YVR Cockroach

I figured that for me, a 3 Continent RTW ticket + an incidental trip within Australia (SYD-ADL-SYD) might just get me the oneworld bonus in AA. Morocco & Tunisia and Costa Rica are treated as Europe and N. America for the RTW but Africa and S. America for the bonus.

My RTW trip is:
From via to Airlines
YVR-HKG-NRT CX/CX
NRT-HKG-KUL CX/CX
KUL-HKG-BKK CX/CX
BKK-LHR/LGW-CAS BA or QF/BA
CAS-LGW BA
LHR-BCN IB
BCN-SJO IB (actually BCN-MAD IB
MAD-MIA-SJO AA)
SJO-MIA-JFK-YVR AA/AA/CX

Miles:
Basic 34,667
CoS (D) 8,417
Gold 10,522
CX YVR-HKG 10,000
CX 6 segments 10,000
6 Continents 100,000
Total 173,870

if i get the platinum challenge
206,188

Estimated cost is USD 4,053 in Business class (D) so cost the per mile cost is $0.0233 or $0.0197.

Since the rules say its the continent of the city of arrival that counts, I might divert a CX asia segment, AA N. America segment, one of the QF Australia segments, a European segment, and maybe take side round trips from CAS to Europe and MIA to Panama/San Jose/Belize to my BA EC account.

What are everyone else's plans?

[This message has been edited by terenz (edited 06-05-2000).]

Addenda
per Hsi's suggestions following

1.
I should add BKK-HKG on CX as a paid M sector (US$100) and use CX HKG-LHR instead of BA/QF BKK-LHR

1a.
Also change LHR-BCN to LHR-CAI-LHR, pay a sector in M (US$100) from LHR to BCN on BA,

LGW-CAS should be changed to LGW-TIP (o.k. for Canadians and others but I think U.S. citizens may be forbidden). FWIW, it appears that the "European" destinations in N. Africa/Middle East served by real BA (and not franchise) metal are CAI and TIP. The others (TUN-Tunis, CAS-Casablanca, Alexandria, RAK-Rabat and TNG-Tangier are served by British Meditterenean and GB Airways.

2.
See if I can use my unused N. Am. stop and 2 sectors in N. America to go SJO-DFW/MIA-BZE/PYT and then PYT/BZE-MIA-JFK-YVR

3.
and then go SYD-MEL-SYD and MEL-ADL-MEL on QF (about A$550 via qantas.com.au vs. US$155/Boomerang pass segment)

This would give
2 Africa
4 Australia
7 Asia
4 Europe
2 South America
4 North America
Enough for 100k in 2 and 25k in 2

[This message has been edited by terenz (edited 06-06-2000).]

[This message has been edited by terenz (edited 06-06-2000).]

bers

Sounds great. How do you go about the segments being put on different accounts though? Are you going to enter no FF numbers and then mail stuff in? Someone mentioned having a seperate PNR for each leg - is this possible.

Hoping I can convince people I need to go to the US for work and that a RTW would be best (which it always is in Australia)...

bers

BTW - what is considered a good cost per mile? What do people like TD Waterhouse buy them from AA for?

YVR Cockroach

I think I will submit the boarding passes when I finish, or have the gate agent enter the miles in for each leg. I did a combo of this for last year's promo (after being burnt early on and had to do a weekender)

I've heard the wholesale cost is $0.012/mile.

ster

Id like some help doing this trip in August quickly and cheaply....any thoughts of an itinerary?

hsi.chang

Couple of notes:

1. I was surprised to see on the aa.com web site yesterday that BA Business Class (Club World OR Club Europe) does NOT earn the 25% class-of-service bonus. I don't think it is a misprint. Maybe someone can clarify.

2. Althought I am all for earning the extra 10K by flying CX six times in Business, shouldn't you look into getting MULTIPLE bonuses from the Oneworld partners ? I believe Anne of Flyertalk clarified that you could earn multiple bonuses, thus you wouldn't want to credit all six CX segments to AA.

3. With regards to (2), you should also increase your Africa flights. OW Explorer allows you four segments within Europe ex. Canada. Try London - Cairo - Barcelona - Casablanca - Madrid. This way you'll have 2 African segments to credit to different program. Now if you can just find a 5th freedom AA/LanChile flight in Central America.

