Hello all,

First of all a big THANK YOU for the all the very useful info posted on this board.
I dont fly a lot and, when I do, its usually on bargain basement fares on airlines that do not have mileage programmes. I do however plan on buying a OWE 4 cont economy RTW departing the UK in August and I see that I really am getting screwed by the high season charge.

I notice that much of advice posted to date applies to Business class fares. I would be grateful for any advice on the following:

1. Is there a way of avoiding the high season charges? I am happy to fly somewhere else (pref Europe) to start if it will save a lot of money. Are any of the "secret" locations useful to me?

2. Will the booking class for the economy OWE be considered as "discounted economy" for mileage accrual purposes?
3. Depending on the answer to question 2, which airline's mileage programme would people recommend for this trip?

Thanks in advance!

1. The "season" is as of your first flight. Take the first flight in the low season, and it will be priced from the low season. UK is a bad place to start because of the number of connections most people make through London, so personally I would take a short hopper to Ireland and start there. In the long run, might be worth the extra money.

2. It is booked in M class.

3. People seem to favor Qantas. Do a search and you will find the info on what people think. This board is virtually a Oneworld RTW forum, so there is a lot of discussion on what to do with M class.

The rules ex-UK are that the season is determined by the date of the first inter-continental flight.

There is no way around the rules apart from starting in mainland Europe, however, the benefit is negated as Y tickets are slightly more expensive.

You might want to talk to the people @ AA and sign up for the Platinum Challenge - this way once you get 10,000 QPoints, in the 3 month period allowed, you get their Platinum status + 100% mileage bonus + upgrade vouchers based on the earning rate of the class you are flying in.

As for buying the ticket, I've chosen to get mine reserved through BA in the UK and then collected and paid for at the BA desk in FCE (Rome). This way you pay in Euros - much less than the UK price. My first 2 European flights are then FCE-HEL-LHR before flying to HKG.

Hope this helps & enjoy the trip

[This message has been edited by DP-UK (edited 10-31-2002).]

The AA Platinum challenge is nice, but if you are based in the UK and will mostly fly M class on oneworld you need to pay attention. You will earn no AAdvantage miles at all in M class on BA, CX, and EI. Only 30% on (some) IB flights, and 70% on QF. Unless most of your flying will be on AA, AY, and LA (codeshares count) I would avoid AAdvantage under your circumstances.