Doesn't seem to be. There have been lots of reports from people ticketing with QF, CX, AA, and BA, all seem to fit in line pricewise. You'll have variations to some degree, but overall your fuel surcharges should be small on ex-Japan. Choice of carrier matters far less than other points of origin.

For what it's worth, I had several CX segments, both regional and long haul on a CX issued ticket, it was still only like 50,000 JPY YR, there was no YQ at all on that ticket. I later changed my regional CX segments to MH / JL and there was no additional YR collected.

On a QF issued ex-TYO 2 years ago, I just found that e-ticket also, it was 30,000 JPY in YQ and 14,000 JPY in YR. That one had 2 x QF long haul segments on it and some CX regional.

So it does seem different issuing carriers might distribute it differently but both are still quite small. I know we've had other members in here post their ex-TYO YQ / YR and they are always in that general range, never seen anyone post something over US$400.

Making the change on the phone seems to have been in order to get the base fare as per filed by CX (which hasn't increased yet). FYI I've been able to price itineraries online starting CTS-HKG which use that base fare. It will still then ask you to call Cathay but if that itinerary suits you (or you're happy to just ticket and change the non-first-segment routing later on the basis you should be able to) then the phone task is a simpler matter of asking for a payment link.

If you want to make routing changes before ticketing, ideally go in only needing to make date changes and swapping a minimal number of segments without changing the segment count. In my case I was adding segments and it has taken polite considered insistence (and ~2hrs, mostly to make the changes) to have them not worry about validity and instead have that checked by the back office. Front line staff I spoke to, and their direct supervisors, seem to have been told tickets have a maximum of "5 stopovers, 2 transit, and then, 2 open jaw". I got the same from the whatsapp team before.

Yes, I priced (& ‘booked’) online, with CTS-HKG as the first sector- it came up with the new fare.

"5 stopovers, 2 transit, and then, 2 open jaw"

Haha- that’s the Cathay oneworld multi carrier award.

I really miss the old dedicated Diamond line that CX had pre C19- very good agents.

Interesting ex- Japan cheap extra charges, I was hammered ex-OSL by BA, cheaper if use AA EX OSL?

also on all using osl as point of origin NEVER use BA ticket. Worst experience in 15 tickets booked, changes/ contact by email only mon- Fri sometimes 2 days to reply!

DONE3 exJapan
 

Hello folks, apologies for the very long post. Parts might be useful for a newbie (I first/last looked at RTWs some 10+ years back, never booked). I'm certain that a well sliced & diced version posted between the two threads would make more sense…

Just putting down my experience in planning/booking a DONE3 exJP with CX after some of the other carriers had hiked their fares.

Background: we (2A2C) are based ~NYC (with annual-ish travel needs to India/SIN/SFO/DFW) and were going to be in Asia during the summer (‘24). No ticket back, and probably wanted to 1) be back in Asia over XMas (‘24), 2) have a couple of short breaks around the Caribbean in Q1/2 ‘25, 3) have a longer Europe break late summer 2025, 4) Get the Kids on the QSuite (long story - kiddos, while spoilt viz flights & needing a healthy dose of reality, do have a lot of interest in planes/airlines- by design), 5) be back in Asia end 2025.

Objective: get a sensible (for us) cost rather than ‘maximising’. With generally decentish exJP fares, we planned to get to Japan end Summer '24 (hello cheaper-than-SQ redemptions via AC on SQ), get a r/t to the US to be back in Japan in December ‘24 (CTS) and start our DONE3. Just managed to get the first 2 parts booked in time :D

Started going through this and the Explorer guide threads - many thanks to the regulars! (Sane, warm & helpful threads are getting rarer- atleast in the forums I frequent). Given my comfort in dealing with CX and the possible optionality of using my ‘bookable upgrades’ (a CX instrument), I wanted to ticket with CX. dvs7310 was very helpful (starting with explaining how the tool worked viz CX ticketing- that it doesn’t ticket straightway, very useful info). Got as far as a short-of-ideal booking done online by late July- but then, a laziness, fx moves, stingy CX availability with Point Of Origin Japan (more, below) & a busier than expected period kept delaying things. Fallback had always been to sleep with the enemy and book yet another India-NYC SQ fare. Then, the price updates woke me right up.

Ended up with: CTS-HKG-ORD//JFK-CUN-JFK-PUJ-JFK-SFO-DFW-DOH-MAD-CDG-HKG-BOM-HKG-HND

Pretty much at our needed dates till getting to MAD- rest to be changed when we know better. CTS-HKG and JFK-CUN are in coach. NGO/FUK-HKG were available in D (with a close to costless CTS-NGO/FUK Jl redemption) but with 2 kids in tow, boss lady overruled plans to pick up a few more status points- will try using miles or something at the airport- & will see about CUN in case AA opens up some.

Online tool experience

1. The max 34K max miles error was always because of something else for me- either a flight selection adding a surface segment, or, lack of availability (on the first page, that would show up differently at times)
2. I will pay decent money to be able to be able to search with PoO. CX showed lots of availability with a Japan PoS on expertflyer for our ideal dates, but none in reality (I would search using ITA matrix with a JP-HKG-ORD/BOS/JFK-JP to determine actual availability..JFK never came available, BOS once, but I was inflight and it was gone by the time I landed, and then ORD became available for one of our preferred dates literally sometime October 03.
3. Both CX and AA seemed to have aggressive PoO restrictions- CX more than AA (an early iteration had JFK-CDG on AA and both that, and DFW-MAD had availability issues on a few dates when expertflyer showed D available)
4. Many a time, the first page (where one enters the cities) would give an invalid itinerary error even if things were kosher. Clicking to add a segment (I could, since I only had 15 flights, after HND, no need to input any destination), deleting it and immediately clicking (the now not grayed/out) ‘Choose flights’ button would take the tool to the next page
5. Unless you enjoy playing with fares/availability/quirks (I do), paying a reasonable fee to a TA would be totally worth it

Other: CX seems to have an all-or nothing approach to PoO restrictions. With expertflyer D9 dates, if with PoO Japan had 1 seat available, it had 4- else, nothing (this while checking with SFO/LAX as well). Almost never any availability with ef <D9.

