No I'm not, but in the past when I have done many OWEs having a good TA set them up for me was invaluable.

Just for everybody's information, Qatar stated that the 'original travel agent' needed to make any and all changes. This was about midnight at the transfer desk in Doha, so there may not have been the most experienced team on rotation at the time. There was nobody with any experience with oneworld fares around at the time, and I only had an 8 hour transit, so I flew the original itinerary.

The AA RTW desk took down my desired changes, but called back the next day to decline to take over the booking, as 'not enough had been paid for the ticket' (a pre-price rise ex-MPM fare). I gather this was in reference to the prices ex-MPM having risen since the purchase.

Qantas had originally issued my ticket, and after several false starts (hours on hold, disconnections, etc., I got through to an agent who was able to at least make the most pressing changes. I didn't get everything I was after, but time was short so I'll have to sort out the rest once I'm not in transit, and pay a second set of change fees.

Move to different thread

XONEx date change: QF v BA
 

I am trying to make a simple date change to a QF Oz domestic sector. Its a BA issued ticket (xONEx). The friendly guy at QF Reservations absolutely refuses to make the requested date change and states that BA is the only airline that can make changes. He wouldn't listen to my comment that QF have happily made date changes previously. He also refused to listen to my comment that henis inconsistent with previous QF actions or the xONEx fare rules.

Have things recently changed regarding fare rules or is the QF phone rep wrong?

My option to phone BA is not currently viable given their IT issue and call centre volumes.

Just booked a DONE5 ex JNB through the AA RTW desk in Dallas....That was the easy bit....Had it priced in Rand in less than 24 hours then when time to pay with my Australian AMEX card problems began....For whatever reason the system in Dallas didnt like my registered address and so after nearly 2 hours gave up and rang the Sydney number....They repriced in AUD and the payment went through not as one payment but as multiple payments with one payment too many processed....Rang back Sydney and they couldnt understand the overpayment and said could do nothing and said ring Dallas....Rang Dallas and they said the extra charge pending will drop off...not too sure about that !!!....Then needed an eticket receipt and they couldnt do it claiming the RAND numbers were too large for the system to handle hence the multiple charges were then broken down into acceptable numbers for the computer to recognize !!...Finally an agent at the RTW desk was able to manually produce my eticket receipt that came in four seperate emails ( 2 passengers on the one PNR )....Then a seperate email again manually produced that just has our eticket numbers....A complete shambles and I have done this booking with AA for many many years and this experience was really testing !!!....Last year priced the itinerary in Rand and one charge in AUD hit my card an immediately and eticket receipt with ticket numbers and a cost summary was correctly emailed !!!
Now to wait and see what posts to my AMEX card but not confident that the correct charges will be posted...hmm
Think next time I may just get AA to price in AUD.

Another data point,
Want to change next sector on a DAS13. Booked flight is tonight. Want on next available flight (ITM-HND) approached JAL, they said no, contact QF. Even though JL has changed their own flights on non JL tickets on oneworld tickets before. -_-


This is getting quite annoying.
For tickets that are flexible, that, in theory and according to oneworld any oneworld member can change, the airlines are getting rather difficult about actually making changes.

In years past, I've had CX, JL, BA, QF, AA and AY all make changes to in progress bookings, to both their own flights and others, no matter what stock the ticket was on.
However, in the past 2 years or so, they've been much more difficult. Some agents have outright refused. Others have attempted to charge the reroute fee for changes that didn't require it.
This current trip, a few weeks ago, I asked to change a flight that was 3 weeks later. QF ticket, AA code, CX flight. I asked QF to change it as ticket issuer. They said to talk to CX as it was a CX flight. CX said to talk to AA as it was an AA code and AA said to talk to QF as it was an QF ticket.
Then today, something came up that made me need to spend the day in Tokyo instead of Osaka. Had been expecting an easy change. Show up at airport early, ask JL to change a JL flight. They say to go talk to QF. QF doesn't respond, contact travel agent. Spend 2 hours trying to get replies from QF or agent while watching as flights I could be on with open seats depart.
Travel agent has no luck changing the flight, can't see the availability that I can see on the airport screen in front of me. The JAL international connections counter reopened, and I spoke to them. They said to talk to QF, but by then QF had finally responded that they can only see waitlisted, they don't get live availability from JAL. That message was enough to get JL to open a seat and contact QF to make the change.
So, on a flight, 4 hours later then planned.

This has become much harder then it used to be, or needs to be.

It’s a shame we can’t go back to paper tickets. ;)

Did JL give a reason for refusing to make the change? With their current migration to Amadeus in progress it may have been temporarily beyond their capabilities. (I am an optimist.)

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/japa...l#post29086180

This is nearly a year old now, anyone know if anything has changed or is MPM still the best price starting point?

I believe a few of the African points have had further price increases. The cheapest list changes daily with FX fluctuations.

DYOR. ​​​​Get a ExpertFlyer subscription, plug into a spreadsheet and add FX rates.

It would be nice if somebody who did the research could post some findings. Usually FX fluctuations don't change the ranking too much.

But also everytime a 'good' starting point is published on forums the price quickly changes.
It's also a big exercise to pull info for all the XoneXs and then you have all the Circle fares as well.

CMB, KHI in mid-2000s.
JNB more recently (though it lasted longer than many expected)

JNB and MPM were wonderful for a long time. If you're prepared to maximise it (particularly now you can get two European stops), JNB is still good value, but it's not the no-brainer it once was.

I'm pricing a 16 segment JNB DONE4 at 97,800 ZAR (~$7,150usd) using the OW booking site.

A quick and very informal scan of Expert Flyer today reveals the five cheapest origin (in USD) base fares for a DONE4 are:
NRT
ALG
OSL
KWI
TLV

...ranging from US$6924 to US$7200 before taxes and fees.