Thank you everybody for helping me to build my route! And now dme-mad-pty-mga-mia-uio-gps-uio-scl-ipc-scl-syd-bkk-nrt-khv-ovb-dme (last two flights I will use after 3 month)

I know AA doesn't fly that route as a non-stop, so I checked EF to see who did:

The AA (WS) means it's available as an AA code but operated by WestJet. The fact that there's no F or J availability, only Y, means it's coach only (typical for WestJet).

Good. Never mind the WS, then. You're actually flying SAN-DFW-YYC, not SAN-YYC.

Sadly SDandi is not flying anywhere - she missing the boat on the ex-MPM fares:(

Thank you Pandaperth! And thank you for all of your help! SEZ has been on my bucket list for 17 years. Im going!

Correct! My mistake.

Don't count me out just yet!;)

Sorry. I, too, missed out. I foolishly spent the weekend and yesterday planning the ex-MPM trip, planning to book it today. Had I been smart, I'd have called over the weekend to book a skeleton one, then later paid the $125 reroute fee to fill in the flights I really wanted.

So sorry :( And that's just the kicker...the amount of time put into navigating the rules, that change daily, and the route planning.

We are still trying to figure out if the new price is still a good value...it sounds like it may be.

your knowledge is useful for next good deal. i started learning the details of done last july and august when my sister had one month off in sept and she wanted to bring her infant around the world. i remembered that infant is charged 10% so i suggested that route. we ticketed ex japan. 6500usd. (we ticketed right after yen surged last august and cost me 400 usd more) i used it to finished jal status and aa.exec plat match .

then we liked it and booked 6 done4 and done5 ex jnb. my ticket is cost 4060.

now i ticketed one ex mpm for 3600 in jan 2017

and add one ex mpm for 3000 in july 2017 (5 segments and will pay for routing change to be used to requalify for status in 2018.)

just wait for next deal in 2019 now!

Question: Do availability and booking rules vary between the OW partners?

BA shows very limited availability with some of my dates/flights, but there seemed to be no problem with AA.

BA tells me that I have to start and end in the same place, but I didn't have to do that with AA.

Thank you! So basically, you're saying that these tickets are addictive ;)

Availability is determined by each airline and it's up to the individual carrier to determine how many seats it makes available in L, D and A.

As for the rules, the oneworld Explorer fare is a oneworld product, not airline-specific. As has been indicated, some of the airlines have updated their filed rules for the fare in the past 24 to 48 hours. The others will naturally follow suit, sooner or later.

And finally, interpretation of the rules. Particularly on the section that has been updated by some of the carriers most recently, how one airline reads the rules can be different from another. The oneworld Explorer product is ridiculously complex, so much so some airlines don't even know where to begin. I think pandaperth would attest to this. I referred earlier to QR and JJ really having no clue. In the end I think you need to be prepared to argue how to interpret a rule (as there's at least one or two that are ambiguous, as has been indicate), or go to another carrier. Certainly, int he case of beginning and ending in the same place, that one is quite clear (ie. there are some fairly generous exemptions to this always being the case.

Great point!

Everything I learned back from the ex-JNB and then ex-CAI days makes it so that it's quite a bit easier to get back up-to-speed on new ones that come along, even though a lot has changed. And, initially, figuring out the rules from scratch (for me, the ex-JNB ones I did) was _very_ difficult for me, it will always be a bit easier as a result.

BA will zero out D class on some routes at the drop of a hat whereas AA is more generous with mid-tier business availability. On the other hand AA has recently started zeroing A class on many popular domestic routes to discourage upgrades, notably to/from Hawaii, which is unfortunate for anyone buying international A tickets on a regular basis (AONEx or otherwise). Meanwhile LA and JJ often have only full Y availability on domestic routes but (according to reports on FT) if revenue management find out you're on an LONEx fare then L space will be found for you.

Note that availability may also differ on point of sale. For instance if you phone the BA office in New York you will usually get less access to the cheap fare buckets (I/R/D) than if you phoned Amsterdam, for the same exact flight.

As for BA getting the rules wrong ... unfortunately many BA telephone agents are clueless even at the best of times. Don't believe everything you hear. But some of them are really excellent. Good luck.

Great Info. Thank you! If I am correct, this is the rule that says I do not have to depart and return to the same place, as I would be departing/returning in Africa.
D. Travel may originate at any point for which fares are published and must terminate at the same point, except
that origin-destination surface segments are permitted as follows:
(a) within country of origin
(b) within the Middle East
(c) between USA and Canada
(d) between HKG and China
(e) between Malaysia and SIN
(f) within Africa
(g) between Maldives & Sri Lanka/India

I'm not sure where I called. It was a 1-800 number and the agent was British. If I call CX or QR is there an office location you would recommend?

Thanks all!

It is a whole new frustrating, exhilarating world! But, yes, I have learned SO much this week.

should there a discussion on how to lower yq and yr on xonex and other oneworld fare?

i pick done5 over done4 because i can fly lan and jj across atlantic ocean with no yq, avoid aa as aa limits transcon on a flat bed.

i know ex brazil has no yq but.when i price something with a segment gru doh xxx
i believe yq was charged from the price.

mileage running is addictive. i can get 60k flown miles on a done3 (not a lot more on done5, unfortunately). when it is 3600 usd. it is 6c per flown miles, and 4cpm in aa eqm. it is difficult not to be addicted. i am doing same day turn to easter island (spent 3 nights there a few years ago...)

