Welcome to flyertalk bsl5

Here is a link to the Oneworld Explorer rule sheet on the oneworld web site - rules here

You are allowed 16 segments maximum on the ticket.
From your decription of your itinerary, you have 12, so that is not the problem

In each continent you are allowed 4 flight segments maximum (6 in Nth America). This is where your problem is - in the continent of Europe/Middle East

TLV to WAW - 2 flights
WAW to OSL - 2 flights
OSL to NYC - 2 fights and I'm guessing one of these is a flight in Europe

plus, perhaps one more flight in Europe/Middle East on the journey from MEL to TLV?

There is no way round the limitation on flights within a continent. So you're just going to have to re-work your itinerary.
Perhaps fly in and out of AMM instead of TLV (and cross the land border)
And yes, in Northern Europe the train services are very good, so you could quite easily have a surface segment there.

Another option is to use the Global Explorer ticket instead. This ticket is mileage based, restricts the number of stopovers in a continent, but not the number of flights. And since your itinerary is quite short (for A RTW) you'll easily fit within the maximum mileage allowed.

But don't surface segments also count?

Yes they do but one surface segment might replace 2, 3, or more flight segments.

Surface segments count towards the 16 maximum allowed on the ticket

But within a continent there is a limit on the number of flight segments, and of course a surface segment is not a flight segment

Which continent is the best to start in order to get good price?

Africa. Try Cape Town or Johannesburg.

It depends what country and what class.

Departing New Zealand is one of the cheapest on an LONEx, but one of the most expensive on D or A.

South Korea and Japan are some of the cheapest in Asia. Sri Lanka and India appear cheap, until taxes get added.

Many countries in northern Africa used to be very cheap, offering first class trips for as little as $8000. Until too many people booked them, oneworld noticed and increased the prices.

Is there any way to find out which starting points are cheapest at the moment, in relative terms, for D and A? Is circle pacific out of Hong Kong still a good deal, or has some other place taken over as best starting point?

Something slightly to the east is even cheaper, but cannot be booked via the online tool. Need to call.

To the east of South Africa? Mauritius again? Could you be a little more specific.

Yes. No. No. I'm not putting it in print. PM me if you wish.

Your mailbox is full.

Hmmmm, but does this port have any scheduled OW flights?

There must be some error. I still have room for an additional 80 messages. As for flights, there is a line to Doha on QR, and lots of connections from there.

The one I'm talking about does. Try the oneworld route map.

I have a good idea about where you are talking about, but why won't you say what it is?

I have it, thank you.

The airport code is similar to my initials, but that doesn't help you as you haven't met me, thus don't know my name :p

Sorry if this has been asked already. We used to have a spreadsheet that could compare any starting point but it seems to have gone... I am looking for the best starting point in Asia for a DONE3. Asia, USA, Europe. Don't want to go out of my way to save $300, but anything convenient from DPS, DRW or SIN.

Thanks!

See:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/22405118-post7.html

Convenient, not so much, but Japan has good prices for the time being.

See CAI, AMM, KRT, etc. If you know, then why would I need to say?

I made a veiled reference a couple months ago and no one picked up on it.
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/onewo...l#post22683581

The link you provided is to page 9 of that thread which contains posts from 2010 - 2011.

Actually the link is to my post in that thread. Try clicking it. ;)

Or, try this. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/22683581-post353.html

Your current link works.

I still don't understand what you mean about the link in your earlier post. I did click that link and it does not take me to that post.

ExpertFlyer gives present (and historic, for that matter) fares. As the page will say, just enter the same city for starting and ending. Simply enter a city in each country you're willing to consider (and the same city as 'selling city'). Note that the actual price will be a couple thousand dollars (U.S.) higher due mostly to airline arbitrary fees (YR, YQ) designed to make "base" ticket prices seem lower than they actually are.

I'm interested (but not very) in the country with fares so low it must be kept secret. If you snag such a deal and the rate desk of the airline doing the booking agrees with the fare, be aware that if you ever make a chargeable change to the ticket the AA rate desk (at least, but it seems to be stated in the rules) will recompute the ticket price in its entirety (using historic pricing as necessary) and may then catch the error.

