hsi.chang and other OW FTers,

Just got off the phone with a lovely agent at BA Budapest and acquired the most recent pricing for OWE ex-BUD.

C F
3 704,600 1,050,000
4 845,300 1,260,000
5 971,300 1,449,000
6 1,115,200 1,666,400 (HUF)

As of September 1, 2000, the FX is at 1USD=294HUF. (HUF is highly correlated with EUR and accordingly continues to weaken against the dollar substantially.)

I'm pretty sure Hungary is one of the most cheapest places to originate an OWE, other than India, Seychelles, Mauritius and Korea. France and Germany come relatively close.

I'm sure we'll all appreciate if anyone can post their experience when they have issued an OWE in Hungary.

I mentioned BUD ticketing in another forum. Not only is it good for OW - but until Oct. 31 you can get DL/SR/SQ rtw's for about USD3200 in F!

Thanks silver, these are terrific prices, the chart has been updated.

Once again I plead with all of you with price information that can be used to update the chart. As you can see from the chart itself, it does not have to be a full price grid from a departing country for it to be useful. If you have some prices, let me know. I can't believe I still haven't received the latest US prices yet, there has to be some US based RTW travellers here.

(Sorry, hit to wrong icon)

[This message has been edited by hsi.chang (edited 09-01-2000).]

Can anyone answer a question I have? Can I purchase a RTW trip from an agent in BUD, or any other country, for a trip originating in the US and have the tix sent to me? I can't believe the cost savings! There must be some kind of restrictions on purchasing airline tickets in foreign countries for use in the US. I hope I am wrong!

You're not wrong. To purchase ex-BUD fares, you have to ex-BUD, meaning, depart from Budapest. Paying for ex-BUD fares in North America should be easily doable, but forget about starting your trip here, you'll have to get yourself to Hungary on your own. However, you may only need a one-way ticket as you can end your trip in North America, assuming that you're travelling Eastwards/Southwards from Europe. Also, remember that you're limited in the continent of departure in terms of stop-overs, so you wouldn't see a lot of Europe/Middle-East.

The way I understand buying ex - anywhere tickets is not only do you have to start your trip there. You also have to buy them in that country as well. One way to do this is contact AX Travel ask them for a local agency in that country and they can buy the ticket for you and send it to you. The other altrnative is to have your local agency purchase a prepaid ticket that you pick up at the airport when you depart. It has something to do with the SITO (sold inside ticket outside) designation on your ticket. If this happens then you have to pay the fare in the country that you are purchasing it; if that is the U.S. then you pay the higher price.

I hope that clarifies it! At the very least it is the information that I have been forced to operate under.

For those of you interested, MikeFly's post re: SR/SQ/DL RTW ex-BUD can be found at http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum94/HTML/002348.html

This fare originates way back when SR/SQ/DL used to form an alliance called "Global Excellence." The alliance is extinct, but the RTW survived.

FYI, the pricing in HUF is:

Within 25,000 miles (cannot include SAmerica, Africa, South Pacific)
C: 564,430 F: 821,180

Within 32,000 miles
C: 705,010 F: 1,017,670

Additional miles purchasable:
1,500 miles C: USD150 F: USD200
3,000 miles C: USD300 F: USD400
4,500 miles C: USD450 F: USD600

Well, we've still got a couple months to go. Hope anybody can make best last minute use of this great offer.

<Many thanks to http://www.travair-jp.com>

As for the issue regarding purchasing an air fare originating from country A while issuing and purchasing it in country B, which is called SOTO ticket issuance, this is actually a case-by-case issue.

For full fare tickets, typically there are no restrictions for SOTO issuing. I've done this on a number of occasions and it is absolutely common. On a limited number of experiences, I have had no problem issuing SOTO for discount fares as well (e.g. YVR-NRT-YVR on CP in K, issued in TYO).

