RTW flight expertise
 

Hi all, you guys seem to have a real grasp on which flights are best so a quick question please. Any opinion on which RTW ticket would be best to get for these destinations below which I intend taking my family on next year?

I was thinking the One world explorer 3 continent one but every time I look at it online the flights aren't available for next year it seems and if I pick random dates this year it seems to be a nightmare tool and tells me route isn't possible and I lose all the data I put in without telling me what was wrong so I give up!

I guess if there are advantages in buying some of these flights separately I could do too..

Thanks

London 14/01/2018
Dubai 14/01/2018
Auckland 18/01/2018
overland to
Christchurch 06/03/2018
Melbourne 06/03/2018
overland to
Cairns 29/04/2018 need to do this flight to fly to Tahiti
Auckland 29/04/2018
Tahiti 30/04/2018
Los Angeles 05/05/2018
Los Angeles 21/06/2018
Jackson Hole 25/06/2018
overland to
Vancouver 10/08/2018
London 11/08/2018

I responded to your companion thread on Fodor's, here: http://www.fodors.com/community/air-...m#last-comment

Estimating Refund from Cancelled Oneworld Explorer Ticket
 

I purchased an LONE4 on QR stock from A TA in October CAI-DOH-ORD...., and flew CAI-ORD via DOH. I have since found that for various reasons I will be unable to use the LONE4 within 12 months for the travel I intended.

My preferred option is to cancel this LONE4 and purchase another ticket which would start later.

So I can cancel and request a refund of the amount paid less the fare for the transportation used and a cancellation fee (10% of fare). How can I estimate the "fare for the transportation used" which will apply?

It seems to me the CAI-ORD via DOH fare in L on the date I actually flew it would be the fair way to calculate it.

Or would it be CAI-DOH in L and then DOH-ORD in L?

This decision would seriously affect the amount refunded. Neither the TA nor QR have responded to my request to clarify how the calculation might be done.

Does anyone know how such a refund might/would be calculated?

Good luck. I think you are going to have a lot of trouble with this. Your TA hasn't responded because this is not going to be easy for them to do.

I would think, find the cheapest possible CAI-DOH-ORD route in L (or higher) class, validated against your actual flown itinerary, priced on the date your ticket was issued. By validate, I mean the fare (or combination of fares) needs to be valid for the actual flown itinerary, such that you could have ticketed that fare/those fares on the original purchase date for the flown itinerary. The difference between that and 90% of your paid fare is the refund, I believe, due to you. The 90% factor arises from the 10% cancellation penalty specified in the LONEx fare rules. By "paid fare", I think you should include the YQ and YR but no other taxes or fees [this sentence may be contentious but I think it is fair]. The "real" taxes and fees should be calculated separately; the 10% penalty doesn't apply to these. Also you need to backdate all taxes, fees and currency conversions to those in effect on the day on which the ticket was issued.

That is in my understanding how this refund should be calculated. (As always, I seek corrections from experienced hands.) Whether you find anyone willing to do it, please let us know.

Estimating Refund from Cancelled Partially Used Oneworld Explorer Ticket
 

Thanks for this Calchas. That seems logical to me, but once I cancel I am at QR's mercy, so I wanted to get some idea of what to expect.

Expertflyer quotes an L fare CAI-DOH-ORD on QR on the day I purchased the ticket for the day I flew. I would hope that this should be a close approximation of the "fare for the transportation used", rather than two one-way segments.


As do I....

Hi everyone,

My husband and I are now on our second RTW trip and having an amazing time. Unfortunately, our itinerary somehow got approved even though it doesn't follow Oneworld rules and now, we are their mercy because they refuse to make any routing changes for us. They've told us that even though THEY booked us into an invalid ticket, they now will not allow us to make any changes.

Here's what our itinerary has been so far:
1. NRT
2. LHR
3. JTR
4. LHR (surface sector)
5. JNB
6. DOH arrived in October 2016

We're now picking up our regularly scheduled trip again in DOH (March 2017). I'm sure you regular RTW flyers are immediately saying that this isn't possible because it breaks the rules about stops in the middle east. But somehow this ticket got approved and we are on it, which is now causing all kinds of problems.

