A born again F.F.needs help

NM....I thought I had the segment "rule" down but now after rereading the infomation I have I find I am puzzeled.

I guess what I want to know is where do the segments start and end for a area.........BKK/HKG/NRT/MEL/CAN/SYD/AUK/SYD/HNL/ORD/MIA, As you can see I took your suggestion and added CAN (Instead of PER) I think I get five for the S.W.P. which puts me over...Yes/No......Maybe...???

I have an idea I am missing something simple (Or am I simple??) I attempted to see if I could come in the other"door"by buying my DONE4 in WAW as someone suggested along the way........(Europe does not interest us so just two segments was fine and would give us the four in Asia) but I got lost along the way.

By the way gentlemen all.....what is a time frame for buying a DONE4? We want to start around Oct.1...or close....or, or,.....

Thanks again.....I lit a candle for this forum on Sunday!!!

TomT

The segment count within a continent begins once you arrive, so NRT-MEL and SYD-HNL do not count against the 4 permitted within a continent. You have 4 in SWP. If buying the ticket outside of the Americas, the rules state only 1 hour before departure of the first flight. All that really means is no advance purchase in Asia. But I would make the reservations whenever you have a definite date for the 1st segment and leave all the other flight as OPEN. Arrive in BKK so that you can buy the ticket a day or two before the flight.

After i wrote the above I saw how it worked...thank you ...From what you said I guess that I now go to AA atw desk and get there imput....

How in the world could any one do this with out you guys??

TomT

One and all....

As you can see I have made progress from my first post! Would you all check this itinerary out before I take the next step and call the AA ATW desk....and as always any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

I have gathered from all the infomation here that for me BKK would be the best starting point. I plan on doing the DONE4 in two parts, Fall 2004 and end up back in BKK Fall, 2005....plan on then starting a DONE3.

So, here goes..........

BKK/HGK/NRT/HGK/MIN/HGK/SYD/CNS/MEL/AUK/SNY/HNL/ORD/MIA (Oct/Nov 2004)

MIA/ORD/ANC/ORD/BOS (As early as I can get on ORD/ANC flight)

BOS/SEA/ORD/LHR/ITS (Sept 2005)

ITS/LHR.

LHR/XXXX/LHR

LHR/HEL

HEL/BKK

Needless to say I have a few questions!

Anyone known how early the AA ORD/ANC flight starts?

Finair HEL/BKK a decent flight? Suggestions?

Am I getting to Europe by the best means....On AA metal will I fly A?


Never could have got this far without "youall"

Thanks.......TomT..

Tom

What you meant here I think is:

BKK-HKG-NRT-HKG-MNL-SYD-CNS-MEL-AKL-SYD-HNL-ORD-MIA

You cannot go from Manila (MNL) back to HKG as you have run out of Asia segments (4).

You are using way too many NA segments - you can only have 6. Once you go HNL-ORD-MIA you only have 4 left (not counting segments arriving into and departing from NA). So you can do MIA-ORD-ANC-ORD-BOS but you would then have to leave NA from BOS.

I assume you mean Istanbul - IST. Again you are going over the European sectors you are allowed (4). You can do everything you have but would need to go LHR-BKK direct and not via HEL as that is the 5th European segment (unless you get rid of XXX whatever that is going to be).

Other than that it is looking good ^

My wife taught first grade for many years.....I am sure you guys have a lot in common with her!!

After a few cocktails of discussion my beloved wife and I have "almost" decided on the following for our DONE4.Would you all be good enough to check it out and tell me where I have or have not brokrn the "golden rules".

Any suggestions would be appreciated as always.

Our main goals are:

BKK for sure. We are taking a El Cheapo from LAX (We plan on buying the DONE4 there at the end of our holiday)
See NRT and MNL
Spend as much time as we can in Australia and New Zealand
See HEL...and try Finair to BKK
Once we have accomplished the above goals everything else is just fun and I guess you would call it a milage run....................

We are using up the whole 12 months...when we get to BKK I plan to buy a DONE3....but...lets not get into that!!!