I got in on a DONE5 ex-MPM apparently within a few hours of it going up. The reservation was put on hold on AA and in my account it showed a total cost of AUD48xx. I've logged into my account now and the price has been increased to AUD9282.

Can AA do this with a reservation on hold?

Yes they can - the price is fixed when it is ticketed. Reservations have no price per se.

So when you put a reservation on hold at a particular rate, the price is not locked in? I thought that was the whole point of the hold.

My understanding is that it is to hold the seats to stop anyone else taking them.

there is no contract before it is ticketed. u really should have ticketed when u get a good rate. aa had done the same to other mistake fares.

Ummm, there was no "mistake fare", alleged or otherwise, here.

we all know the price is too good to last.

(i set up my pnr and paid within 1 hr knowing the fare was gone soon.)

aa can basically do anything it wants before aa sells u a ticket. and aa probabaly dont care if anyone boycotts them over it.

i am sure that when there is a next great deal that can only be bookable by aa, i will book.with them without thinking twice. there is really nothing u can do.

Which is quite different to "mistake", particularly in FF terminology.

Reservations and tickets are separate processes.

The reservation on hold means that you have confirmed seats on the flights in question. Your seats were taken out of the inventory available on those flights.

AA is free to re-calculate the fare, although usually they will not do so.

The point of the hold is to give time for the tickets to be issued.

i guess aa cant cancel a ticket claiming it is a mistake price. but u unfortuntely dont have a ticket.

Airlines can and do cancel tickets where the fare was a mistake. IIRC in the US it was held that an airline could do this if the mistake was an obvious mistake (I don't remember if that was a DOT decision, or if the case actually went to court)

BUT these ex-MPM fares were no mistake, they had been there for ~3years ever since QR joined the alliance. It's just that the local currency has been in steady decline with the result that the fares became very cheap to those of us outside Mozambique.

As regards an airline re-pricing - yes they do that if the fare has been held for more than a certain length of time (and I guess also when the fare has changed significantly). I was in the situation where I had phoned AA and paid on Friday (July 29). I was not ticketed and my credit card had not been charged when the fares went up on Monday. Yet I phoned on Tuesday and got it ticketed at the pre price rise fare.

It was a DOT ruling. In general ‘obvious’ unilateral mistakes cannot be enforced in contract law but let us not go down that rabbit hole.

Normally once a PNR has been fare-quoted the quote will survive changes to the fare rate and even the unscheduled removal of the fare from the tariff. If the fare has a scheduled expiry then the PNR's TTL (ticketing time limit) will be set to expire together with the fare. Otherwise the TTL is set to the most restrictive ticketing condition implied by any fare on the PNR. For BA fares on the public tariff that is usually three days.

Probably in this case AA actively requoted the ex-MPM itineraries knowing that the price had materially changed.

Seventy-one minutes on the phone to Qantas with this itinerary:

MPM-xDOH-CMN-DOH-CPH-xDOH-GRU-SCL-BOG-LIM-EZE-JFK-CUN-PHX-DFW-SYD-JNB.

The agent said she can't price it because there are too many flights to and from DOH. She says travel must be in a continuous direction.

Thank you for reinforcing my understanding. I knew the backtracking rule was wrong but the harder I looked at the itinerary the more I became concerned that the three arrivals in DOH conflicts with rule 4(e)(3):
I feared that I was actually arriving into Europe/Middle East three times (MPM-DOH; CMN-DOH; CPH-DOH). But then I thought harder and realised (I think) that my itinerary only has one intercontinental arrival (MPM-DOH) and one intercontinental departure (DOH-GRU), as DOH, CMN and CPH are all in the one continent.

So I'm waiting to speak to a supervisor. The agent who told me no go has had me on hold now for almost 20 minutes.

(Incidentally, as noted above, AA priced it without issue.)

book something simple and change later. the fare can be gone anytime

your routing is fine.

Yes your thinking is correct. CPH and DOH are both obviously in the continent of Europe/Middle East. CMN is there by definition (The Europe zone of the continent is defined to include Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia.)

:confused: AA priced it, but you are talking to a QF agent?

Edited to add:
FWIW my last DONE was very similar to your itinerary:
CPT-JNB-xDOH-EZE...BKK-xDOH-CMN-DOH-OSL-xDOH-NBO
So 4 times through DOH (I know the airport quite well now:))

his aa quoted had refared. qf has yet to update the fare. only aa ba cx jl ib have the new fare.

Thank you pbd456. See here:

I see in EF that QF hasn't yet updated their prices (nor has AB, RJ, JJ . . .) so before I argue with the AA RTW desk and try to get my AUD4.8k back I thought I'd give Qantas a go.

After a further 20 minutes on hold the agent returned to the call saying her supervisor and another staff member are trying to price it manually. I'm currently overseas. The cost of calling QF on Skype is AUD0.11 a minute. I've been on the phone 1h46m. At this rate, it will end up being cheaper just to originate in Australia!

My apologies - I should have read your earlier post before commenting

Good luck!
Let me see - the fare difference between ex-MPM and ex-Australia is X; $0.11 per minute, so that means if your call exceeds Y minutes, it would have been cheaper to buy in Australia. Too hard.

the routing does not have qf segment... are they willing to sell it at such a low fare?

DFW-SYD-JNB

i booked mine with cx after aa and ba had a higher fare when cx still had a lower fare. but i have plenty cx segments and i had ticketed 6 done5 a few days ago with them already