Thanks

ONE Upgrades
 

I'm confused: I've read upgrades on AA flights are permitted using 500 mile segments (and I assume eVIPs) but also read sectors alone cannot be upgraded.

Also what about AA EXP complimentary upgrades on AA domestic segments?

All three kinds of upgrades (EXP complimentary, EVIPs, stickers) are allowed on individual segments of AA flights (needs to be AA metal).

... as long as the ticket is issued on AA 001 stock.

The xONEx rule (and also found in many other RTWs and similar products) just means you cannot pay $ to upgrade single sectors - ie if you want that flight in paid first you need to buy AONEx not DONEx plus surcharge. There is nothing stopping you using miles or elite upgrade instruments to upgrade individual sectors.

Aa Rtw Desk
 

Agreed that AA is better than BA at this...Have booked several tickets with them...

Sorry, I recall having read this in a previous incarnation of the FAQ, but can't find it now.

Can someone confirm:
The ORD>DEL counts as a transatlantic flight? And, moreover, I could do a DONE4 visiting Asia, SWP, USA, Asia?

E.g., NRT>SYD>LAX>ORD>DEL>HKG>NRT?

Thanks much,
Shawn

Yes and Yes.

Taking this flight (and it's turnaround) precludes any EUR stopovers.

Yes, this routing is a *ONE4 - you're 'visiting' Asia>SWP>NthAm>EUROPE>Asia; the ORD-DEL flight is regarded as being NthAm>trans-Atlantic> trans-Europe>Asia flight

(m) Nonstop transatlanticTravel on AA between DEL and ORD is permitted.
For travel ex South America/South West Pacific – when this service
is utilised a minimum of a 4 Continent Fare must be charged.
For travel ex North America/Asia – when this service is utilised a
minimum of a 3 continent fare must be charged.


That's bad news... the wording doesn't seem quite so clear to me:

Does "ex South America / SWP" mean "including" or "originating in"; and if it means "including," does it implicitly mean simply that "flying ORD>DEL" counts for an extra continent (Europe) but you don't get stopovers in the continent.

Is there a good logic for this, eg., it would make three-region RTW trips (SWP>HKG>JFK>ORD>DEL>HKG>SWP) too close a substitute for the higher fare round trip business class flights they offer?

I have now updated the CX version of the rules & prices (for travel originating in HKG), as issued on 1 May (Circle Asia & SWP) and 1 June (the rest), {outdated link - see post #2 for latest}.
(The CX/UA RTW as issued 1 July 07 and apparently still current is also there)

Thanks Bukhara and Guy Betsy for this info.

I think I should clarify the CX situation, with reference to the CX e-ticketing guide for Travel Agents (Word doc).

What they cannot do is issue an entirely open-dated ticket. Their e-ticketing guidelines explicitly state that the minimum requirement to be able to issue an e-ticket is for one booked (i.e. confirmed or waitlisted) segment, which doesn't need to be the first segment. All other segments can be issued open. So Bukhara is wrong about CX and Guy Betsy is missing the word "entirely".

The guidelines also are consistent with my personal experience. I have travelled on e-tickets from CX with open-dated sectors.

Just to add that I now have further evidence that Guy Betsy and Bukhara are simply wrong about open segments.

The AA RTW desk has just quite happily set up for me two AONE3s ex-MNL where the first 8 segments are dated and the remaining 8 are open. No issues have been raised by either the AA RTW desk or their GSA in Manila in doing this.

I had a similar itinerary setup this year (March/April), and no issues were raised by the AA RTW desk or the GSA in Cape Town, until ticketing. When we were finally ready to issue the tickets, the tickets started printing on paper, instead of the e-ticket that we had asked for. After going back and forth and finally setting up a conference call between the RTW desk and the GSA, they acknowledged that there was a limitation and that open segments could not be issued as e-tickets by AA.

Of course YMMV.

uuuuuuuuu

My paper ticket (with the first segment booked and confirmed) is lying in the drawer of a desk at Mindpearl in Capetown. I have e-mailed them this information and hopefully they will realize that issuing an e-ticket IS possible.

I will keep you posted.

Now I find that when they come to press the "Ticket" button, AA Manila has actually generated a paper ticket for my AONE3s - first 8 segments confirmed, second 8 open. No explanation given, despite earlier promises of e-tickets.

Strange.

But I have to say that I do love taxes and surcharges of $602 (7%) on a $8481 ticket that includes 16 segments and two stopovers in London!

I have now updated the CX version of the rules & prices (for travel originating in HKG), as issued on 1 August, {outdated link - see post #2 for latest}.
(The CX/UA RTW as issued 1 July 07 and apparently still current is also there)

When I first started doing this years ago oneworld didn't publish the rules in an easily readable form. Now that they have them on the oneworld website do people still find these CX files useful?

I for one do. Thank you.

Just bought an AONE4 through the AA RTW desk ticketed by Mindpearl. (I leave on Thursday.) Total of 12 segments including one surface, last four are open. Mindpearl's position is that open segments = paper ticket. And not only that, but it was three consecutive old-fashioned handwritten four flight tickets on 001 stock, complete with red carbon!!!

DONEx booking into L on AA domestic
 

Hi,

Just booked my first DONE3 for October: LHR->HEL->ICN->NRT->DFW->AUS->ORD->LHR and the two legs on AA domestic have been booked into L ("according to the rules" says my TA).

Going through the very useful FAQ, I found this: "On two class US domestic flights, if you hold a D class ticket you can book into the A (first) inventory, if it is available, at no extra charge."

Am I correctly interpreting that my TA can book me into A on the DFW->AUS and AUS->ORD flights (assuming availability) for no extra charge?

Correct.

From the rules:
http://www.oneworld.com/content/libr...rule_sheet.pdf

Your TA has done you a disservice.

