If they are a specialist I suggest you go back to them with these questions. There’s nothing preventing this, so if they’re specialists and they’re telling you this they owe you a better explanation.

You’re paying them and not us, so I’d suggest if you’re not getting satisfactory answers from them and think free internet advice is more valuable you might want to reconsider who you’re paying.

I will do, but given your guess for the reason there will not be much they can do if the lower fare buckets are not available.

A way around this that has worked for me in the past (but obviously no guarantee it would work again) is as follows:
1) Book the HKG-JFK for the following day i.e. with the stopover.
2) Once ticketed, change the date of HKG-JFK to one day earlier, your desired travel date.

The downsides:
1) No guarantee it would work
2) Your ticket would include HK departure levy (HKD120 IIRC), which for a same day connection you do not need to pay
3) There should be no change fee charged by the ticketing carrier but your TA may charge a service fee

Can you credit part of a oneworld RTW to one airline’s frequent flyer program and part of it to a different airline’s frequent flyer program, or is that not possible?

Absolutely possible - just ensure when you check in for each flight you have them change your FF number and then verify it shows correctly on your BP. Obviously you only get status benefits from the program you're using on that flight.

I'm going to give it a definite maybe. In theory, yes, you should be able to change your frequent flyer number for each flight. Usually you can do it either at the gate or in the elite lounge (if you have status to gain admission). However, there are reports on FT of trying to do it, and the agent says that the number was changed as requested, but then getting NO credit for a flight because each program claims that the flight was already credited to another program, regardless of what the boarding pass says.

I've been able to do it - so it's definitely possible - but fully endorse that it may take several agents and confusion. I agree that I definitely wouldn't count on it being possible without a lot of hassle.

You can also just skip adding the FF#, then request credit for individual flights with each program after travel is completed.
Obviously, the downside is that if there are benefits tied to having the program on the ticket, you may not be able to use those (eg, seat assignments). YMMV

Is there a free source available which shows base fare as a function of departure point for these round the world tickets offered by One World and Star Alliance? I did a brief search, but didn't find anything recent. Obviously a person could collect the data by brute force through the online booking tools; but I'm hoping the data is already freely available.

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

Base fares are not freely available in a convenient, searchable format; that's why services like Expertflyer are in business.

American explicitly prohibits changing the FFN if you obtain any benefits (more of issue in coach bookings) and also disallows number change post flight:
(4) You cannot accrue partner airline miles with your partner frequent flyer number if you have already used your AAdvantage® number to obtain any AAdvantage® Rewards and Benefits such as First or Business Class upgrades, baggage fee waivers, priority boarding, access to Preferred seats or complimentary access to Preferred / Main Cabin Extra seats
(7) After your flight departs, you will not be able to change your selection of a frequent traveler program with respect to that flight.
In the past I used FFN status to access first class CX lounge at LHR and also BA LHR First lounge just by showing my status card when the ticket had a different FFN but not sure if that works in other lounges.

What I described is the idea of booking a ticket but not adding the frequent flyer number. You fly your segments and then submit individual flights for retroactive credit with the desired program(s). This is perfectly legal because you are not trying to double-dip in any way. My following statement, "Obviously, the downside is that if there are benefits tied to having the program on the ticket, you may not be able to use those (eg, seat assignments)." refers to the idea that if you choose to withhold your FF# before flying (in order to claim retroactive credit afterwards), there may be a trade-off in doing so. For example, booking a BA business ticket still means you have to pay a seat assignment fee if your elite FF# is not on there. Make sense?

What you are describing is the following: (4) If someone puts their AA number on a revenue ticket to benefit from elite perks, then swaps to a different acct after such perks have been realized.
(7) someone cannot choose to credit a different program after traveling on the flight

Not sure what you thought I was saying, but this is a case of apples and oranges.

Does QF75 ticketeby AA as a codeshate count as 1 of the 4 necessary QF annual flights
 

Are you asking a question about the necessary flights required for QF status? If so, you should ask your question in the QF forum:
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/qant...ent-flyer-498/

They let you ticket this with all those DFWs and DOHs? :eek:

why not? There’s no rule on number of times you can transit a place? (within the segs per continent obv)

Nice. May have to copy some of that :idea:

If maximizing earnings is your main goal it's certainly a pretty itinerary!

DONE4 D class availability
 

I want to change my flights after the first flight but I am not sure if the flights are available. When I use ita matrix and restrict it to booking class D, I see there are tickets available in D but when I use oneworld page to book a new ticket that includes the flight segment, it doesn't show up. Does it mean that this particular segment is not bookable via DONE4? For example, I am trying to book HND-LON on JAL but on certain days the flight does not show up on oneworld page but D class is available on ita. Similar issue with CX for inter-asian flights. Oneworld shows only a limited number of flight combinations but ita shows nearly all...

