4Continents ex Australia
 

I have been looking at the 4 continents fare with OneWorld and was thinking of using this next year in combination with an AAdvantage Platinum challenge. The info I can find is:

Valid for departures until further notice (prices are seasonal)
* Travel is restricted to 4 continents only. Must be a minimum of 3 continents including the continent of origin. For travel involving Europe then the number of continents required is 4.
* Continents are defined as Europe and Middle East/Africa/Asia/South West Pacific/North America/South America
* Free flight segments within each continent are limited as follows: - Africa-4; Asia-4; Europe/Middle East-4*(conditions apply); North America-6; South America-4; South West Pacific-4
* This fare is valid on the services of Qantas / BA / American Airlines / Cathay Pacific / Finair/Iberia / Aer Lingus / Lan Chile / Lan Peru
* All travel must be in accordance with routing restrictions.
* Travel must be to/from adjacent continents and in a continuous forward direction. Backtracking within continents is permitted with some exceptions
* Minimum stay is 10 days, maximum stay is 1 year
* Child fare is 75% and infant fare is 10% of the applicable adult fare
* Further routing and stopover restrictions apply
* Prices are subject to additional mandatory airport and government taxes as shown. Taxes are subject to change.
* Booking, change and cancellation conditions apply
* Subject to availability
* Note:-prices are correct at time of issue and subject to change, cancellation or withdrawal without notice
* Insurance is not included and is strongly recommended
* Please ensure you are fully aware of all passport and visa requirements for your entire journey

The routing I am looking at is:

SYD - NRT (direct) | QF | 4846
NRT - SIN (via HKG) | CX | 3429
SIN - HKG (direct) | CX | 1587
HKG - BKK (direct) | AY | 1047
BKK - DUB (via LHR) | BA + EI | 5940
DUB - IST (via LHR) | EI + BA | 279 + 1564
IST - LHR (direct) | BA | 1564
LHR - CAI (direct) | BA | 2196
CAI - IAD (via LHR) | BA + AA | 2196 + 3676
IAD - HNL | AA | 4817
HNL - MIA | AA | 4862
MIA - ANC | AA | 4004
ANC - MSP | AA | 2518
MSP - SFO | AA | 1589
SFO - SYD | QF | 7416

Total Mileage: 56530

or SYD-PER-AKL-NRT in place of first leg (+5990 total miles)

My questions are:

Is this a legal routing?
What fare class are these in?

SYD, HKG, LHR, IAD, MSP and SFO are fixed (friends and family visits) but the rest are for interest and Mileage.... any suggestions would be good.

Thanks.

1) Instead of CAI, you can do Dubai which should give you 1,200 more miles each way.

2) You have six segments within Europe. Since you are permitted four, you will need to purchase two additional segments which is permitted. I think each additional segment costs AUD 200. If you don't have to go to DUB, I would just drop it. But if you really want to visit DUB, then AUD 400 return sounds pretty steep. I would just buy a separate return ticket LHR-DUB; it would probably be cheaper.

3) I don't believe you can go from the continental U.S. to HNL and backtrack to the continent. If you go to HNL, I believe you have to continue on the Qantas flight from HNL to SYD which operates three times weekly.

4) You are permitted 6 North America segements with the option of purchasing two more at AUD 200 each. Only one can be transcontinental.

Therefore, you may want to do this instead:
LHR-LAX
LAX-IAD
IAD-DFW
DFW-ANC
ANC-DFW
DFW-MSP
MSP-DFW
DFW-SFO
SFO-LAX
LAX-SYD

5) You are permitted to enter Asia twice as long as one of them is a transfer and not a stopover in Asia. Therefore, instead of LAX-SYD, you can do SJC/JFK/LAX/DFW/ORD-NRT and then NRT down to Australia.

6) If you are traveling in economy class, I don't believe you will be able to earn miles on CX flights. That's because CX flights will be in M class. Americans can't earn AA miles on CX in M class. I think Canadians can. I don't know about Australians.

The key point in considering your routing is that the "segments" that are included in the basic price are (essentially) flight numbers. It doesn't matter whether you transit of stopover - if you change to a new flight number then it is a new segment.

So what I think you have is:
SYD-NRT-HKG-SIN-HKG-BKK-LHR-DUB-LHR-IST-LHR-CAI-LHR-IAD-???-HNL-???-MIA-???-ANC-???-MSP-SFO-LAX-SYD

So in terms of the basic ticket (assuming you don't want to purchase extra segments) then:
- the Asian bit is OK
- as francophile says, you are two segments over in Europe, and LHR-DUB would be cheaper separately
- you have the Hawaii problem as described
- you have too many segments and (perhaps) too many transcons in N America.

If you do it in business then it will be in D, which does earn AA status & miles on all the OneWorld airlines (except BA across the Atlantic).

Which airline is EI?

Aer Lingus