Thanks for the confirmation - I will be going back to my TA!

For reference, discussion on the putative online booking tool can be found here.

Unsure...
 

I'm pretty new to the whole idea of the explorer ticket and have been 'playing' with various route ideas on the Milage Monkey website. I've read the rules at the begining of the thread and yet I can't figure out why certain routes are coming up as invalid for the purposes of the explore ticket...can any of you guys help?

LAX-SYD-CNS-HKG-BKK-DXB-LON-LAX works fine apparently but as soon as I attempt to incorporate Cape Town between DXB and LON I get an error message....same happens when I attempt to incorporate GIG between LON-LAX.

I've crossed both the Atlantic and Pacific so that can't be an issue, I don't thing I'm backtracking, I'm pretty sure I'm not flying too many segments in one 'continent' and I certainly havent exceeded 16 segments. Apologies if I'm missing something obvious but I'm stuck! :confused:

Duplicate - sorry

DXB is Europe for the purposes of the OWE and Cape Town is obviously Africa. You need to reverse DXB and Asia, e.g. HKG-BKK-HKG-JNB-CPT-LHR-DXB... or else you're entering Europe twice, which is only permitted if one of the entries is in conjunction with a flight to/from NBO, DAR, EBB or a couple of other African cities, none of which is in South Africa.

As for adding GIG between London and LAX, the routing is legal; just watch your connections and number of segments.

In Mileage Monkey make sure you scroll down to the bottom to see details of errors. For example, adding DXB-CPT-LON results in the error message:
"Error!!! No oneworld service exists DXB-CPT"
Ditto for GIG-LAX

Play around with MM to learn its capabiltities; the OWE Planner section is useful - plug in from: GIG to: ~NAM (=Nth Am, ~EUR=Europe etc) to see all OW flights from GIG to Nth Am

Also, see the fare rules here. What garyloo said about entering Europe twice is correct, and is explained in the rules.

ps welcome to FlyerTalk

Thanks very much! I really thought I'd checked everything out.....feeling a little less clever after failing to scroll to the bottom of the screen to get more info :)

For me, 2 questions arise out of this if 'L' is being used as a generic Economy Class ticket.

1) The AAdavantage website shows that discounted economy tickets on Cathay accrue 100% miles flown and 1:1 EQMs but the table above would appear to show that you cannot accrue AA miles on CX in economy. Am I misreading this or is this table just for explorer tickets which have 'special' mileage accrual rules?

2) If I have indeed understood the table correctly then the obvious solution would appear to be to sign up for Asia Miles to accumulate points with every other airline and the points can later be used on AA. The question arising from this is isn't this unfair to AAdvantage members? Asia Miles flyers can accumulate on AA and spend on AA but not vice versa...doesn't seem right.

This table is for LONEx type tickets where all travel books to L class. So it reflected the earnings available on a FF program by carrier basis in L class when posted by Gardyloo.

Fairness does not come into it; it relates to individual agreements between the individual airlines; it's purely commercial and it's not really a oneworld issue.

What happens is that if a member of a FF program travels on a "partner" airline's flight (whether oneworld or not) that partner has an agreement to pay for FF miles/points that may be credited to the member's program. Such agreement specifies varying rates and points earning based on several factors, including booking class.

In this case, CX have decided they will not pay AA for miles to be credited to an AAdvantage member's account with travel in L class on CX flights. However, AA will pay CX for miles to credited to an Asia Miles member's account with travel in L class on AA flights.

Let us say, SCL X DFW NRT, or
EZE X JFK HKG

Would that be consider as visiting North American or just transit through?

I understand that LHR JFK SCL EZE X DFW NRT would be allowed but if only one transit in North America would that be counted for one continent visited.

Yes it would - if you touch a continent then it is counted, even if you are only taking advantage of one of the transit exceptions.

The South America transit exceptions allow you to touch North America twice as long as one is just a transit to/from South America.

Any touch of North America counts as a continent though.

xONEx 16 segment restrictions and Can I buy more segments
 

In the xONEx FAQ, we have this question

There's lots of discussion in various threads about 16 segments being a limitation of etickets. There's also lots of discussions about what could be done in the future to allow etickets to exceed that limitation (there seems to be no agreement, or confirmation, however on the viability of the proposals. My interest is in what is possible right now).

I also note that it really does look like some ft'ers are managing to purchase additional segments for itineraries in the 16-20 segment range.

My question is, how? (Or am I wishfully misinterpreting what I'm reading?)

Does it require a paper ticket and insistence that you get one?

Do you re-route mid journey and insert additional sectors after you have used the first 4?

The ATW help desk were pretty emphatic that it is simply no longer possible.

If it really isn't possible (and I hope that is not the case), then perhaps
the FAQ should be updated.

Oh, and thanks everyone who has contributed to this knowledge base, it's a very valuable resource. In the close to decade I've been using these fares, it seems it is getting more and more complicated.

Unfortunately the FAQ is out of date - the maximum (including additional paid segments) changed from 20 to 16 on 1 July 2008 (IIRC).

The additional coupons were only ever (and still are) to increase the number of coupons over the normal ration in each continent. (eg you needed 7 rather than 6 in NA) The maximum number of coupons was not increased. Sorry.

Having said that - where do you need the additional coupons and where is your xONEx originating. Using xONEx coupons for short segments in NorthAmerica is (in my opinion) a waste of a good coupon. Check the prices on the Visit USA pages (on oneworld.com) for the prices of the short segments.

Happy wandering

Fred

Amendments/Suggestions:

There is still mention of 20 segments on the opening post(s).
I can't see a para about "touching" a continent (e.g. LHR-SYD flights 'touching' Asia, nor about the ORD/DEL "Look down, there's Europe!" rule.