My experience does not match this:

• October 2012, bought 2 DONE4s ex-KRT @ ~USD4000 each
• November 2012 the base fare price increased from SDG14700 (~USD2500) to something more 'usual' (and quoted in USD)
• In April 2013 we took the first few flights on the ticket
• In May 2013 I phoned the AA RTW desk and made wholesale changes to the remainder of the ticket, for which we paid the USD125 change fee plus the adjusted taxes. NO mention of paying the 'correct' price

AFAIK the fares being discussed in this thread (and I'm pretty sure of the starting point) are not 'mistake' fares. They are good - for premium cabins they are a lower than ex-South Africa (however for economy they are a little higher)
The problem is they cannot be booked using the on-line tool, because of the first carrier

My experience is exactly the opposite. I bought, via the internet tool, a rtw ex-Jordan, and paid with a US credit card while I was physically in Brazil. When I wanted to change the routing AA refused. The rate desk insisted, citing the US credit card address, I would have to pay up to the ex-USA rate (ex-Brazil would have been the same) or they would not make any changes. This attitude was noted in the record and I was never able to change the routing. I know of other people who have had better luck on this score, but that is my concrete experience. I think this was in 2008. At any rate, it was at about the time that the on-line tool was first set up.

A few years ago, I contacted CX for a quote. They insisted that I go ask QF instead as QF was the operating carrier for the first flight. They only provided the quote once I rebutted that with quotes from the fare rules and noted that the "first carrier = ticketing carrier" was only a technical limitation for the online booking tool and not any sort of "rule".

Last year, I tried to make a flight change with MH at their KLCC office - the flight to get changed being an MH flight. After the agent asked a few other people, they refused and said I had to go talk to SQ. o.O

That formerly very war-torn country with a line to Doha via another stop in southern Africa means burning an extra segment to get out versus somewhere like JNB, and is only about 7%, GBP417 cheaper (for AONE4, ex taxes/charges) than ex-JNB (prices via Expertflyer).

Interesting hack, but I'm not sure that's worth it.

It would be nice if this dodges the South Africa restriction in the recent OWE rule sheet that prevents the former trick of JNB-LHR RTW LHR-JNB that used to allow for a nice lot of F travel. However I don't think it does.

ex-NBO does but ex-NBO is expensive, nearly LHR prices.

(CX have just about ended F service JNB-HKG so an ex-JNB AONEx leaving JNB on that route is not very F any more)

However thanks for the hint, (though obfuscated) that there are places off the OWE tool routemap that still have published OWE fares.

Agreed. Within 2 months it will be impossible to travel with F service RTW via South Africa.

Actually, the flight is one number so no extra segment should be burned, similar to the LHR-SYD flights that stop in DXB. Since you can't buy that first segment I don't even think it's an option to add that segment to your itinerary.

Sharing my experience on booking from other regions- I booked an ex-CAI DONE4 last year out of the UK and phoned twice to make changes which incurred $125 change fees and taxes, yet on both occasions there was no repricing from AA.

Perhaps a useful data point for anyone wondering where to start a RTW ticket in Asia.

Priced up Asia-LAX-DFW-SCL-GIG-LHR-Asia in J (DONE4 i believe?) to give an idea of the best place to start. Following start locations, all in GBP:

HKG - 7269
ICN - 6475
TPE - 7425
NRT/HND - 5232

In my experience having gotten DONE3's out of Japan and Korea over the last 4 years, the ex Japan base price is a little cheaper, but after taxes, ex Korea and ex Japan end up about the same.

Those prices are inclusive of taxes i believe ^

Can't be because taxes change based upon routing. That is why the fares aren't on the website any longer. EU and US regulations require airlines to advertise all-in prices.

Those were all done individually on the Oneworld explorer booking tool as bookable fares including taxes.

Base DONE3 fares from E/F for these origins:

HKG - £5870
ICN - £4887
TPE - £5881
NRT - £3788

I believe you misunderstood my post. I didn't suggest that aa's rate desk ignored the rules in effect when the ticket was purchased and applied a new base fare to the calculation, just that instead of making the simplest possible adjustment - e.g. if I was adding a segment, merely looking up the taxes and fees for that segment and charging me that amount plus $125 - they recalculate the entire trip, subtract what they imagined I'd paid, and charge the difference.

That leaves a lot of room for error, especially since it seems aa is using some arcane software (or leaves it to the agent to do by hand?), and is part of the reason it often takes them days to price what should have been a two-minute lookup (for the example one-segment addition).

When you changed your trip, did you look up the taxes and fees yourself to make sure they were doing it right? Given how often YR/YQ is applicapable and how large those numbers can be, there's a lot of money to account for.

Ooops, missed that part.