I transited through KHI twice in 2022
First transit - in on a QR positioning flight, out to CMB, first flight of a DONEx
Second transit in from CMB as last flight of the DONEx, out on QR as first flight of next DONEx
Felt totally safe both times (me - a European in my 70s)
But the airport doesn't handle transit passengers at all well - had to get the relevant airline station manager each time to smooth the process for me.

FYI in what I now call my mis-spent youth, in my 20s, I spent about two weeks ravelling across northern Pakistan from the Afghan border at the Khyber Pass to the Indian border at Wagah (near Lahore). And again, I felt perfectly safe the whole time.

DONEx ex-DEL haven't changed.
Now coming in better than ex-JPN lol.

I've heard Karachi isn't the safest place, but Lahore and Islamabad seem fairly tame, at least from what I've read from others. ISB is only served by QR, so makes it more difficult, but LHE is served by both QR and UL, making both positioning and an xONEx much easier. But I think even the safety aspect of Karachi has to be put into perspective, supposedly it's safer than Sao Paulo, somewhere I've been a million times despite never actually spending a night there (been in the actual city though several times during daytime and early evening). I also go to much of east and southern Africa without any hesitation, and I think nothing about driving myself around Johannesburg and Pretoria. Definitely not the safest places in the world.

For someone using AA miles, it's only 40k to position from Japan to S. Asia or the Middle East, that's a lot less than Europe to position for OSL. Since I live in Japan that also would give me the ability to do an extended stopover (or two) here so becomes that much more attractive. I'd definitely be foregoing a few miles because AA's rather lackluster earnings on UL codes, but several of their flights from CMB to East or SE Asia have codeshares available. I'm relatively ok only being allowed 2 stopovers in Asia since I've pretty much been everywhere that OW carriers fly in East and SE Asia already. Seems I've more or less talked myself into doing ex-LHE on my next one, LOL. Not sure yet when that'll be, I don't need to earn any more miles until after March so no rush to plan yet.

Was it you BTW who mentioned booking RTWs with UL? If so what was the process? Just general telephone line or was there a better contact?

Yes, that was me.
In this thread see
Post 935 FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - Oneworld booking and pricing experiences
Post 942 FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - Oneworld booking and pricing experiences
Post 969 FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - Oneworld booking and pricing experiences

Well doesn't sound any worse than dealing with QF, LOL.

Just finished mapping out my next DONE3. I'm going to stick with the AA desk and ex-Japan itinerary. Yes, Pakistan and India are lower. But when I back out the lower additional extra charges of an ex-Japan ticket, and the positioning cost of getting to Pakistan or India from NRT (where my current ticket ends), then factor in the somewhat increased safety risk in Pakistan, particularly with the MidEast just a hair's breadth away from exploding, sticking with ex-Japan is the right decision for me. I did hear back from my Pakistani friend, and he, too, advises against Pakistan, particularly at this time.

Of course, you have to do what's in your own comfort zone, and your reasons all make very good sense. I guess no luck getting BA to ticket it on the old Japan rates?

At the end of the day it's not a massive price jump for DONE3, and still very good value at the new prices. (as long as the yen remains suppressed but that's going to get a lot more expensive if we ever get back to the 115-125 / $ range)

I myself though am going to have to think long and hard about how important DONE4 and 5 are going forward. In South America and Africa until we get new OW members in each, you can realistically only get 1 or 2 points if you use a surface segment and they are roughly $1000 price hikes at each interval except ex-Norway. That was the true beauty of ex-CAI, the DONE5 was barely much more expensive than a 4 or even 3 so why not throw extra continents in there. I know of course business class flights into and out of Africa or South America are worth way more than $1000, but not sure I'm personally getting that much value out of them vs. a well optimized DONE3 like you posted yesterday. Oceana is easily a region though that someone could get massive value out of the extra continent, but not necessarily maximizing miles flown. I'm very much looking forward to FJ joining next year and explore some more off the beaten path islands when I'm able to take an extended holiday. That'll be an excellent use case for a DONE4 from somewhere or maybe even a Circle Pacific (I see they are still offered from Japan but have never attempted to price one). (Yes, I know FJ can currently be on a DGLOB34, but I would never get an itinerary I was satisfied with under 34k miles).

I am in the same mind set. A DONE 3 form OSL will probably be my next RTW. I can still easily get in excess of 200k mi / lps out of it. Side trips can also be cheaper. Redemptions in J on AA from Asia are a pretty good value at 30/40/55/60k one way. I have plenty of miles but still want to maintain OWE. 30-35 LP/$ is better than doing milage runs in PE or buying things I dont need.

