Who is the issuing carrier?

Issued by AA

Hi peterd87
Your route is difficult to read, so I created a map of it for us allHope I got it right
So it's 5 continents, 16 segments
13 flight segments and
3 surface segments (HAN-BKK, SCL-GIG, HNL-SEA)

Something seems off to me - you say "2078 euro in taxes next to 321 euro in carrier imposed fees"
Taxes are imposed by governments. They will be the same no matter which carriers you choose. And they do seem very high to me
By changing carriers, you can only affect the carrier imposed fees

When you say you "I put down a route.."
What do you mean? How did you get this priced?

Finally, I think the itinerary is invalid. I understand the rule "Backtracking between Hawaii and other points in North America is not permitted"
to mean that even a surface segment backtrack is not allowed

Thanks for the map it helps, and yes you are all correct. 13 fights, 3 surface segments.I got this route priced via AA, the itinerary was valid according to them after adding the surface segment instead of flight. Initially I had a flight from HNL-SEA that caused the backtracking issue they could not price out.

What I can try is to remove SYD-SCL and replace by SYD-DFW-GIG to get rid of the surface segment and likely costly QF flight

There is a total of 2078 taxes and fees, of which 1827 are shown as 'other taxes and carrier imposed fees' the other 250 euro are splitted clearly (passenger security charge, airports fee, etc)

That's very interesting.
I recall trying to price up an itinerary with such a backtrack in the online tool, and failing.
I just now plugged this simple itinerary into the online tool:
LHR-DFW-HNL (surface) SFO-HKG-LHR

The tool said "Travel from North America to Hawaii and back is not permitted. Please select a different destination."
So I think you've had a win with AA fares team :tu:

Except that I'm stuck with the to me too high costs on the taxes. :D

Let's see what they think after removing the QF segment on SYD-SCL.

So, feedback after my contact with AA today.

Got rid of the SYD-SCL longhaul on QF, now routed via DFW on AA codeshare. Also removed LHR and added SEA-DOH-OSL instead. They still allowed me to keep the 'backtrack' with a surface segment from HNL to SEA. All changes removed over a 1000 euro of fees.

For the record:
MAP with adjustments

Pricing is now as follows DONE5 ex OSL:
Base: 5636
Taxes and fees: 1219
Carrier imposed: 78

Total 6933 euro

Afternoon all!

I read a lot of people's posts about using the online tool to price things up, and I am amazed. Whenever I try using the tool to price an XONEX trip it just automatically defaults to a Global Explorer and says invalid itinerary as soon as it reaches more than 34,000 miles. Then whenever I try an ANC segment it always gives the "only one flight to and one flight from Alaska permitted - even though I am only trying to book one flight to and one flight from Alaska. the other thing that continually comes up is if I have say an OSL-HEL and DFW-DOH-MAD-DOH-OSL in the itinerary, it tells me I can only have 2 stop overs in the continent of origin, even when I choose dates that clearly indicate a connection rather than a stop-over. Any ideas where I am going wrong?

I also forgot, sometimes it lets me through to choosing flights, evidently as an Explorer ticket as it says so, but then tells me I cannot exceed 34,000 miles in business or first class! See pic.
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...aa0796f15.jpeg

Your posts are better suited to this thread. See in particular posts 689 and 690.

Thank you!

What route? Airlines? Stopover vs transit.
It may be an invalid xONEx route, but OK for GLOB.. But the "34000 miles" is often a generic error messgae:

This is a known and long standing error in the system, much discussed on FT.

The online tool has plenty of issues, but sabre has many as well. Some that I have found:
1. It fails with MH codeshares operated by QR
2. It fails if you try to use all 6 segments in North America. You have to leave one off, as a surface segment.
3. It counts an extra continent when it shouldn't. For example with some itineraries when I've added JFK-EZE-JFK it jumps from 4 continents to 6. Also something like SYD-JNB-LHR seems to add Asia.
I've long suspected that the route maps for these fares in Sabre are wrong, but I don't understand how to read them. Usually route maps are cities but for the explorer fares, route maps contain only numbers.
So you are probably the victim of a bad route map for your desired itinerary. Probably there's not much you can do other than ask an airline to do the ticketing. Also you can try swapping in DFW-LHR-JNB instead of DFW-DOH-LHR. Or similarly JNB-LHR-CMN.

You're indeed correct, it is a Sabre issue. The travel agent I am working with was able to find the errors in the route map that you mentioned and has elevated them to Sabre support, but they need to talk to QR and RJ (the airlines involved in the examples we presented). We got it to price in Amadeus finally, but had to remove one TYO stopover to get it, so even Amadeus still seems imperfect on this routing.

Now we're battling a new issue. It's actually much better for me for positioning to go ex-India, but that one refuses to price unless CX is the first carrier, it will not price JL DEL-HND or BLR-NRT. So now trying one final option in Asia before throwing in the towel and just dealing with my costly positioning back from OSL at the end. I'm actually also able to get ex-JNB to price as well on the same general itinerary (some orders swapped around, and had to price it with CX as first carrier since QR doesn't work in the tool) and it's pretty much the same price as ex-OSL, but I have the same exact positioning issue there. I'm positioning to any of the starting points from CAI, so that's not too bad, but getting back to Japan from JNB or OSL isn't cheap with cash or miles.