Fare/Surcharges/Taxes

• Paid JPY 816.8K total: 656.3K (Adult/CX fare) / 63K YR + 4.7K YR (yes, both listed as YR)/ 92.8K taxes
• The online version (HKG-JFK instead of HKG/ORD, and, DFW-(AA)-xBCN-MAD) had JPY958.04 total: 787.6K/ 63K ‘Multiple Carrier Surcharges &Fees’, not marked as YQ or YR (so, lower) / 107.44Ktaxes

Splitting hairs but FWIW, I think the online tool gets the taxes wrong. Its tricky to minutely compare between the the ticketed version & the online version - happy to share the breakdowns in case anyone is interested- (JPY ~2%weaker between online booking & ticketing, so the non-JP taxes should generally be higher, in JPY), but was the opposite). Online had a child HK departure tax of 3090 vs an adult’s of 2250 (CX doesn’t have, for the Child, which is correct and the correct ~HKD120 for the adults). Total taxes online were 103.88k, vs 89.22k per child (post fx inflation, on the eticket).

Stuff to be done later, subject to availability etc:

• switch HKG-ORD to HKG-JFK, free up a sector, and ideally on a flight where I can use my upgrades (long long shot), maybe switch DFW-DOH to an AA code (but really? doubt any YR savings worth a call)
• Possibly switch CDG to LHR (we’ll see how travel plans shape up, remote possibility of using my upgrades on LHR-HKG), and possibly switch BOM to DEL+ potentially DEL-HND to free up a sector

Am I correct in thinking that if I don’t touch the first sector, the changes can be done without a fare change, pre first departure as well?
PS: BA,CX,MH,QR fares are still good.

Thanks for sharing, and yes: date changes on everything except the first segment is fine (as per rules anyway) at any point. The wording is:
Prior to departure: a. Changes are permitted provided ticketed points remain the same. If the first flight coupon is being changed, and the fare level has increased since ticket issuance, the difference between the old and new fare will be charged. If the fare level has decreased since ticket issuance, no refund will apply.

Where in the rule does it say there's no recalculation, prior to departure, if only the second and/or subsequent sectors are changed

Sorry, I should have been clearer. Yes, had meant date changes pre-first sector. Won’t touch the ticketed points till after that.


Now what if, without a change in ticketed points, I see D availability for
1. an AA sector that’s currently in coach
2. the first sector, that’s also currently in coach

My read of 16 (a) 1.a. Makes me think that #1 should be fine, but #2 not (“If the first flight coupon is being changed”)- although I really doubt seeing D availability
On CTS-HKG late December!

The rule i quoted seems clear.that *date* changes to sectors other than the first trigger no recalculation.

I believe that's the intention and how the rule has historically been interpreted. However, the rule is only clear on whenthere is a recalculation, not when there isn't.

I have seen similarish in CX’s ‘regular’ fare rules…

While I agree that an agent could well interpret wrongly, I would try arguing back with a ‘where do the rules specify a recalculation for XXX change?’

Ah, OK. I raised a similar point in the rules thread a fair while back noting not recalculating after the first segment is flown is (likewise) implicit not explicit. Then again, the rules don't say they won't recalculate if it's a Friday and Jim is ill, i.e. it seems fair to argue that for a recalculation to be allowed it must be explicitly so rather than fail to say it's disallowed. TBH what's most interesting is what happens in practice. Hopefully I won't learn that the hard way.

I'm waiting on CX to update segments 3-5 on a newly ticketed DONEx. Having had days of waiting for a payment link and for the rtw team to respond, with the helpdesk mangling bookings they touched, it seemed best to just pay for an untouched booking out of the oneworld site that had routing I wanted (but wrong dates) minus the fact some ideally transit points are ticketed as stopovers. I'm trying to change my segments 3-5 as they need to be soon after segment 1 so it's likely now or never. Prices haven't gone up yet mind.

BTW what's the deal with date changes with CX. You just call, tell them the info, they put that in a case for the back office and then you wait 1-4 days for it to hopefully happen? Far from ideal if you're chasing slim inventory.

The phone agents should be able to hold those seats for a bit, while the rtw desk works through things?

They certainly could add AA sectors to my earlier online booking which I did not end up ticketing.

As far as I know the 'back office' team who works on RTWs only works HK business hours or something close to it. When I made the final change on my CX ticket (changes to ticketed points), the Whatsapp rep said that the specialist team needed to handle it but had communicated everything to them. The specialist team called me back around 7 or 8 pm HK time to confirm the changes and ticketed it right then and there, said that it was a free change (taxes and maybe a little YR would have gone done, so maybe it was a wash compared to the $125?)

Depends on the person who answers the phone, but yes it does seem that anyone competent can do that part then kick it off to the specialist team to finalize. The problem is when they have no clue about the type of ticket and insist there is no specialist team to ask. That's a HUCA situation. I eventually just used their Whatsapp team instead of calling.

That's super helpful, thanks. I've definitely had the no clue no team interaction (via phone and WhatsApp) and once the let me ask the specialist team version (calling hk during their normal hours) which resulted in ticketing within 30 mins or so. Will try the WhatsApp team during hk hours by default now.