I'm definitely not doubting that it can be done, certainly Dr. HFH has impressed me with their BIS maximized DONE3. But would love to see an example itinerary for 200k LPs in AAdvantage if you have one built. Especially an ex-OSL it seems challenging where you can only have 2 Europe stopovers, so you're more limited on how many times you can use QR and DOH as a transit point within Europe. Now you've really got me thinking, I'm coming up with some potential ideas but 200k is really strong for a DONE3 when I only managed 160k on a very JL and QR heavy DONE5.

Edit: Ok, I've found one, someone could definitely do slight variations of this and still get over 200k LPs (must be an EXP already). Also need to find a way to book it because it has zero AA segments and QR as the first, so need a real travel agent. Plus you need JL codeshares on the UL flights. (This is also 59,900 BIS miles for non AA folks, so still might be of interest)

The 4 segment per continent limitation was initially causing issues because there's no way to get into and out of OSL without consuming an intra-Europe segment each way. Leaves only 2 more segments for an extra city.

OSL-DOH (QR)-DOH-LAX (QR)-LAX-SJO (AS)- SJO-LAX (AS)- LAX-ANC (AS)-ANC-JFK(AS)-JFK-HND(JL)-HND-SIN(JL)-SIN-NRT(JL)-NRT-CMB(JL code)-CMB-NRT(JL Code)-NRT-DOH(QR)-DOH-CMN(QR)-CMN-DOH(QR)-DOH-OSL(QR)

With that I calculate about 210k LPs as an EXP. You could change out some of the Asian cities as long as you stay on JL codes for all of them, it does have one spare segment that you could do a HND-NRT surface segment if needed, but all Asian flight segments are used. I only selected SIN because my first itinerary had all 16 segments used up and no space for a surface segment, so needed a city that has both NRT and HND service. BKK would work too but fewer miles, but since this version can afford the surface segment you could sub CGK for SIN for some extra miles. Or even BLR if you're felling quite sporty.

The AS flight ANC-JFK only operates in summer time, so you'd be losing some miles if you have to go ANC-ORD which I believe operates year round but only a couple of days per week, plus ORD doesn't get the JL A351 which is a quite nice ride.

Alert: CX exJP works @ old fares, with caveats
 

Apologies- I type this from a bustling hole in the wall eatery in BKK.

I just ticketed an exJP DONE3 at the old fares.

Details later, but here’s what worked for me- timeline in brackets:
1. book online with the first sector with CX (04Oct/~noon SIN). This makes it a CX ticket (at the QF fares, I think), and payment info is taken, but not charged. You have to call to get them to send a payment link.
2. call to change (regular line- I get a CX Diamond priority, but was still dumped to the MNL call Center)- do not pay- the call centre will see the ow website fare- I changed a DFW-BCN-MAD to a DFW-DOH-MAD
agent couldn’t process/figure out if it was allowed, sent to the manual pricing team (04Oct/~1400 SIN), supposedly on ‘Diamond Priority’
3. got an email with the required itinerary (05Oct/2120 SIN- it’s Saturday night in HKG!)
4. got a call that I missed (immediately after the above)
5. got a payment link that I paid through (10 mins after the above) with the CX filed fares.

The phone agent being unable to just make the change might have been the key.

etickets in the inbox, base fare of JPY 656,300/492,300 per Adult/Child.

A long post of gratitude to the regulars in this thread, and especially dvs7310 & of course pandaperth , with experiences with the engine, and a saga of mistakes, laziness, confidence with the first rtw (lack thereoff) etc will hopefully follow in the coming days (tight tax filing deadlines etc to be dealt with).

Great to hear, and CX isn't bad to deal with, though they do have a proper RTW team that isn't directly accessible. You do have to get someone who knows what's going on.

But definitely great to hear that you got one booked under the old rates that CX still have / had posted after most other carriers increased.

When I did my last CX one via the OW tool, thankfully I knew that it was essentially a dummy booking and not live ticketing like QF. So I just immediately contacted them before making payment for the changes that I needed. I'm pretty sure at the time on that one it was only changing my AKL-DFW code from AA to QF, but was no issue and ticketing was painless after.

I really do wish that in the next generation of the OW tool, it'll allow us to choose our preferred ticketing carrier based on who's eligible on the itinerary. Would make a huge difference since essentially no one wants QF.

Are you able to say more about this? There's still YQ but maybe varying by airline there seems to be less than other origins but I couldn't find any info on how much less or how it works. E.g. is it just the YQ for the first segment that's less? Or just for some airlines (marketing? ticketing)?