Here goes:

BKK/HKG/NRT/MNL/SYD/CNS/MEL/AKL/SYD/JFK ( Stop overs in NRT-MNL-SYD-CNS-AKL-SYD) (Overland JFK/MAI)
MIA/ORD/ANC/ORD/BOS (MIA-ANC-BOS =stop overs)
BOS/SEA (SEA =Stop over)
SEA/IST (IST=Stop over)
IST/LHR (LHR =Stop over)
LHR/XXXX/LHR (To be decided when beloved wife finds her dart) (XXXX =stop over)
LHR/HEL (HEL =Stop over)
HEL/BKK

Thats it...................any help from all concerned.........would be a God send!!!

Thanks, Tom ^

TomT

You are very close. The only problem is European segments - you have 5:

SEA-IST is actually SEA-LHR-IST which makes 5 European segments:

...LHR-IST-LHR-XXX-LHR-HEL

You need to either get rid of one or buy and extra segment for Europe. Unfortnuately you are already over the 20 segment limit (you have 21 by my count) - so you have to get rid of one. Possibly you can overland (eg train in Europe from LHR to XXX and then fly back to LHR from XXX).

Also note that in the Asia segments, you have NRT-MNL listed. There are no OneWorld direct flights between these locaitons, so you need to take CX and go NRT-HKG-MNL as you previously had listed. This is still within the 4 segments allowed in Asia, so all is ok.

An option for the Europe 5 segment problem mentioned by alect is to make sure the dart hits a locaiton that is served from both LHR and HEL. Then you could go LHR-IST-LHR-XXX-HEL.

I reworked as suggested by Alect and took MN's suggestion ..........Here is my latest on finishing..........I took the dart away from beloved wife and gave her LPA...I get AVH!

LHR-AVH-LHR-LPA-HEL-BKK

So, the whole trip looks like this now:

BKK-HKG-NRT-HKG-MNL-HKG-SYD-CNS-MEL-AKL-SYD-JFK-OVERLAND-MIA-ORD-ANC-ORD-BOS-SEA-LHR-AUH-LHR-LPA-HEL-BKK

Did I make the rules? (Don't I wish!!) I mean did I break any?

As always the above leads to more questions.

I am not at all sure I understand all the bonus milage. I plan to go for thr Plat. Chall. (Sign up in Sept???) Once we finish with N.Z. everything else is just a "milage run"....Any sugestions on how to gain status, milage, tickets...beer???

By the way I come up with 54,671 miles as a total...am I close?? Could you give me an idea to trip miles+ bonus miles+Q miles....plus beer.....?

Until next full moon........thanks to all.

Tom

Close but no cigar (yet).

1. You can't do MNL-HKG-SYD as that puts you over the 4 sector Asian limt - You must go MNL-SYD on QF.

2. Europe needs some rework. LHR-LPA and LPA-HEL are both not direct flights (ie one flight number = segment) They are both via MAD or BCN. Which means you have 6 European segments. I don't see how you can do both in Europe. The only suggestion I have is MIA-MAD-LPA-MAD-XXX-HEL where XXX is served by both IB and AY direct (single flight number) flights. Don't think there are many destinations which fit this and are also MRs.

A decent option for clocking up miles in Europe on IB and AY is MAD-ATH-HEL - the ATH-HEL direct flights are seasonal, so you'd have to check it out for the dates you want to travel, but it's a reasonable option.

Hi all:

On above miss....................I keep getting mexed up with the HKG stop/transit........BKK- HKG has to be counted as one seg. no matter where I go...correct? If I went on to NRT....that is my 2 seg in Asia...correct?

Then my aim is to get out of Asia and to S.P......so if I say I want to go NRT-SYD....in one door out the other in HKG and on to SYD...that works...correct?

Now what if I wanted BKK-HKG-PEK-Auckland...(I know I have to go back to HKG...but is that a freebee?????)

I have looked for the answer in serch, etc and seem to be lost.......