Most important to know is if your segments are married or not on the ticket. If you get your ticket, you should see a line like:

*S-21APR24CAI BA X/LON BA BER AY HEL AY X/SEA AS WAS AS
X/SFO AS ANC AS HNL FJ CXI FJ NAN FJ MEL QF ADL MH X/KUL MH
BKK QR X/DOH QR CAI2808.76NUC2808.76END ROE50.20 PD XF
HNL4.5

the "X/LON" indicates that segment is a connection, so it has to be available in D as CAI-LON-BER - which may have less availability than the individual segments.

Idk how accurate ITA matrix is, but I've still had cases where I find it on ExpertFlyer, but QF claims it's not there. You can HUCA, but I've found for some reason QF/OW don't always have all D availability available...can't say why...

edited: for readability/formatting

I have had a similar problem several times recently booking DONEs with the AA RTW desk. I see D class availability on QF. AA agent also sees D class availability. But the seats come back “unconfirmed” by Qantas. No explanation given.

We finally booked our first RTW yesterday (CX were vey late in releasing their timetable for a couple of routes), a big thank you for all the help from the forum in planning the trip, much appreciated.

I used a travel agent this time as this is actually a big holiday with my wife and I had a lot of other travel arrangements to make (and was on a learning curve with RTW), but I will likely do another RTW and book directly going forward. Below is what we finally booked and the cost for the DONE5 was £6280 per person. Would we have saved much doing it ourselves?

I should add that I was fortunate to have worked with a very good travel agent who was prepared to read/understand the rules, I have found that some agents and airlines just do not understand the rules and will not consider a route such as this.

OSL-DOH-NBO-DOH-PER-SYD-CHC-SYD-KUL-BOM-HKG-JFK-DOH-MAN-DOH-OSL
15 segments with one surface segment (in bold) and stopovers in red.
This equates to 1800 TPs and 51,295 miles. We have registered our BA exec numbers, will all our TPs and Avios automatically credit?

For future reference, what is the correct way (notation) of expressing a RTW trip to indicate surface segments, stopovers and transfers?

EDIT - we used the AA code for JFK-DOH as I will be GGL by the time we start the trip and this should give us access to the Chelsea Lounge.

On FT we assume everything is a stopover, unless otherwise indicated, so:Transits indicated with a lowercase 'x'
Surface segments indicated with a comma (or a double slash '//')

ETA
And congrats on your booking :tu:

Very nice itinerary, should be a great trip. The only suggestion I'd make on it, especially if you end up making other changes that trigger the $125 fee is your SYD-xxx-BOM.

Personally I'd much rather do it on CX than MH, but CX is a morning departure from SYD and MH is a late evening departure. The CX experience is quite a bit better though, both flights are in their long haul configuration (A359 and 77W on the dates I referenced) while MH is an A330 (generally fine) to KUL but a 737 to BOM.

The CX F lounge is quite a bit nicer than the MH Platinum Lounge. Both have restaurant style dining from a menu and actually MH does have a pretty good menu in there. My biggest gripe about the MH lounge is they have no liquor in the lounge, the bar is in the business lounge and you have to request what you want from the lounge staff each time. I did notice them getting more proactive after a while and asking if I need a refill, but I prefer either self service or a bartender right there. The MH Platinum lounge is also significantly smaller than CX's F lounge, and CX has the complementary massage in the spa. MH is also a pain if you have to transfer between the satellite terminal (all long haul flights) and the regional one (main building) since their train has been broken for quite some time and no definite timeline in getting it fixed, so currently they are running busses between the terminals.

MH is certainly not a 'bad' experience but it's not nearly as good as CX.

Congratulations on the booking. These *ONE* can be be addictive. :cool:

You may be taking the train or driving, but SYD-PER is a good longish route in business class (~4:00hrs)
QF fly SYD-BLR Bangalore & SYD-DEL in India.
http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=c%3Ablu...=bm&PW=3&DU=mi
AU east coast to NZ (~3:30hrs) can be cheap on a range of airlines,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...s_destinations

We are taking the Indian Pacific PER-SYD

AA Agent told me they are seeing this more and more with QR, QF, CX etc and find it very frustrating has been escalated at some level to try and resolve but I wouldn't be holding my breath

POINT OF INTEREST - for anyone who got on the recent ex-CAI deals but had to ticket with QF. I was on the phone to AA RTW desk making some changes to an ex-TYO AA ticketed booking and at the end of the call I asked if there was any chance they could help me with some difficulties in a QF ticketed DONE5. The agent was super helpful and said yep no problem and let's get that taken over by AA so we can get this all sorted.
30mins work and clean up of the QF Fiji call centre mess (4 x duplicated sectors on different dates, married segment issue etc and at least 10+ wasted hrs with QF call centre, and no promised call backs) and the ticket is now under AA control and the dates etc all fixed up.
So it can be done but caveat is that I'm AA llifetime Plat and the itin does have one intercontinental AA sector (DFW-SCL), not sure how much those things mattered.

WOW - very well done. I didn't try the RTW desk, but since I didn't have the confirmation number originally I begged the regular AA agents with zero result....and that was just to. same day change to an earlier flight! Four different agents wouldn't touch it.

I suspect your status really helped you here... wonder if they'd be nice to an Alaska MVP100....

