Given many people of FT have far more detailed knowledge than (QF) agents, if we can't understand the question phone agents will has less.
An April 17 post by sony2012 But route may have changed. TYO needs to detailed:- NRT or HND

I am learning from sony2012's thread as I will be contacting QF next week for changes as well.
Question,
1. Why does AA's hotline is useful for this case? can we still switch the ticketing airlines after flew the first few segments?

official policy is no, they won�t take over QF�s ticket. There was one post where someone was EXP with AA and they did it but I�d say your chances are slim to none.

And in SABRE. ARNK uses a segment, appears on the travel agents' screen as a flight with no origin, destination or departure time, only "ARNK".

I'm still trying to understand why anyone would use QF for one of these tickets, when the AA agents are so knowledgeable.

Online tool for one, but for me the biggest reason is I have to minimize AA coded segments (as do all AAdvantage members if they care about LP and RDM earnings). My most recent QF ticketed RTW has only 1 short AA coded segment, but I'm doing JFK-GRU and GRU-DFW on JL codes, AA metal. If AA ticketed this, that would not have been possible, plus they might have asked for a TPAC or TATL to be AA coded which all together would cut my earnings at least 1/3. I can manage QF's ineptness for that many additional miles. But I'm also a QF RTW veteran now, so know what to expect and have been relatively successful in working around their issues.

But you're right, if someone is crediting to BA, IB, QR, AY, or anything other than AA then yeah I'd be ticketing with AA.

thank you for the AA number, if I don't hear anything positive from Qantas twitter team i will try my luck with AA.
Regarding the routing, yes even after adding an independent segment, I would still be under 16 segments plus less than 4 in intra-asia as well including the surface segment. I am only using HND in all of my flights through tokyo but i am not landing there, only departing after surface segment. I will be clear on the airport code next time. I have been studying these rules quite some time but still have questions, especially after calling qantas and being told some random new restrictions I was not aware of.

well, for someone new like me, I just booked through the oneworld website without really understanding who is ticketing and how horrible QF agents are. Lesson learned and it seems like I just have to call AA if I ever book RTW ticket again. But I must say, online booking is really easy to book if I know its quirks. I never called AA for RTW ticket so I am not sure how quickly they can ticket it over the phone.

Dealing with QF on this(or AA if you get that far), no need to keep calling it an 'independent segment' and that may be confusing them. Just say you want to add a flight xxx-yyy on (date). That's a much more straightforward approach. Calling it an independent segment may have confused the agent into thinking you wanted it as an add-on or side trip on a separate ticket.

I have found the online tool so consistently useless that I don't even try it any more.


After you book everything on the phone, the itinerary is submitted to the Rate Desk. Rate Desk usually turns it around within 24 hours, often less. Also, if you're tight for time, the AA RTW agent can sometimes ask the rate desk to fare the itinerary while s/he (and you) waits on hold, depending on how busy they are.

As posted many times here, because AA will only ticket if you have an overwater segment with them, and many people wither consider the AA flight wasted because of poor product, poor earnings, or other reasons.

Everyone has a different goal with these tickets.

I find their long haul hard product to be perfectly acceptable and at least on par with a lot of other OW airlines, certainly A LOT better than RJ and BA's old J. But soft product, yeah is can be lacking. I think their food is generally fine, alcohol selection decent, but FAs can be lazy. I hate to generalize that strongly because I've had some really excellent AA crews, both short and long haul who were very proactive and in the aisles enough to keep drinks filled, etc. The biggest gripe I actually have with AA long haul service is their insistence to take away the noise cancelling headphones about an hour before landing. Someone posted in a thred a long time ago that it's because of theft, but they use the 3 prong plug configuration, what use are they if you steal them? Do they seriously believe you're going to cut off the 3 prong plug and splice a normal one onto it? I can't think of other airlines offhand that insist on collecting them before landing. I do complain about it onboard every time and hope others do too, and maybe eventually it'll stop.

But yes, earnings for AAdvantage members is definitely an issue, as on a 'revenue' based segment it's a tiny % of what you'd get on distance plus cabin and elite bonus. You don't need AA metal to skirt the overwater requirement, you can take those on JL, BA, IB, QR, QF, etc. metal but has to be on an AA code, which screws AAdvantage mileage earning. (and actually seems Flagship service South America counts for that too... Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay). So the only way I'd personally do an AA overwater segment to get them to ticket is either fly one / two segments to a South American country that doesn't have more advantageous codeshares (Brazil is the only one with JL codes on AA metal for example) OR to DUB which I believe is the shortest international trans-oceanic segment they fly, then pick it up with QR from there. Otherwise it is indeed a 'wasted segment' as you so accurately described.

I thought due to the recent changes, all BA and IB flights also earn based on the revenue so the trans Atlantic choices are limited if you want to earn aa miles, is that not the case? Do you still earn based on distance for ib and ba flights ?

If earning AA miles look and ask here--->RTW / Round the World ticket - earning AAdvantage Miles
Earning will be by AA rules for the total trip (your ffn in the reservation). What method other ffp's use is totally irrelevant. Including when they have changed their rules. That is nothing to do with AAdvantage ffp.

Since this is the primary thread that people reference for all xONEx fares and AAdvantage being one of the dominant programs in OW, I'll answer here despite Mwenenzi's typical protest in having FFP specific dialogue here. There's no reason to have people combing through 5 different forums / threads to find basic info that affects so many people on these fares. Funnily enough when people start discussing TP's (BA) I never see this same protest.

You're correct, BA and IB are now also gutted for AAdvantage and most likely will credit as revenue. So your choices for TATL are QR and AY codes for the most part, and potentially AT codes for a few destinations. QR does codeshare quite a few IB flights from the US, Caribbean / Central America, and South America, so you could luck out there. AY is basically wide open if desiring a more direct North America to Europe itinerary. (Though if after max miles I'd connect in DOH anyway)

I do kind of get the impression though that you're automatically assuming that xxx flight must be ticketed on the operating carrier's code. On an xONEx, that's absolutely not true. You can ticket them on any OW codeshare that is available on that flight. I've ticketed quite a few AA flights on these tickets as QF and JL codes, and QR and AY codes are no more challenging, just have to look them up in EF to find the number. (Though worthy note, you CAN NOT do that if you ticket with AA, they will insist on AA prime codes)

I think it�s really important we keep in perspective these fares are still quite a great value for 16 flights in business class, so to complain that we can�t have our cake and eat it too sticking it to the airlines and milking the mileage program on top of it is maybe a little too much protest. Above all else I�d recommend people enjoy the flights and destinations they choose and worry less about how important �status� is.