Any help....Thanks


Tom

TomT

Basically it works like this - a segment is a single flight number between two points (whether or not it stops somewhere on the way) - eg BKK-NRT is one segment if CX222 BKK-HKG and keeps going as CX222 HKG-NRT. If on the other hand BKK-HKG is CX222 and HKG-NRT is CX223 that's 2 segments.

In your example: you can go NRT-SYD on QF as it is a direct flight. If you go via HKG (NRT-HKG-SYD) that's two segments as there is no single flight number that travels that route and you will change metal and flight #s in HKG.

BKK-HKG-PEK-AKL works but it counts as 4 segments in Asia - BKK-HKG-PEK-HKG-AKL (ie there is not direct PEK-AKL flight). Remember the flight exiting and entering a region/continent does not count towards the limit for either the departing nor the arriving continent.

I thought you were set on your Asia itin - BKK-HKG-NRTx-HKG-MNLx-SYD (x=stopover).

Dear Alect...and all others...

Even though I have not mastered all the rules. You guys have got me thinking. And you have done me a another great service in getting beloved wife not only interested but excited!! Its so nice to be able to share all your notes and discuss all the in's and out's of all that comes in from Flyertalk.

Our thinking now is that since we have to buy some type of ticket to get to BKK to start the whole game beloved wife suggested that we spend a few more bucks and use a OW carrier (if possiable) and do NRT on the way out. Thus, the thinking is that we gain something for the money spent going to BKK. We are thinking of starting our Plat. Callange just before we leave Fla. for BKK. We would take AA to DFW and then on to LAX. THen from my reserch such as it is we would take AA to BKK. AA metal to NRT and most likly Korean Air to BKK (We have a few miles on KA) We then would get our stop over in NRT.without taking a segement away from our DONE4. Does that make sense??

All the above would be done in Econ......hopefully we can find a code that gives us miles, etc at a decent price......if I could find a J price on a OW carrier that was not out of sight I would jump at that but from what I can see that is not likly.

So now you know how the PEK came on the screen and NRT went off.

I think my problem here is that my homework on flights has stopped short, I have looked at two different threads that give all the cities that OW flys to....so I just pick a pair and say OK this sounds fine without doing the checking for flight numbers. Another problem is that we love HKG, but now every time I try and go some where HKG is sitting there with its hand out saying,"one segement please"!!!

I will work on the Asia section.....anything you might come up with would be appreciated (Was that an echo??)

As for Europe.......I want to check flight numbers so that I am not wasting your time again. We are thinking of something for milage to the mideast from LHR.Out,stopover for a pool, beach or golf and back to LHR. I thought the other two seg's would be used going to HEL say LHR-MAD-HEL.

I know this whole deal grows long....but look what you all have accomplished in less the a mo., you have gotten a wife to give up a 14 day cruise and join in on the planning of what we both think is a great way to travel!!!

As always....thank you,

Tom

PS...will this work?

BKK-DPS-HKG-AKL-BNE-CNS-Alice Springs-SYD-JFK

OVER LAND

MIA-ORD-ANC-ORD-DFW-BOS ( DFW can be cut if I an "charged" a seg. for LAX)

BOS-SEA-LHR-DUBI-LHR-MAD-HEL-BKK

Tom
PSS...I think I may have hit a rock with the Syd-JFK....am I using up a seg at LAX due to the flight # change QF107 & QF3095 ? I had read someplace that it is best to shoot for a city as far across from where you enterned...or...something along those lines......I don't see how that is posiable in NA.....and does that shoot my transcont. seg down (That I was going to use BOS-SEA)????

TT

Good fellows.............

Just a word of thanks to all who aidded me in gaining enough knowledge to be able to contact the AA atw desk and get our DONE4 rolling. I went from zero knowledge of "the game" to the point that I could put together a decent trip. So, again thanks and I will continue to atttempt to lean and will hope I can do a "pay back" at some time.

To any "newbee" reading this....these guys are wonderful....ask and you shall recieve!! And have a lot of fun!!

Thanks to all again,

TomT