Yet for certain discount fares in certain locations, airlines will explicitly rule to NOT allow SOTO. For example, OW airlines and STAR airlines in Japan do not allow issuing RTWs originating ex-JPN. In my case, I have my ex-Korea OWE issued in Korea, paid with my credit card in Korean Won, and then have it courired to my address in Japan. (And off course I fly NRT-SEL with a separate ticket to originate the journey.)

Adding to the confusion, in the case of OWE, this SOTO restriction seems to vary among countries. I've observed cases where ex-Canada OWEs were issued SOTO in the U.S. I'd appreciate if anyone can post their experience regarding this issue.

[This message has been edited by silver (edited 09-01-2000).]

[This message has been edited by silver (edited 09-01-2000).]

Silver

I can't tell you of my experience with SOTO OW Explorer fares but what I can say is that when the fare first came out the fare rules (printed out for me by Canadian from their CRS) specifically excluded USA and Canada from the rule requiring the higher of the two fares (country of purcase or country of origin of first flight) to be charged. Whether this exception still exists I don't know - you'd need to get an up to date copy of the rules ex-North America

I spent a lot of time on the phone yesterday with an AA OW supervisor. She stated that as far as OW's are concerned there is no problem having, for example, ex - BUD tix issued in the US at the HUF price! She said this is true with any OW tickets issued edx anywhere.

On a different note she would not allow
- world - HKG - SYD - HKG < 24hours next flight out to LAX. Many posters have said it is possible, so I am still working on that one!

From my experience of two OW tickets (June 2000, October 1999), you have to have the ticket issued in the country where you first start travel.

In both cases this was Canada.

American in the UK were kind enough to speak to YVR and have them issue the ticket the day before I got there so that it was ready for me.

From my experience of 5 OW Explorer tickets issued in South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, reissued with major routing changes in South America, Europe, North America and Australia and printouts of the actual tariff rules from North America, Africa, Asia and South West Pacific you don't have to have the ticket issued in the country where you first start travel but you will pay the higher price of the two - the country where the ticket is purchased or the country where travel originates with the exception of tickets purchased in the US or Canada as noted in my previous post which at least in the fare rules that I had printed out always only cost the price of the country of commencement of travel.

I am certain that if you ring and speak to different agents with the different airlines you'll get a different answer and on occasion they may even ticket contrary to what I've said above but the published fare rules are the published fare rules and they are the only thing that you can reliably plan your trip on and which you can hold the airlines to.

I have on several occasions been told I can't do something only to pull out my copy of the rules, point it out to the reservation agent and have them go ahead and do what I've requested.

The rules are the rules (although I will admit that they change frequently) and if you want definitive information on which to base your planning go into your Oneworld airline and ask them to print them out for you. Any information you get here based on personal experience or what a Oneworld supervisor told someone isn't really worth the paper its not written on! IMHO

I guess that in my post, I should have stated that yes that is what the OW supervisor said. However, I've traveled enough to know that even with one agent telling you something it may not happen when it actually comes time to do so. So what I did, as I normally would in this type of situation, is I had her document the record and had the fare stored. These at least will give me a good fighting chance in case she was wrong. As stated by another poster -the exception seems to be for issuance of tickets in Canada and the U.S. from ex- any other country. Apparently this is still in the rules.

I do wish that it was easier to get 'print outs of the rules' Does anyone have any good sources?

To the point of the other poster - and as I stated in my original post, BA would not allow the one stop (not the gateway) in the U.S. Whereas AA allowed it and ticketed it. Even the agents aren't familiar with all of the rules or at least have different interpretations of them.

Last year (November) my husband and I went RTW on the mad 100,000 bonus run and bought the tickets originating in Canada. We did it through Amex and we were charged the Canadian rate and the tickets were delivered to us here in the US. I can't find Mark's card (he's the Amex agent) but you can find him on the Amex site under RTW specialists. He's based in Texas and is very knowledgable about RTW as he specialized in this for Amex in their business travel dept.

I'll take a look around for the card. I'm sure I have it someplace. I am the original packrat when it comes to that sort of thing. Hope this helps.

Chris