You have to hope there's a fixed tool coming soon, it's so broken! Being able to pick the ticketing carrier (among eligible options) would be be icing on the cake to a tool that accepts most valid itineraries.

Fuel surcharges are regulated in Japan. So there is a tiny bit of YQ on ex-Japan tickets, but it's so negligible that it doesn't matter. They do have YR, which is also a fuel surcharge, but it's a lot less than YQ ex-CAI, ex-OSL, etc. So even if the Japan price is a bit higher, once you build your itinerary, if you're using a bunch of high YQ carriers (QF, BA, MH, and I believe CX as well) then ex-Japan can work out less overall.

I recall people posting with prices from other countries and were talking $2k+ in fuel surcharges alone, for ex-Japan it should be less than $400 regardless of carriers chosen.

That's super helpful (this cheaper YQ exJapan isn't ticketing carrier specific + MH and probably CX are high YQ +).

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.

On ex JP taxes & surcharges. I was curious and priced equivalent route (same airlines on each segment, AY, CX and QF) DONE4s online but one ex OSL and one ex CTS:
* SPK-HKG-SYD-AKL-JFK-xHEL-OSL-xHEL-TYO taxes & surcharges ~$1000
* OSL-xHEL-TYO,SPK-HKG-SYD-AKL-JFK-x-HEL-OSL taxes & surcharges ~$1700




I then did the DONE3 (AY, CX only) version which was just confusing as ex OSL was cheaper (I have the pricing PDF to refer to so pretty sure I didn't make a mistake, maybe the online tool did):
* SPK-HKG-JFK-xHEL-OSL-xHEL-TYO taxes & surcharges ~$800
* OSL-xHEL-TYO,SPK-HKG-JFK-xHEL-OSL taxes & surcharges ~$575




(I also priced out an itinerary I'm actually flying ex Japan which is exclusively CX and QR except 3 domestic AA segments, and ex Japan is a slim saving of $1050 in taxes & surcharges vs $1250 if flown ex USA)

I recall AY has high transatlantic surcharges (thanks to IAG I assume) but low surcharges going to Asia. I wonder if using AY EU-Asia before NA-EU results in the non transatlantic surcharges vs flying NA-EU before EU-Asia. .... ... Just reversed the DONE3 above to OSL-xHEL-JFK-HKG-SPK,TYO-OSL and it's insisting on QF for the "shortest" JFK-HKG even if I set CX as the preferred airline. Tried changing the JFK-HKG to BOS/ORD/YYZ-HKG given QF doesn't fly direct to those cities but the tool then just says there's no availability. FWIW the taxes and surcharges jumped to $1850 if transiting via SYD.

BA & QR have increased their fares as well (apparently yesterday), leaving only CX and MH on the previous fare level.

Think it's safe to assume that these two will adjust there fares shortly as well, so better get moving quickly 😉

I have no idea how to book an MH one, so that likely only leaves CX in practicality. But then again I do recall in the ex-CAI frenzy that MH was one of the last ones existing and other OW airlines could book on it vs. their own. It's not quite the same price difference this time around but likely someone with a travel agent or booking via AA could still pull that off?

AA rtw ticketed with the MH fare if starting CAI-MAD-LHR-KUL (most lilkely you would want transits in one or both) but that was when there was no AA fare filed. Wouldn't take long to see if they would ticket with the MH dare if starting TYO-KUL

AI assisted oneworld RTW bookings https://www.executivetraveller.com/news/oneworld-rtw

I've tried this. Not really much better than the booking tool. In particular, once you give it cities, it decides on the most efficient routing, and, in my case, even how long I was going to stay in some of the cities. I couldn't override its assigned length of stay. And since it's looking for efficient routings, it's useless if you use part of RTWs for MRs as I do.

Seems like a poorly thought out idea designed by someone who management told “get us something with AI”.

i’d rather they fix the .... system they already have, before chucking some useless AI out.

Recent data point for ex-HND DONE3 Pricing
 

Sorry, this post has been removed by me due to sensitive data that may actually hurt FT oneworld flyers!
My apologize.

Hi there! I'm wondering if its possible to use different FFN's for different segments on a single itinerary. I've seen people mention that you can have your FFN changed segment by segment at the gate or at check in for accrual purposes, but I would like to know if this is something that can be done beforehand, primarily for seat selection. Example would be MIA - LHR operated by AA and LHR - FCO operated by BA. I'm gold on AA and sapphire on AT, so I want to be able to choose MCE (at 24 hours) on the AA segment, and then choose preferred seats on BA. Thank you!