney and then re-book direct with Qantas for the AKL-SCL flight (hopefully!)

Thanks for the segment advice - I'm assuming then that your segments start once your in the continent (i.e. AKL-SCL wouldn't count as a S.America segment but SCL-GIG would be? )

I think I might contact an agent just to see what they think, thanks again for your help

Try Mileage Monkey. But it is not 100% accurate. Shows what is transcontinental and intra continent
AKL-SCL is know to be a hard segment to get in L or D. As well as the LA flight ask about the QF codeshare on LA

duplicate

An ExpertFlyer subscription would be very worthwhile, as you can easily find availability for each segment. As said above if there is no A/D/L fare bucket availability you will not be able to book.

Correct - the intercontinental flights (segments) don't count in the segments allowed for each continent but DO count in the max 16 segments allowed overall.

Many agents will not have a clue about these fares. They are very specialised and time consuming. I suggest you work through your plans HERE and then phone through to the AA RTW desk or the airline of your choice and get them to make the reservations (and validate the itinerary against the rules) - then you phone the local AA office in the start place and give your CC number for ticket issue.

There are enough people watching this FT Board to give constructive comment - based on experience.

I find EF the best way to get base fare for various starting points but a pretty tedious way to search availability. I prefer to use ITA which can be told to restrict look ups by airline and/or fare basis (e.g. L, D or A).

I think they both complement each other quite well. ITA Matrix is good for finding availability across a range of airlines/routes/dates but if you know the route/airline and approximate date then ExpertFlyer I find is quicker. You can also restrict EF to certain fare buckets and airlines across a 7 day window.

Thanks again for your support - my full itinery so far is:

LHR - CMB (Overland to) NRT - HAN (Overland to) SIN - MEL (Overland to) BNE - ZQN (Overland to) AKL - GIG - EZE (Overland to) LM - UIO - LHR

As far as I can tell, this itinery doesn't break the rules but I'm not completely au fait with how segments/stopovers etc work - what do people think?

One thing I've noticed over the past couple of days is that the LHR - CMB leg has become available by an extra day 4 months into the future (i.e. yesterday I could get the direct flight from July 11th and today it shows for July 12th) - does this sound probable? It seems odd that they would show all the connecting flights far into the future but not the direct one?

Definitely get an Experflyer subscription to assist.

Andy, sorry if this has been raised, but I just reread the entire thread and may have missed it. Why are you starting this ticket in London? There may be more expensive places to start, but off the top of my head I can't think of any.

Have you considered alternate starting cities?

May be cheaper from DUB or AMS. UK taxes will be less

MM LHR-CMB,NRT-HAN,SIN-MEL,BNE-ZQN,AKL-GIG-EZE,LIM-UIO-GIG-LHR There are problems with your itinerary. Click ignore errors.
Great circle map

There must be flights between the airports. You have problems in South America : 4 flights maximum. Fixing and adding/deleting some airports gets MM LHR-CMB,NRT-HAN,SIN-MEL,BNE-ZQN,AKL-SCL-GIG-EZE,LIM-UIO,GIG-LHR

Note MileageMonkey is not up to date, so may be giving errors

Mwenezi - great advice. I tailored your second itinery a little bit to go home via Madrid and it's all got the green light:

LHR-CMB,NRT-HAN,SIN-MEL,BNE-ZQN,AKL-SCL-GIG-EZE,LIM-UIO-MAD-LHR

Dr HFH - I've heard that the ticket will be cheaper avoiding Heathrow but I've not been able to find this using OneWorld's booking tool. I've tried using European cities and now Dubai on your advice as starting cities and can't get them any cheaper (even when completely avoiding London in the itinery) - perhaps I'm doing something wrong?

I am assuming this is an economy-class ticket, not a business-class one, right?

You can save around £300 on the base fare for an LONE4 by starting in the Euro zone as opposed to the UK. For example, this itinerary - AMS-DOH-CMB,NRT-HAN,SIN-MEL,BNE-ZQN,AKL-SCL-GIG-EZE-LIM-UIO-MAD-AMS passes muster and avoids BA fuel surcharges as well as UK departure taxes. You can fly to Amsterdam from London for £50-60, so you're still ahead on the base price.