4. Don't forget the CX bonus for Business Class is different depending on departure. If you flew YYZ-HKG instead of YVR-HKG one-way, you'll earn 20K instead of 10K.

5. My sample recommendation ex. YVR:

AA Vancouver - Dallas [??]
AA Dallas - San Jose (CR) [AA]
AA San Jose (CR) - Miami [BA]
BA Miami - London [BA]
BA London - Cairo [BA]
IB Cairo - Madrid [AA]
IB Madrid - Casablanca [AA]
BA Casablanca - London [??]
CX London - Hong Kong [BA]
Five intra-Asia CX segments [AA]
CX Hong Kong - Toronto [AA]
AA Toronto - Chicago [??]
AA Chicago - Vancouver [??]

This would give you 5 continents with AA + 30K CX Bonus. 4 continents with BA, and a third program with 3 continent (or 4 if you chose to give up the 20K CX bonus). With your additional intra-Australia flight, that would bump AA to 6 continent and BA to 5 continents. I don't claim that these flights line up nicely, just that they are within the bounds of the OW Explorer 3 continent fare ex. Canada.

hsi.chang

Better yet, replace these two segments with:

AA Toronto - New York (LGA)
CX New York JFK - Vancouver

This would give you 4 continents on the third program AND the 10K 6 CX segment AA bonus, as you will have a total of 8 CX segments, 6 credited to AA, 1 to BA, and 1 to the third program.

YVR Cockroach

Hsi

I am trying to get more than one bonus. Which ones would you suggest? Obviously AA, and BA EC as I have miles there already. Asiamiles? AerLingus? I don't know how generous the others are.

And not bonus for first too! Thanks for the heads up on this! I just assumed that they were. All the more incentive to keep to minimize flights on BA.

Problem with this is that Cairo is Middle East (and hence Europe) for this promo, I think anyway. A better trip would be to go to Tripoli (CAS, Tunis and Tangier are serviced by GB Airways which I am not 100% sure would qualify).

FWIW, it appears that IB's Spain-CAS flights are operated by Royal Air Maroc.

I tried this already. I think the rule it violates, among others, is the gateway rule. Specifically, I wanted to travel YVR-ORD-YYZ-HKG. I could do this but would not be allowed any more N. America stops.

Spider

Terenz:

Cairo is confirmed to be in Africa for the purposes of this bonus as per Anne from Webflyer.

hsi.chang

Geographically, Egypt is in Africa. I would think for the purpose of this promotion that it would remain "Africa". In BA's web site, Cairo is listed as Africa and not Middle East.

It does seem that IB does not have their own metal to Casablanca. In that case, you're left with GB Airways from London. I wonder if Gibraltar is considered Europe or Africa.

Don't think so. You're allowed a stop-over on the departure gateway (In my sample case, Miami), another stop-over anywhere in North America (In my sample case, San Jose CR), and a stop-over at the arrival gateway, which means that as long as you stop in Toronto on your way back, you should qualify.

leroy11

Why on earth would Gibraltar not be considered a part of Europe? It's a part of mainland continental Europe separated from Africa, jut like the majority of Europe by the Meditteranean Sea.

YVR Cockroach

Wonderful and weird geographic quirks that we are exploiting.

For this promotion, geography has nothing to do with reality or logic! e.g., Central America would normally be North America for RTW ticketing purposes but is considered South America for the promo so this continent comes free! Similarly, Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia (maybe Libya too) are considered Europe for ticketing but Africa for the promo so it is another free continent. Egypt is Middle East but also Africa for the promo. I just found another quirk (can't be true) in the Asia Miles page as to a couple of Caribbean political entities that are considered Australia???

p.s. Gibraltar is Europe according to AsiaMiles

sarecca

Actually, Iberia has a flight from Madrid to Casablanca and back ON IBERIA metal, and NOT Royal Air Maroc. Iberia flight 3700 to Casablanca from Madrid, and Iberia clight 3701 should do the trick.

lonman

dare i ask, terenz, how many days long is the trip?

[This message has been edited by lonman (edited 06-09-2000).]

YVR Cockroach

I actually would have gone to visit relatives in Asia. Would have left YVR 5/6 July and return 31 July/1 August. Not sure I will do it now.