Is this a valid AONE4 routing ?
 

Hi
Am thinking of returning to international travel and booking a RTW ex TYO with the following routing which will not book on the RTW online booking tool which asks me to change cities or dates etc etc

TYO-ORD-BUF-PHL-CLT-BDA-LHR-DXB-LHR-DOH-SYD-WLG-SYD-SIN-TYO

Stopovers in ORD BUF PHL BDA LHR WLG SIN

And is my best option to try and get AA RTW desk to ticket it ?
At present there is no A class availability on the codeshare with JAL from TYO to ORD so I would not have an over ocean flight on AA coded flight

As ever thanks for any help and safe travels all

How many of those routes do not have A (First)? SYD-WLG-SYD does not. May be others. Routes/aircraft with first class are decreasing
Unsure if LHR-DXB-LHR-DOH is a valid routing, DXB just to get more ff miles?
The short flights in the NE - East coast USA poor value

A map from the Great Circle Mapper - Great Circle Mapper

Hi

Thanks for the reply and yes I’m aware of the poor value of the short US routes and the lack of A class on Syd Wlg as I’m based in Wlg but I don’t want separate tickets and all the potential issues that go with that at present with flights so heavily booked etc .

The long legs are all in A class which is what matters most to me.

DXB is to get more miles and use the BA double Avios promotion … and that’s the bit of the routing i’m not sure about.

I might just call the AA RTW desk and see what they have to say ..

Thanks

Please share the the outcome, I'm especially interested to know how much the taxes and surcharges are on your itin, thanks.

You have only used 12 segments. So 4 more available.
From info on wikepedia could do ORD-DFW-BUF instead of ORD-BUF. 802 + 1212 vs 474 miles.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffal...tional_Airport
QR flys DOH-(ADL)-AKL as QR914 - counts as 1 segment. So longer A class flight. 9032 vs 7687 miles. Surface segment AKL-WLG
But getting A class may be hard.

A map from the Great Circle Mapper - Great Circle Mapper

Hi thanks for that
I will add some segments at a later date and I usually max them and will add an additional flight in USA I would think
for the dates I’d be flying Lon to NZ QR914 is 777 so F/A class on the plane so would not want to take that option though good to know about it .
Cheers

Originally Posted by pianoperson View Post
HiI might just call the AA RTW desk and see what they have to say ..

Thanks
Please share the the outcome, I'm especially interested to know how much the taxes and surcharges are on your itin, thanks.

Yes I will do for sure
I’m expecting them to be significant …

I actually think your original routing looks fine, so not sure where the snag is. If you had dates (or sample dates where it did not work) would be helpful. I'm guessing married segment issues but those can be broken sometimes on the OneWorld stie. AA will stick to the rules (and know them as well), so anything that should be input as a married segment will be, however the OneWorld site gives you some leeway on that.

Other benefit of non AA ticketing is that if you are after AAdvantage miles, you can book AA segments as codeshare flight numbers on partner ticket stock but not on AA ticket stock. Makes a big difference if you can book AA flights as BA, IB, or QR flight numbers, for that matter even if on QF or JL numbers you'd still be better off, not sure they codeshare with CX or MH these days .

Your routing appears fine to me (the multiple LHR-Middle East are certainly allowed)

I've been playing with the tool a lot lately, in planning my just started Global Explorer. I got the "change cities or dates.." a number of times.
What I did was look carefully at the flights the tool had chosen for each segment to make sure it had not done anything weird. IIRC I always found it had made a stupid choice which I could override. YMMV

HI
I was almost certain the routing was valid and it’s the Middle East flights that create the error message as all is fine when I remove LHR-DXB-LHR … which is what made me wonder if the routing was not valid.
As you say sometimes the online tool picks flights which don’t work and I’ve fixed them by choosing other flights
I might try it again the routing and see .. you never know !
Many thanks as ever and hope you’re keeping well

And following from that I’ve inputted the routing without the LHR-DXB-LHR legs and it will quote a fare ..

You're definitely allowed to use the middle east like you are, I have DFW-DOH-TBS, TBS-DOH-CPH, and DUB-DOH-CGK on mine. Did you have LHR as a stopover both times? That I'm pretty sure is not allowed. If you need to be in the UK twice I'd try to change one of those to DUB, EDI, MAN, where you can get to London cheaply, looks like you have plenty of available segments as you'd need DXB-DOH-(DUB,EDI,MAN). I'm not 100% sure that you can have 2x stopovers in the UK, so might actually have to be DUB, BRU or similar.

Hi thanks for that and I’m sure the routing is permitted too.
I’m pretty sure I’m allowed to stopover twice in London and I would not want to fly DOH to others places in the UK as it would not be in First class but business . For sure you can have 2 stopovers in the UK - I’ve done that many times on RTW tickets.

You are certainly allowed more than one stopover @ LHR, and I have personally had an itinerary with 2 such stopovers.
The rules concerning stopovers are
- travel may not be via the point of origin (and so by implication no stopover there)
- maximum two stopovers in the continent of origin (which for you is Asia)
- minimum two stopovers required
That's all

with regard to the LHR-DOH-LHR being flagged, an outside possibility is that this a hangover from an old, old version of the rules which restricted the number of intra-Europe/Middle East flights to/from the UK. I consider this unlikely because it would have had its own specific error message.

But it can be easily checked - simply change LHR-DOH-SYD to say CDG-DOH-SYD.

_____________________________________
FYI the old rule was removed by the update of 2016-12; its wording was:
4(h) A minimum of 3 and maximum of 16 segments, including surface segments between any 2 airports, are permitted for the entire journey.
Free flight segments within each continent are limited as follows:
Africa 4
Asia 4
Europe Middle East 4*
*not more than 2 of which may be between the UK and ALBANIA, ALGERIA, BULGARIA, CROATIA, CYPRUS, GREECE, MIDDLE EAST, MOROCCO, ROMANIA, RUSSIA west of the Urals, TUNISIA, TURKEY, UKRAINE
...

That's an excellent suggestion, when the OP mentioned F, I forgot that CDG also has F service, similar to my earlier suggestion about BRU, Paris also has fairly well priced Eurostar service to London if need be to make the ticket work.

Hi
thanks for this and I knew there used to be the rule limiting no of flights between UK and Middle East and also that it had changed
I’ve tried putting in LHR-CDG-DOH-SYD and hey presto it prices up … while keeping the LHR-DXB-LHR so it seems like it is the old rule is being applied even though there is no error message saying that …
For the dates I need to travel QR are not using A380 on CDG-DOH route so no F class …
Looks like I will have to bite the bullet and call someone to get the ticket set up with the routing I want.
Any thoughts on whether AA RTW is the best option - thought at present not too able to use them for over ocean flight as their codeshare with JAL on the initial TYO ORD flight has no A class availability though I’m sure that will change.
I’ve never done any ticketing with JAL for RtWs I usually have my first flight on CX from HND to HKG in First but sadly not back in time for my travel …
As ever thanks for the help !

I think for your itinerary, I'd just pay a travel agent to do it unless you're actually in Tokyo and can go to the JL office in Yurakucho. JL has atrocious wait times for phone service, especially the US number that can be called free from Skype. From the sounds of it AA would probably decline to do it since you can't currently get the AA code on your JL flight. QF might be an option as well but their call center is pretty horrible too.