What he said. You'll never go wrong listening to Gardyloo on OWE tix.

Thanks for the advice both - my only problem is that flights don't fit as neatly from some of the Eurozone countries. I'll keep looking into it!

On another note - if I can get all the schedule sorted then I'll hopefully book in the near future. Has anyone had experience of booking the ticket online? My biggest concern is whether I can change the first flight or not - I've read that you can but also that you can't so a bit confused...

Here are the rules for changes (copied from EF):
CHANGES BEFORE DEPARTURE
CHANGES ARE PERMITTED PROVIDED TICKETED POINTS
REMAIN THE SAME. IF THE FIRST FLIGHT COUPON IS
BEING CHANGED AND THE FARE LEVEL HAS INCREASED
SINCE THE TICKET ISSUANCE THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN
THE OLD AND NEW FARE BE CHARGED. IF THE FARE
LEVEL HAS DECREASED SINCE TICKET ISSUANCE NO
REFUND WILL APPLY.
-
CHANGES TO TICKETED POINTS ARE PERMITTED AT A
CHARGE OF USD 125.00 PER TRANSACTION. IF THE FARE
LEVEL HAS INCREASED SINCE TICKET ISSUANCE THE
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE OLD AND THE NEW FARE WILL
ALSO BE CHARGED. IF THE FARE LEVEL HAS DECREASED
SINCE TICKET ISSUANCE NO REFUND WILL APPLY.
---
CHANGES AFTER DEPARTURE
CHANGES ARE PERMITTED PROVIDED TICKETED POINTS
REMAIN THE SAME.
-
CHANGES TO TICKETED POINTS ARE PERMITTED AT A
CHARGE OF USD125.00 PER TRANSACTION.
-
NO SHOW REQUIRES REBOOKING AT CHARGE OF USD 125.00
-
IF REROUTING RESULTS IN AN INCREASE TO THE NUMBER
OF CONTINENTS OR EXTRA FLIGHT SEGMENTS PREVIOUSLY
CHARGED THE TICKET SHALL BE RECALCULATED.
TICKET MAY BE REISSUED TO ANY APPLICABLE EXPLORER
FARE VALIDATING ALL RULES OF THE NEW FAR EXCEPT
FOR RESTRICTIONS ON RETROACTIVE USE.
REROUTING FEE APPLIES WHEN THE RESULTING FARE
IS LESS THAN OR EQUAL TO THE ORIGINAL FARE. NO
REFUND APPLIES. SEE UPGRADING PROVISIONS WHEN
RECALCULATION RESULTS IN A NEW FARE BASIS AT A
HIGHER VALUE.

OG - once again I cannot thank you enough for your help! So it sounds like I'm pretty flexible on changes, as long as I don't have to change the route. I'm assuming I can just contact the relevant airlines once the ticket is purchased? I'm feeling pretty confident about my itinery and looking to book soon - any other advice/considerations you think I should take into account?

Some (many ?) people on FT prefer to make changes to xONEx or xCIRCxx tickets through the selling airline. For example, I have been purchasing these ticket types from AA by working out what I want, phoning the AA RTW desk in the US and they make the reservations and validate the routing (stopovers, mileage, other rules etc), then contacting the AA regional office that has a competitive price (and the place where I'm starting) to give a CC number and its then tickets are issued. If I need to make changes (preferably after flying the first sector), I contact the AA RTW desk (same as per the initial reservations) and tell them what my new flight is - and usually within about 15 minutes, its all done (so long as they can see availability and the rules for ticket validity are adhered to). There have been reports of problems with rebooking flights with other airlines, but some have had no problems.

Make sure you carry printed documents showing the itinerary, booking reference and ticket numbers.

My current DONE5 was issued by BA (first flight was CPT-JNB on BA in January)

So far (already), I have made two changes to the itinerary (neither involved changes to Ticketed Points)
And both were quite painless - apart from being put on hold for ~15mins each time, while the agent verified that no change fee was payable