Just another question - am I right in understanding the 2entry/exit rule for NA would allow an itinerary like this:
---->GIG-xMIA-LIM-MIA---->

Is this also the case with the Oneworld booking tool? It is showing bucket figures and I had thought if you could get through the point of reviewing flights it would have availability. Am I being overly optimistic?
Not that I am planning on booking through the tool, rather trying to do as much leg work as possible before contacting a TA

No, your understanding is incorrect.
What you have is multiple entries/exit to South America
(The entries/exits to North America are OK though)

Hi all, I have booked my first DONE3 and very much looking forward to the experience. My route is as follows:

OSL-doh-hel-nrt-BLR-nrt-SIN-hnd-dfw-bos-lax-anc-DFW-sea-lax-doh-OSL

(Apologies if I've got the presentation wrong; my stopovers are in BLR, SIN and DFW).

Can anyone give me any guidance on the taxes I've paid - c.£1,500. Reading through this thread and the User Guide, have I incurred additional taxes from having a stopover in BLR? Almost all of the flights are codeshares on AY and JL (OSL-DOH and LAX-DOH on QR; ANC-DFW on QF). Any feedback gratefully received - would they be lower if I went ex-TYO? Thinking ahead to my next booking. Thank you!

The availability on the tool has been correct for me. It is just very cumbersome.

Real govt taxes or carrier surcharges YQ YR? BA & QF are know for carrier surcharges, but not always on every flight.
Booked online or travel agent? Which airline issued the ticket? 001=AA, 081=QF Qantas, 157=QR Qatar, etc.
ANC-DFW as Qantas QF codeshare a little unusable.Will be AS or AA operating airline. Did you ask for codeshares? It may because of D availability.

AS doesn't fly nonstop between ANC and DFW, it will be AA metal.

Thank you for the quick reply: booked via TA; ticketing airline is QR; I did ask for codeshares.

My assumption is that the bulk of the charge is YQ / YR, but ultimately I'm curious to understand what would be determining factors for the entire amount. When I asked the TA (and it was to a certain extent moot because i was going to book the ticket anyway) I was told they couldn't know without some trial and error on different routes etc. I'm trying to find out more, so that when I book next time, I can go into the process with a more informed view as to what works and what doesn't. For example, I could just as easily do an ex-TYO DONE4 (which appears to have a good base ticket price, based on the latest table I've seen), and would do so if that made a material difference to the taxes and surcharges. There was a comment up thread about India introducing a premium for business class cabins, which was what prompted me to ask my original question - I presume that would not count as YQ / YR if I've paid it.

If I asked the TA, should they be able to give me a line by line breakdown of the taxes?

Yes, that is what my reservation states, QF 4472 operated by American Airlines. I have AS operating LAX-ANC and DFW-SEA; and Skywest American Eagle operating SEA-LAX.

If you have at least one flight on Finnair, you may be able to get an email with a breakdown of the levies, surcharges and taxes that have been charged.

Using the Amadeus PNR and your Surname, this will be possible if you can bring the booking up using Finnair manage booking.

https://www.finnair.com/us-en/manage

If the booking comes up, click "Passenger and Documents" on the left, then select "E-Ticket and document numbers" that appears. Choose "Send e-ticket receipt", select/enter your email address.

In a few minutes you should receive an email, among the content of which is a full list of the Surcharge, Tax and Levy codes and the amount of each.

Thank you, this is super helpful. I've done so and the total taxes on that receipt is £651.99, o/w £268 is YQ/YR. Unfortunately it doesn't make up the full total though, but I'll do some more investigating, perhaps this only is the total for the AY codeshares.

It may cap at 24 on the email itself - the .pdf attached can show at least 30 - other than it generally lists all such charges attached to a ticket.

Look for an XT entry. This is a general bucket identifier when amounts are combined in a tax/fee/charge box.

This is all I can see (from the PDF attachment; though it matches the email):

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...526513e2de.png

Hey wandering_fred - so interesting thing has happened. AA desk allowed me to book this. I was booking two itineraries both of which included this scenario. They then went different directions for later segments but the transit without stopover in MIA between GIG and BOG is on both.