We're now supposed to fly to GRU but this visa is proving to be a time-consuming process and so we want to reroute the flight out to a different location in South America (EZE, to be specific).

After this, we had other flights in South America but LAN cancelled all those flights so now we have a bunch of extra segments that we need to rebook!

The problem we're having is that the RTW desk won't change our routing because they're saying that our ticket is null and void because it broke the rules... We are at our wits end - we cannot go to Brazil, a bunch of our other segments have been cancelled and we can't seem to change our routing.

Does anyone here any thoughts about what we can do or who we can reach out to? We booked through AA and are still trying to get resolved with them but are really worried about what's going to happen with our trip...

Thanks,
mina.

Help! Oneworld RTW booked us on a rule-breaking ticket and we now can't make changes
 

Join Date: Aug 2011
Posts: 1
Hi everyone,

My husband and I are now on our second RTW trip and having an amazing time. Unfortunately, our itinerary somehow got approved even though it doesn't follow Oneworld rules and now, we are their mercy because they refuse to make any routing changes for us. They've told us that even though THEY booked us into an invalid ticket, they now will not allow us to make any changes.

Here's what our itinerary has been so far:
1. NRT
2. LHR
3. JTR
4. LHR (surface sector)
5. JNB
6. DOH arrived in October 2016

We're now picking up our regularly scheduled trip again in DOH (March 2017). I'm sure you regular RTW flyers are immediately saying that this isn't possible because it breaks the rules about stops in the middle east. But somehow this ticket got approved and we are on it, which is now causing all kinds of problems.

We're now supposed to fly to GRU but this visa is proving to be a time-consuming process and so we want to reroute the flight out to a different location in South America (EZE, to be specific).

After this, we had other flights in South America but LAN cancelled all those flights so now we have a bunch of extra segments that we need to rebook!

The problem we're having is that the RTW desk won't change our routing because they're saying that our ticket is null and void because it broke the rules... We are at our wits end - we cannot go to Brazil, a bunch of our other segments have been cancelled and we can't seem to change our routing.

Does anyone here any thoughts about what we can do or who we can reach out to? We booked through AA and are still trying to get resolved with them but are really worried about what's going to happen with our trip...

Thanks,
mina.

I should mention that we are on an AONE6 ticket, and this is our second RTW so we both do have OW Emerald (AA EP).

^

Which airline was this who issued the ticket?

What was your complete itinerary?

How hard have you pushed them to fix the ticket?

How many unflown sectors are left?

Have you considered asking another airline to take ownership of the ticket and make the changes?

I believe that that is the way it's normally handled. If they issued a ticket which does not conform to the rules, they'll honor it, but impose a very strict no changes policy. IIRC there are FT reports of identical situations going back a number of years.

Edited to add: Actually, I just remembered that it happened to me, once. Ticket honored, but absolutely no changes permitted, not even to time, flight, carrier. Nothing.

When did you purchase the ticket?

There was a significant rule change that came in the with the 22-Apr-2016 version of the rules which is relevant to your situation - I'm assuming here that the issue your airline has is that you have stopovers in Europe/Middle East both before and after your trip to Africa (LHR and JTR before JNB and DOH after)

If you purchased the ticket on or after 22-April-2016, then yes your ticket is invalid
But if purchased before that date, then the ticket is valid

The relevant rule before 22-Apr-2016 stated, in part:
Your itinerary satisfies 3.1.3, and it does not require one of the visits to Europe/Middle East to be a transfer without stopover (unlike 3.1.1 and 3.1.2) and therefore you are allowed the stopovers you have in your itinerary.

Not sure what a small claims court would make of that policy ... but I'll refrain from arm chair lawyer mode for now :D

With regards to South Africa, would something like xxx-LHR-DOH-JNB(stop)-HKG-xxx be permitted on a 6 continent ticket?

Wow, great find! How do I retrieve that version of the rules?

We purchased the ticket January 13 2016 but asked to have this particular route change (along with some other changes) made on July 6th 2016, and it was accepted. In that case, would it still apply?