Is that the much hyped “AI” assisted booking page?

Looks like it. Bad experiences such as with this booking page and various other poor implementations of AI (so many frustrating chatbots are now the interface to organisations) put me off engaging with AI, happy to wait until the the technology has matured.

Yes, it does seem to have disappeared. I tried to use it for actual itinerary and it was difficult and buggy.

The example you shared is very interesting to get approximate pricing quickly without have to enter dates line by line.

Hopefully the AI tool gets improved and returns. And they keep the manual one too. Can we have both please :) ?

yes, my use case is purely to get a quick quote on price, as I dont have EF subscription. I am casual traveler, targeting once a year RTW trip.

I'd be happy to check a few cities in Expert Flyer for you.

Just booked HND-HKG-LHR-MAN-DOH-DXB-DFW-HNL-SYD-NOU-BNE-HKG-NRT as my next adventure, adding on a continent to avoid going straight back to Japan from Hawaii. Didn't maximise my US segments as I only have two weeks to do New Calendonia and Hawaii, didn't want to do too many other cities, plus I wanted to have the 15 hour QSuite from DOH...

Good news: Fairly simple to ticket and pay, and by reducing my UK time to less than 24 hours my taxes were kept low. Bad news: The continued disconnect between ExpertFlyer and AA desk availability gets worse. In this case my trouble was the CX HKG-LHR segments.

This is my back-up routing after it became clear that Fiji/Oman weren't going to be joining oneworld anytime soon: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/onew...lications.html

It's not getting worse on a systemic basis. The flights you were looking for, between the cities you want to fly, on the dates you prefer, showed a disparity between the AA RTW desk and EF. There has been no systemic degradation of AA RTW desk availability.

I reckon you've missed a segment in there. It's lacking the 15 hour QR QSuite leg you mentioned. Suspect you're going MAN-DOH-DXB-DOH-DFW...

Hi all,

I’m midway through my BA-issued RTW ticket (DGGLOB34 fare basis) and wondering if anyone has experience dealing with BA on date changes.

Here’s the process so far: Reservation agents put in new flights and send them to ticketing, which emails me to contact reservations again within 24-72 hours. They confirm that the fare remains the same (no repricing, changes were strictly date only), yet they insist on a $125 change fee per ticket.

I had numerous issues with the first half of this ticket, but they were eventually resolved before travel without extra charges. This time, however, it feels like talking to a wall.

I get that the airline has systems in place to prevent “free rides,” but when they’re clearly misapplying the fare rules, how do you challenge it effectively? Any advice or similar experiences would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

Can I just check/confirm, a stopover in London (which may include an overnight stay) for less than 24 hours avoids UK Air Passenger Duty?

Yes. I have done this many times. Less than 24h is the key. The APD is just a money grab and the old saying " give a mouse a cookie and then he will want a glass of milk " except the glass has turned into a gallon ( imperial ) Quote below sums it up.

"Introduced in 1994 as a “green” tax, levied on every flight departing a UK airport, the proceeds from APD have never actually been used to neutralise the environmental impact of air travel and have instead been funnelled into the general tax pot."

I did some playing around with ChatGPT to help me program a scrapper to get all of these AONEx fares from ExpertFlyer.

For reference, see below the top 30 list. Some definitions

• This is with JL as ticketing carrier. I have checked with AA as well and there weren't any noticeable differences, but didn't check in detail / check all ticketing carriers (I plan to do that later).
• All prices are in USD
• I sometimes included multiple airports in the same country as I wasn't sure if they would price differently (they don't, pricing appears to be by country)
• I ranked them by increasing AONE6 fares. The ranking is not 100% the same for all the fares (e.g. DEL is cheaper than KUL for AONE3 but more expensive for AONE6), so you should check for what you want
• I have added points in various continents as I was trying to find where to start (ideally I would have liked to start in Americas as I don't care as much about US flights but wanted to maximize Asia / EU-DOH segments). Sadly Americas is by far the most expensive
• Note: Cairo has really been priced to death. It now ranks last on the list, at almost double the prices of ex-Japan...

I'd be happy to do the same for DONE if people find this helpful, let me know

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...c851e3e4bb.png

"D" fares would be great! Appreciate the effort!

nice work!
Yes, D would be great if you have time to do it

Indeed. Fewer airlines/routes/aircraft have long haul first class. And decreasing as time goes on
With some airlines international business class is better than other airlines first class. Especially if modern business class suites.

