I live in Toronto. Say that I want to include St. Lucia on a OWE RTW ticket. The only way to get there is to take a minimum of three flights (e.g. YYZ - DTW - SJU - SLU). Then one has to get back to the mainland to connect somewhere else. Will all these flights count towards the 6 segments maximum for North America? Is it just me, or is this not such a great deal - the OWE rules practically precludes all the small interesting places!

Secondly, do inter-continental flights count as segments. If so - what continent is it "charged" to - where one departs or where one arrives?

The lack of a mileage restriction sounded great at first but I'm not so sure anymore.

Easiest way to look at it is that each different flight number counts as a segment. For example, say that AA has two flights from lax to nyc. Both connect through dfw, and are effectively the same flight, but at different times. One has a single number, while the other has two different numbers. OWE will look at the first combo as one segment and will look at the second combo as two. The fact about some of the smaller places is a disadvantage. One quirky thing is about Aruba. AA flies from SJU to AUA, if I remember correctly. Of course SJU is in North America, but Aruba is considered South America. If you want to go there, you need to add on the S/A continent, and can't go anywhere else in it because you have to cross back into N/a to go anywhere else. Go figure.

Intercontinental flights are not segments. They are interconental flights. Each circumstance has its own rules, so look at Hsi's site for your combo.

If you work it right, the lack of milage restrictions is nice. But the rules make the entire thing a pain in the arse to figure out.

Premise: Intercontinental flights do not count towards segements.

Conclusion 1: DPS - HKG - LAX - MIA - SJU - SLU would be counted as an interncontinental flight and would not eat up any segments so long as there are no layovers?

Conclusion 2: This counts as one Asia segment, one intercontinental segment, and three North America segments, assuming each flight has a different flight number.

Which conclusion is correct?

Conclusion 2 is correct. Length of stay only matters when counting stops. It does not matter for segments.

rich

[This message has been edited by RichLond (edited 02-26-2001).]