A pricing question as well. When I was playing around with the online tool a couple months ago, LONE4 itineraries starting in Japan were coming in around $5500. The same/very similar itineraries are now pricing out in excess of $9000. Am I doing something wrong, or was there a significant fare hike in the past few months?

The base fare for an ex-Japan LONE4 is JPY369,600
So even your $5500 seems high
In the tool, the price is broken down into Base Fare + Taxes/Surcharges and will be shown in JPY. What are you getting for each component?

Edited to add: Just priced up a simple LONE4 in the tool (NRT-SYD-LAX-LHR-NRT).
Base Fare JPY369,600
Surcharges/Fees JPY108,440
TOTAL JPY478,040

At present it isn't possible to purchase an xONEx that avoids Europe (which includes the Middle East) owing to no trans-South Atlantic routes flown by Oneworld members.
Expert Flyer shows the base LONE4 fare at $3459++ ex-Japan, so I'd look again at your inputs. (Note "++" means plus taxes and fees, which, depending on your choice of stopovers and carriers, can be as much as 20% or more of the base fare.)

The economy v. business class decision is obviously a personal one, but I'm not sure I'd try to justify it based on the differential in mileage earned. Yes, you get class-of-service bonus miles (for AAdvantage, 25% in business, 50% in first) but on a 40,000 mile (+/-) RTW that doesn't amount to some stunning total. Really, you could play the credit card churning game and do better, without all that pesky flying.

But of course, 16 flights in business or first class for an average cost of $500 or less is a screaming deal, so I wouldn't discard the idea out of hand. The USD is pretty strong against the Yen at the moment, and a DONE4 ex-Japan is barely twice the price of an LONE4. So my vote (and I don't get one of course) would be to talk it over with your honeymoon companion. Personally, I would willingly step down from a 4-star hotel to a 2- or 3-star one, and use the spread for more comfortable flights, but that's me.

One thing I'd also mention is - as a leisure RTW traveler - you might consider doing a two- or three-year "strategic" travel plan, and see how the RTW ticket might fit into it. In our case, we found that we could break a RTW itinerary in half, come home as a "stopover," and return to work, using the 6 allocated North America segments for work or leisure purposes, then, even months later, continue the RTW back to the start point. That way, in our case at least, we found that we could do most of a year's travel just with one ticket, and in the course of that year, earn enough miles so that a significant amount of travel could be accomplished the following year on the house.

For example, a DONE4 or 5 that covers, say, 55,000 flight miles, will earn roughly 125,000 - 130,000 AA miles, enough for a business-class round trip from North America to Europe or Asia, or for a couple of first-class round trips within North America or the Caribbean. This is what we did; we'd do a two- or three-part RTW in year 1, usually starting in whatever country was "cheap" (relative term) for DONEx tickets - usually South Africa, but also Japan, or, formerly, Turkey or even Sweden - then fly "free" on the miles in year two, then repeat. With around $6K out of pocket every two years, we usually managed something like 20-22 business class or first class flights over that period, making the average cost something like $300. Not bad for Vancouver - New York in J on CX, or Joburg to Sydney in J on Qantas.

Of course it depends on your own budget, travel style, and work/family obligations. But planning doesn't cost anything, RTW tickets are good for a year, and - trust me - they can become very addictive once you get the hang of how to plan your travel over a longer period than just one trip at a time.

Depending on the airlines flown, the difference can be much more than that
For example - as an AA PLT flying CX, the difference is between earning 0% in L and earning 225% in D.

Oh yes. I'm hooked. Currently planning my next trip/s. Looks like it will be an ex-CPT DONE5 (where the only continent NOT visited will be my home continent:))

Thanks for the price check! I see where I made my error, and the adjusted fare is now coming in under $5K. Really appreciate the help, pandaperth and Gardyloo, and thanks for giving us plenty to think about as we decide on fare class.

Confirming Carrier Charges DONE4 ex-JNB
 

I just priced up this basic DONE4 out of JNB and wanted to get the collective wisdom on the charges, especially the carrier fines. Since they are lumped in, it is rather difficult to ascertain where they are coming from. I shudder to think what including BA might do to such an itinerary.

Base fare: 59,010ZAR
Carrier fees: 11,790ZAR
Taxes: 2,499ZAR
Total: 73,298ZAR

Itinerary:
JNB-DOH QR
DOH-MAD QR
MAD-LHR-LAX AA(IB Codeshare)-AA135
LAX-JFK AA
JFK-HKG AA (CX codeshare)
HKG-NRT CX
NRT-HKG CX
HKG-JNB CX

Who's pricing it? You should be able to get a breakdown on the surcharges. It seems high for the carriers involved.

AA RTW desk priced this one. Are they able to give a segment by segment YQ/YR?

To gauge the reasonableness of the charges, you could plug each segment into itasoftware and it will list the all the charges, including YQ/YR

This method will give you the charges that each carrier collects if it is selling you a ticket for the segment. IME, AA does not collect all of these

FYI, I've been pricing up an ex-CPT DONE5 in the tool, and my total charges/fines comes to ZAR16,120. I've run my itinerary through ita and the total looks reasonable. (in the tool, I have BA as my first carrier. When I get serious I will change that to QR and get the AA RTW desk to price it up)

Mmmm...if including a BA segment barely makes a difference on your itinerary I may rethink using QR as my first flight.

Using Matrix to try and gauge YQ at least on the JNB-DOH-MAD-LHR-LAX-JFK segmetn, I see that there is about 2,080ZAR from QR and 2,430ZAR from AA. Looks like AA has gotten thirsty and lapping up those fuel fines for TATL.

I'm going to use BA on my first leg and see what the tool prices out at.