Would love update on DONE as now so few A flights available just don’t think it is worth it anymore….

Here you go, updated list including DONE, removing duplicates (only showing one airport by country -- all the airports within a country have the same base fare), and with improved formatting (showing ranking). Oslo wins for DONEx it seems.

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...a88033afc1.png


Really? That was one of my questions actually. Looking ahead on EF, it looks like on some airlines (e.g. JAL) it's very hard to see even one seat available in A, even months in advance. But I was hoping that they would show up closer to departure... Maybe not.

Your table will be more useful (to you as well as others) once you become a bit more familiar with the basic rules. For example, yes. fares are set by originating country.

Just out of curiosity, what airline are you flying TATL in F? AFAIK, the only options are BA and AA, and I think that QR J is better than either of those. Plus, to whatever extent you're trying to maximize mileage, DOH to North America is much better than LHR to N.A.

Really nice work. Something for everyone to be aware of, Pakistan implemented a luxury tax on air tickets a few months back that adds a good chunk to the ex-KHI / ISB / LHE price. India has one too, not sure if it's only premium cabins or all air tickets, but was about $500 on the last business ticket I searched for ex-India.

Actually, MRU is cheaper than JNB .. FYI

thanks, much appreciated!

Hennebou,

This is very useful information. Thanks for contributing.

As a question to the members of this forum, why is there so much information about One World RTW tickets and comparatively little information about Star Alliance RTW tickets? A search of Flyertalk threads shows many many more OW than *A RTW posts.

In my experience, star alliance RTW products are not as flexible because they don't allow for backtracking like xonex does (within region). There is still value if you can make it work for you, mainly by choosing stopover cities carefully, but I don't think the complexity level is high. YMMV.

I assume that you set this up in Excel. Would you put it online and make the link available here? I'll be happy to if you can't, don't want to, or don't know how.

Congratulations - your post is about to become the most popular on FlyerTalk!

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/brit...il-2025-a.html

I predict an influx into the oneworld forum from BAEC...

Perhaps? I don't see this as game changing for xONEx popularity because baec status runners are used to 1-2 gbp per tier point. If baec gold was achieved with 3000 gbp spend, are they really going to do DONEx fares?

However on a side note, I think Finnair status is going to be very popular from now on, along with Iberia.

Are there any other countries in top 10 or so?
 

Thanks for this izzik
Should Egypt be on the list, and if so, where does it stand?

Mauritius is MRU.
Not sure re your comment about Egypt but as many have mentioned, CAI origination is now much more expensive than any of these and thus nothing worthwhile.

No, not game changing, but potentially far better value on QR/AY than point-to-point fare based spend with BA.

Potentially...if they can make the RTW routing rules work.
But most travelers want simple round-trips.
We'll see..!

Please may I ask what is the longest distance which has been achieved, or which is conceivable on a oneworld explorer fare. Would it be possible to put 50,000, or even 60,000 miles on it? Or more? Many thanks!

Who knows?

Which anyone here knows of, or has achieved.

There are many posts on this subject. 80k is possible on a DONE6 . Even a DONE3 can get 65K. I find a DONE4 is an easy 65k+ from OSL or TYO. Two of the cheapest starting points.

Having just requalified for BAEC Gold from scratch on a DONE5 (more as a by product than an objective) I won’t necessarily be doing it again just to achieve that goal. But I’m happy to consider it as an alternative to say a round trip to the Far East, Australia or NZ (plus the potential for a nested or additional trip out of it) on economic grounds without necessarily maximizing the sectors and TPs.

But, having worked up a few of the flights under the new system, I would have easily qualified for Silver just on the four JR and QR sectors I flew. I might work out what it would all be under the new system as I know the revenue elements for the BA and AA legs?

Crazy that you’ll get more TPs from a DONEX, rather than a AONEX, on certain airlines!

No, I would not have qualified for Gold as only just under 15,000 TPs total under the new system, as opposed to 1760 under the old/current. Too many BA and AA legs!

How are they separating the total fare paid for BA/AA fare-based credits?

Basically, it appears to be the total cost, minus the taxes and fees (but not the airline fees) divided by the total mileage and then multiplied by the mileage for each leg on BA, AA............near enough.

Way off topic.
For questions - comments about BAEC changes far better in the BA forum Not here

This is actually extremely useful information and I value it.