Today I got notification that one had been priced ready for payment and the other has a routing issue and I need to call. When I called the agent said it was those sectors as you suggested but then I asked why the other booking was OK and she agreed that it was strange - I did say I expected it to be the case but then also stated that the rules allow a second intl/arrival in NA provided it is a transit without stopover and I also mentioned the fact there are no other internal flights within SA (save QR GIG-EZE) so almost pointless including SA in a DONEx in any case but at least this helps if allowed.

The agent spoke to the rates desk and pointed out one had been rated and the rate desk said yep should be ok and they will rate mine as well and come back with pricing in an hour or so.

Yet to be confirmed but if it comes through then I have a couple of questions for the learned:

1) I'm almost certain to need to make date changes to these bookings down the track - am I likely to hit potential grief with that even though AA has accepted it and ticketed it prob outside the rules?
2) Is the only point of having two NA arrivals/departures rule to add some minor flexibility to an XONEX say perhaps for itins originating in SA to allow a few more options/ways of getting out of or back into SA? And perhaps allowing a few additional cities in SA to be added to a routing that are accessible only through the US eg CLO/MDE etc?

If they do start to interpret it that a re-entry to SA is ok in conjunction with a transit without stopover in NA is OK then it def improves the dire lack of OW options in that continent

Looks like the Finnair tools has limits - I see 30 entries in the PDF for a booking I have while only the first 24 are listed in the body of the email.

Open-jaw between origin and destination is not counted as a sector in the ticket.

I thought 20 sectors was the limit of paper tickets (i. e., a book of tickets can contain at most 5 conjuncted tickets), hence the limit of xONEx back then. Did I remember wrong?

I believe the original xONEx fare rules did not have any specific limitation on the total number of segments.

Here is an early references on this forum to such of 26 segments.

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/onew...-analysis.html

Thanks for finding this!

A year ago, I had a DONE4 that started in HND and ended with MCO-lax-kix-BKK-HND. The official guide states that's not allowed, AA desk booked it and in effect extended the North American exception of allowing a transit through originating country. Then I changed the dates and AA desk again didn't have an issue with it. Flew the flights with no issue. Of course, that was then and hopefully you'll not have any issues with date changes, but time will tell if this is an AA standard practice.

booking with RTW desk is a manual process... so there will be slight variations in practice due to mistakes... depending on how long your ticket goes out and the carriers you are flying (esp AA metal), the chances of a significant schedule change may force you to contact AA to reticket, prompting another review.

Need help with an itinerary
 

Hi experts... I am trying to make an itinerary work and somehow am getting a bit stuck.
Melbourne is home and places we are visiting.as a must are
Europe in December 2026; South Africa in September 2027. We were thinking of getting 2 RTW tickets but if we can do it in one, we'll try.
We are thinking:
OSL to PER (via DOH or LHR for transit only)
PER to MEL
MEL to SYD
Sydney to somewhere in Pacific return, probably Tonga
Then to JNB via USA
so something like
OSL-LHR-PER-MEL-SYD-TBU-SYD-LAX-DFW-DOH-JNB-LHR-OSL
the oneworld tool glitches because of the Euro stopovers but then says they can be under 24hrs. And the extra sectors would be used in either US or Asia if we tripped that by going to Aus first up.
Any help welcomed!!

You are only allowed 2 stopovers in continent of origin (EU-ME). The online tool is known to be buggy.
QF fly SYD-JNB. BA & QR fly from Capetown. A far better place than Jo'berg. (as a former Jo'berg resident)
USA to Africa is difficult. No non stop flights. DOH is in EU-ME zone.
TBU has QF (SYD) and FJ (NAN) flights. FJ fly to several USA destinations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fua%CA...tional_Airport
To maximize ff earnings SYD-DFW-LAX-DOH may earn more than SYD-LAX-DFW-DOH.
From AU many people start in Japan, with a separate flights AU to/from Japan.

OW 3015 rule 4


A map from the Great Circle Mapper - Great Circle Mapper


https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...37cad08b05.jpg

Thank you! So does this make this a valid itinerary or do I need to start over? Couldn't quite get my head around it. And how many continents am I looking at to make it work? Thanks so much for your help!

