Oneworld mileage award
 

I want to just make sure that my information is correct for the Oneworld based mileage award. If one were to fly from Dallas to Capetown with *no* stopovers along the way, and flew something like DFW-MIA-MAD-JNB-CPT (to satisfy the three carrier rule), my understanding is that it would be calculated as DFW-JNB, rather than point to point. Is this correct?

Oneworld is very coy about describing this (perhaps for good reason), but I'm aware of the following rule which seems to substantiate that the mileage is calculated without consideration of the intermediate routing. This is in the QF plan at http://www.qantas.com.au/fflyer/dyn/program/terms and says:

10.4.4 The following conditions govern the redemption of Points for Qantas Flight Awards:
(a) No more than one departure from the country or city of origin and/or residence.

(b) Failure to board the first booked sector of an Award itinerary (no-show) will result in the recalculation of Points required for the entire itinerary. The point of origin will default to the first port where travel actually commenced and any additional Points required will be debited from the Member's Account.

I suppose this is to prevent someone from booking DFW-ANC-MIA-LHR using the DFW-LHR mileage and actually flying ANC-LHR. Presumably all the Oneworld carriers have this rule for the Oneworld awards.

I've always thought it's only AA that ignores transit cities in computing the sum of miles required for oneworld awards. CX's AsaiMiles and BA's Executive Club agents both told me that they don't do it. I hope I am wrong about BA and CX (not AA http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif)

I can only relate my experiences and they are that lesser miles are needed if no stopovers are taken. Last year I flew bwi-dub-lhr-lun-jnb-lhr-muc-mad-opo-mad-mia-ord-buf-ord-dca all under 20K air miles(for the award). If you add those up point to point, that's a lot more than 20K air miles. Two weeks from today I fly dca-bos-snn-lhr-jnb-cpt using a oneworld award valid for 4k-9k air miles. A stopover (>24 hours) in london would have put my award in the next category. As far as I know, the reservation agent does not do the calculation of the air miles being flown, the 'computer' determines this. When are you headed off to S. Africa?

How long are you going to be in CPT? We're headed there in three weeks, arriving on the 24th, then on to JNB on the 27th.

hic, where were your stopovers on the first trip?

DRAT!! Looks like I will miss meeting anyone enroute. I leave on 17-Apr from Washington arriving Capetown on 19-Apr. Start my RTW from Capetown on 22-Apr. This phase of my RTW is:
22-Apr CPT-LHR-IST
26-APR IST-LHR
27-APR LHR-DXB-LHR
29-APR LHR-LAX-IAD

N.American segments in August, with Asia-OZ-Africa Nov/Dec.

I have a similar question in regards to OneWorld mileage award.

I'm flying from Syd-Europe roundtrip and according to the WebFlyer mileage calculator the trip should come under 10,000 miles each way. However, for some reason AAdvantage desk keeps telling me that the total mileage is in excess of 23,000 miles. Any ideas? Can I do something about it? It's a pity to throw away an extra 50,000 points for no good reason.

Also, I have a forced stopover on my return leg. Could this somehow affect the total mileage?

Probably. SYD-LON is 10555 miles on a single-number flight. But if you fly via LAX with a change in flight numbers, then you're doing 12951 miles. So it all depends on the routing.

My trip is SYD-HEL via SIN on BA which is 9440 miles each way, coming back via HKG on CX. No stopovers. On the way back there is a forced stopover at AKL since there were no seats on direct flight to Australia.

[This message has been edited by Spider (edited 04-04-2002).]

A stopover causes the mileage to be counted point-to-point at the stopover, and no provision to forgive this cost for a forced stopover. Up to 24-hours is allowed before it is classified as a stopover. It sounds like you are being hit by this rule.

I asked AA today about this stopover thing and they told me that even if I manage to get from HKG-SYD directly then it will still cost me the same miles. How strange!

I believe oneworld awards use total mileage, not one way mileage. SYD-LON will be at least 20,000.

An interesting difference in the Oneworld awards from different airlines, if this is really true (and the rare case of AA being worse than the alternatives). QF uses the stopover-to-stopover mileage -- intervening transit mileage does not count. LHR-SIN-AKL-SYD and LHR-SIN-SYD is the same mileage on QF if there is no stopover in AKL; it sounds like AA counts the point-to-point mileage including transits and not just stopovers. This can make a big difference in some cases! I've spent some time clarifying this with QF so I'm certain this is how it works when using QF miles (and I presumed it was the same on AA, silly me).

I can understand the various airlines having differences in their own awards, but different ways to calculate the Oneworld awards? Why bother calling them Oneworld????

I asked the EXP desk something similar. I can fly any route I want which has available inventory. As long as I don't do a stopover of more than 24 hours at any intervening city, the mileage is calculated point-to-point.

So flying BOS-LHR-HKG-SYD, as long as I don't stay over more than 24 hours in LHR or HKG, I get charged the BOS-SYD mileage. But if I spend a couple of days in LHR, I'd be charged mileage for BOS-LHR, LHR-SYD, and SYD-BOS.