Quite interesting, I might try this after I fly my AA metal JL coded segments so they don't attempt to convert them back to AA codes. I think though at that point there's little I'll want to change, just dates as I'll have flown most of the itinerary and my final 2 stopping points likely won't change, but it may be advantageous to convert DOH into a stopover vs. transit back to CAI (or even change CAI to AUH or another ME destination if WY actually joins by then). QF seems to have a problem with 2 stopovers in the same place despite the online tool being quite happy to ticket it that way if you set it up initially.

Even if WY joins, they were not a member of OW at the time of ticketing. The fare rules at the time of ticketing apply and WY was not a member at that time. Therefore you can't add them. This was a big deal when EI joined, then left as a member back in the 2000's.

My experience with AA taking over an itinerary booked with OW was successful, but a bit hit and miss. Since I wanted a JL 1st seat that AA could not see, but the OW website did, I booked the itinerary on the OW web site. The website said to ticket thru JL. I called AA and with some effort got it all onto AA. So it is possible, though I suspect ex-CAI is going to be difficult while other origins not so much.

Hopefully this is the right thread for this:

Looking to change 4 segments on my 34,000 biz RTW from HNL-CXI-NAN-MEL-ADL to HNL-SYD-xxx-xxx-ADL

Right now I'm thinking SYD-LDH-SYD-ADL mainly because LDH flights are outrageously expensive otherwise. The downside? Economy only. Which economy bucket would this book into? Y or lower?

I'm not looking to "max out" the experience because I'm pretty close to 34,000 and this routing would only leave me about 400 miles on the table. Other suggestions?

The answer is in the written rules.

Thanks! Read them three times and missed that line....must be a sign my eyes are glazing over and I should quit for the day.

I have to say I'm sad you're abandoning CXI, was looking forward to hearing your experience of it later.

I have a newbie question about the ex-CAI pricing. Oneworld recently started this beta tool where you can get the base fare if you enter the origin city. Cairo shows 130K egp for DONE3, which is probably the old price prior to devaluation because when I price it now, the base fare is around 11K AUD or 7300USD on their web plus taxes and fuel charges. Did the oneworld uniformly increase the base fare from Cairo or is it just Qantas that is pricing it substantially higher? If ex-cairo is pricing at 7300USD now it doesn't seem to have the price advantage anymore compared to Oslo or Tokyo...For what is worth, ex-TYO DONE3 has ¥656,300, ex-OLS has NOK52,398, both cheaper than 7300USD...

Beta tool is wrong, it's the old price and it won't price an itinerary anywhere near that anymore. Most airlines used to price ex-CAI in EGP, QR was an exception and I believe AA too when they had their old fare up (they were USD based on the base fare at some historic currency conversion). That's why in foreign currencies the ex-CAI fare suddenly got cheaper for a short time this year. And yes your observation is correct, ex-CAI is no longer cheap and will likely be more expensive than ex-Japan and ex-OSL for the time being.

If you're wanting ex-Japan, I also wouldn't dawdle, domestic consumers and businesses are really hurting as imports have skyrocketed, so there's been more and more currency intervention talk and big business is calling for a 120-130 JPY / USD target, that's a good 20% spike in fares in foreign currency if it ever happens. Japan can't afford to raise interest rates, but they have other tools available while waiting for the US to drop rates and balance the FX. I expect the USD / EUR cost of the ex-Japan xONEx to go up within this year. The great thing about ex-Japan xONEx is no YQ, only a modest amount of YR, so you have a lot more freedom to schedule on any airline you chose (or codeshare you choose) without the YQ penalty you'd get on an ex-CAI or ex-OSL itinerary with certain carriers.

thanks, I bought one ex-Cai for this year so I don't have any room to squeeze another one ex-JP but doesn't YQ not apply only for the first segment, not the entire trip? I thought the rule about YQ only applied to ex-JP departure, I am not sure if it would apply to the entire RTW ticket or just the JP departure only....
Anyway, I am closely watching the USD/JPY rate and alternatively i can hedge by selling my USD now and keeping it on JPY for the time being.

Need some advice, I am starting my xCai later this week, here's my itinerary, ticketed through QF
1. CAI - xMAD - VIE (IB) (2 air)
2. VIE - xDOH - KUL (QR) (2 air)
3. KUL - NRT (MH)
4. HND - GMP (JL)
5. INC - KUL (MH)
6. KUL - xHKG - LAX (CX) (2 air)
7. LAX - SFO (AA)
8. SFO - JFK (AA)
9. JFK - DFW (AA)
10. DFW - DOH (QR)

Questions,
a. Am I using 15 of the 16 segments? where 13 of the air, and 2 for surface (NRT-HND), (GMP-INC)
b. Can I still add one segment within Asia? I am assuming that I used up 3, KUL - NRT, HND - GMP, INC - KUL
c. For my VIE - xDOH - KUL, can I change to VIE-xDOH-HKG-KUL? Adding HKG as a stop?

*edited as per Mwenenzi's input"