Certainly your itinerary is valid.
But I'm thinking you can maybe do better...
I'm putting my ideas together and will post them shortly.

What cabin class are you thinking of? (First, Business or Economy)

I'm not sure if this is playing into trying to get the tool see a route as valid but it may help.
The tool seems to only consider an airport a transit if it is entered as a single line.
E.g. OSL-LCA which comes up with route options via LHR is ok
but entering OSL-LHR and a second line of LHR-LCA is always treated as a stopover even if you set the date to be the same for both

First can I check that I'm understanding you properly. What you're wanting to do is:

• Travel from Australia to Europe in December 2026
• Return to Australia
• Travel from Australia to South Africa in September 2027
• Return to Australia

You thought of doing straight forward return tickets (Australia-Europe return, and a later Australia-South Africa return)
And you are exploring whether a RTW will give you more/be better value for you.
At this stage you are not looking to travel more widely - say in North America or Asia.
But would be interested in South Pacific travel, while you are back in Australia.

Have I got it right?

To achieve what you want, you must start from somewhere in Tariff Conference 2 (TC2 - i.e. Europe/Middle East/Africa)
(see Note 1 below for why starting elsewhere will not work for you. And by the way, if you are new to RTW planning I recommend you read the wiki in The Oneworld Explorer User Guide)

With your proposed itinerary (mapped by Mwenenzi), you will use other means get yourself from MEL to OSL to start the RTW and then return from OSL to MEL at the end. This eastbound itinerary has 5 continents (by flying Europe/Middle East to South West Pacific you automatically include Asia).

If instead you fly westbound you can avoid Asia, reducing the itinerary to 4 continents (a saving of ~NOK8000 in the business class base fare). Here's a very simple westbound itinerary OSL-LHR-LAX-SYD-JNB-LHR-OSL

Another option is to start from elsewhere in TC2. How about South Africa? It is one of the lower cost starting countries too.
A minimalist itinerary for this is JNB-LHR-SCL-SYD-JNB. By starting in Africa, there will be no restriction on stopovers in Europe/Middle East (it is no longer your continent of origin)

If you start in Europe then you get to visit Europe twice.
If you start in Africa then you get to visit Africa twice.

Note 1
One of the Fare Rules states: 4(b) "Travel must be in a continuous forward direction between TC1 - TC2 - TC3..."
So you start one TC, then visit the other two and end back in your starting TC.
Therefore, if you want to visit a TC twice then it must be the starting TC.
You are wanting to visit TC2 twice (Europe to start, and later South Africa).
Therefore you must start somewhere in TC2.

Thank you so much. Yes, we are heading to Europe in December and then South Africa the year after. Coming home to Australia in btw. Being based in Melbourne we would take advantage of the SWP extra sectors to go somewhere we havent been before (like Tonga). We have looked at return flights to each and seeing what is best value out there.
We are looking at Business Class and so DONE4 or DONE5. We've done a couple of these tickets starting in Sth Africa, or Tokyo on prior trips.
The challenge with the Westbound trip is time. (Which in December is unfortunately in short demand ).
Do you think we are best to start OSL-PER via DOH or via LHR (both transit only) based on first carrier and taxes?
thanks again

So already have separate tickets to EU?
On you previous *ONE* trips did you book on line or with a travel agent?
Note real taxes and carrier surcharges YQ YR are not the same thing. Is a post by serfty on minimizing surcharges. With so many QF flights will have a lot of Qantas carrier surcharges.

There are several factors I'm aware of:

• YQ/YR "fuel surcharges" are assigned by airlines to sectors. E.g., booking AA vs BA vs AY transatlantic may have different YQ/YR for that sector. The amount each airline charges for each flight is in the GDS, which the ticketing airline or TA uses to calculate the total price, but I'm not aware of any tool that makes it easy to extract the data. The closest might be to use matrix.itasoftware.com to price a simple one-flight one-way and see what it shows for the YQ/YR.
• Some airlines are careful to charge every YQ/YR applicable (hello, AA) while others (hi, JAL) sometimes omit a YQ/YR here and there.
• Some airports or countries have higher taxes (actual taxes, not pretend taxes that are really carrier-imposed charges). For example, a flight or series of connecting flights that originates in the U.K. incurs the U.K. APD (Air Passenger Duty), a tax based on the distance from London to the capital of the terminating country and if the class of service is coach or a higher cabin. If transiting London, it's best to make sure London is a connection rather than a stop, or if it must be a stop, that the flight(s) from London to the next stop are to a nearby country,

If its an actual tax imposed by a country that applies to all airlines, then it isn't YQ/YR, it would have a different code. YQ/YR are airline-imposed surcharges (what some refer to as "additional overcharges" or "carrier overcharges").

Your TA should be able to give you a breakdown of the taxes, fees, and surcharges, but the ease of obtaining this varies by airline/TA. For example, I recently purchased a BA-issued ticket, and asked BA agents for the info. They insist that it's impossible to know until after I fly, at which point I can use a form on BA's website that discloses all fees and taxes. BA's eticket receipt that is emailed upon purchase does show the base fare, actual taxes, and airline-imposed fees, but as a whole, not broken down by outbound versus inbound, much less segment by segment. When purchasing a ticket from AA, the emailed eticket confirmation lumps carrier overcharges in with taxes, but one can call AA and the agent can provide the total YQ/YR. I called JAL to get the breakdown for a recent DONE5 that I purchased from them, and to my surprise, the agent started rattling off each charge by its code and its segment number! For example, "Segment six, YQ $125." When calculating what AA earnings should be, knowing the specific segments is tremendously helpful.

Yes have a one way ticket to EU to start us off. I will check out posts re taxes... thank you. Now to till in sectors with some fun stopoffs along the way!
thanks again for your help

This helps alot thank you. So with Asia and USA and SWP and EU and Africa thats our 5 continent... time to find some fun stopovers in USA and Asia then. Thank you again!

Just on this one small point, I recommend transiting DOH rather than LHR to get between Europe and Australia. QR operates their Qsuite-equipped 777 and A350 between DOH and Australia. QR's A380s do not have Qsuite. Qsuite is the nicest business class in oneworld. It's even nicer if you're flyig with someone because you can get an EF seat pair, which open into essentially your own two-person suite.

Indeed, type of fare limitation is frustrating. I've run into it before on an AONE5, and am now being forced into alternate flights while waiting for 'D' to become available on a JL flight for a DONE5 I've purchased. EF shows D8 but inside a DONEx it's D0.

Thank you very much for this reply - super helpful. I'll see what else I can get for now, but also try asking after the fact. As I think my next trip will be booked with JL, then I should have that option also.

After my recent JAL DFW-HND in J on their A359-1000 I would say QR have serious competition. (I also flew QSuites DOH-JFK on the same DONE4.)

Having posted that, I'll happily fly either ... :cool:

I flew JL's A350 in F some time back, and as I was first on board I took the opportunity to check out their J seats. A massive improvement over their old J product, to be sure, and like QR's Qsuite, with walls and a door high enough to actually enhance privacy (unlike the laughable walls and door on BA and AA's new J). However, the J seat has almost no storage (just a shallow cubby on top of the side area, unless I missed something). There is a clothes closet that slides out, and a shoe drawer. Qsuite has ample storage. If JL added some compartments to store stuff, they'd have an amazing product.

QR charges a "whole itinerary" YQ, and I think so does QF, so these cannot be picked up even if you try to price individual sectors.

Don't forget to try codeshares. UL has greatly limited availability in the D fare bucket, but I was able to get the flights I wanted from the AA RTW desk last night using one QF codeshare and one JL codeshare on flights operated by UL that had zero UL D availability. Got the codeshare info from EF.

I share your sentiment based on my recent HND-JFK on JL (D fare) as my first segment of a DONE3. Window seat has so much storage areas!

That's great! I stopped purchasing RTWs from AA a few years back, when AA instituted a rule that all flights booked must be either prime or an AA code. Glad to hear they either reversed that, or perhaps you got lucky with an agent who didn't enforce it.

I had an RTW booked via JL a few years ago where I used an SWU to upgrade an AA prime flight. When AA reissued it, they changed all codeshares to prime. Really pissed me off because it slashed the earnings.