My only BA segment is CPT-JNB

but it does mean that BA would do the ticketing, rather than AA if I use its RTW desk, or QR if I contact them directly to ticket

But BA doing the ticketing means you they will collect fuel fines just about anywhere correct?

I did substitute QR (JNB-DOH-MAD) with BA (JNB-LHR-MAD) and the total fuel fine difference was only about 416ZAR or ~$37, of course there are higher airport taxes as well, but it comes as a surprise to me.

If I am not mistaken, because I am only doing a connection in LHR on the way to MAD, I should be able to use AA flight numbers is that correct? I wonder if I can do that to try and realize a YQ reduction.

I hope the RTW can provide a better fuel fine break down and also will see whether the switch of first flights can massage those fines some more.

My thread on the Lan Chile forum may not be noticed by the regulars on this forum, but any help with this Lan Chile problem would be much appreciated:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/lan-l...s-infants.html

I may delete South America and Lan Chile from my itinerary and do something else.

Could somebody with Expert Flyer or similar access please give me the base fare price of a DONE4, DONE5 and DONE6 ex-Johannesburg?

cheers.

done4: Zar 58,940
done5: Zar 67,880
done6: Zar 80,500

I have a recent pricing of a DONE4 ex-JNB at 59,010ZAR.

59,010 - 58,940 = 70 ZAR
which is roughly 7 USD

I'm thinking your itinerary includes HKG?
which has a nuisance tax, but which for some reason the authorities there state must be added to the base fare, rather than be separately identified as a tax

New Itin, any comments?
 

Thanks.

The ban on infants on the lap in Lan Chile business class was a show-stopper for my old itinerary involving flying to South America and to/from Easter Island on Lan.

I wasn't prepared to buy a seat for my son when all other airlines are OK with him on the lap and I wasn't prepared to downgrade my Lan Chile legs to economy when I'm paying for business class either.

I've reworked the itinerary departing from JNB instead of Cairo as per the original plan and deleted all the Lan Chile flights except for SCL-GIG which I don't think I can avoid.

JNB(QF) - SYD(QF) - MEL(QF) - SYD(JL) - NRT(UL) - CMB(UL) - KUL(MH) - RGN(KA) - HKG(CX) - LAX - JFK(AA) - CUN(AA) - MIA(AA) - SCL(LA) - GIG(BA) - LHR(BA) - EBB < 16 segments total

The only thing is from JNB I must go to Melbourne before Sydney (family reasons and no direct JNB-MEL flight) therefore I'm "wasting" 2 x sectors in short hops from SYD-MEL-SYD.

Can anybody see a way in this itinerary to do any one of the following, maybe by deleting the inefficient SYD-MEL-SYD legs and me just buying a separate ticket for those:
- Get from Cape Town to/from JNB?
- Add another destination in South or Central America (but not EZE or LIM; already been there on previous trips)?
- Going to Port Moresby (POM)?

Thanks again for your help (and also to gardyloo who has also helped out a lot). For this part of the trip JNB and SYD are transits, but I will be making a long stop in SYD after MEL. I want to do Australia before Asia so that I will have summer in Australia (I arrive in Aus in January; doing Asia first I'd arrive in Aus in March or April).

Is there a direct CPT-DOH flight? I have the OneWorld electronic timetable and CPT-DOH is showing a transit in JNB (ie CPT-JNB would be a segment). The thought of flying Cathay JNB-HKG-MEL had crossed my mind, just because it is a 25 hour flight so I would really think I'm getting good value out of a DONE5 ticket, rather than just flying Qantas JNB-SYD-MEL in 15 hours ;) Or maybe that is crazy ;)

For those who might care, I changed my above itinerary to replace the AA codeshares on IB and CX for MAD-LHR and JFK-HKG, respectively, and it shaved off about 1,641ZAR or $164 in fuel fines. New total is 10,149ZAR approx $1,015.

QR in general and AA TATL fuel fines are not pretty. However, I still think I am being overcharged, I have gone and tried to manually price the fuel fines in an unscientific manner, although the CX fines are correct because those are clearly published and they have been slightly reduced as of Oct 1.

Route Airline YQ
JNB-DOH QR $80.50
DOH-MAD QR $80.50
MAD-xLHR IB $40.88
xLHR-LAX AA $288 (RT is 576)
LAX-JFK AA $0
JFK-HKG CX $103.70
HKG-NRT CX $23.50
NRT-HKG CX $23.50
HKG-JNB CX $103.70

Total $744 (8,109ZAR)

[/QUOTE]

I've started a trial of Expert Flyer.... can't figure out how to look up fuel surcharges though.

For my RTW biz class trip. Seat availability is showing as zero in all classes and all fare brackets for the Qatar CPT-DOH flight. Any idea what is going on?

I had a problem when I was playing with the One World RTW booking tool getting any Qatar flights to come up also.

Edit - I also notice the poster above says QR fuel surcharges are high? It only makes economic sense for me to fly Qatar CPT-DOH-MEL if the fuel surcharges are about the same or less than Qantas JNB-SYD.

What date?

Nor, end one, it seems---I cannot force the online tool to see the QR DOH-CAI flights.

And, indeed S7 and US are a bit hit and miss as well.

I know the tool can be quite/very flakey
but, in its defence I've had no trouble using it to price up an itinerary that
- begins with CPT-JNB-xDOH-EZE (first segment on BA, the next two on QR)
- ends with TUN-DOH-CMN-DOH-NBO (all QR flights)

1. RE:QR flight availability, are you looking up individual segments or the CPT-xDOH-MEL connecting flights? I realized in my search that if I searched JNB-xDOH-MAD i got no D availability, but individual segment lookup had D9 and likely ran into married segment logic. I checked a random date CPT-DOH and there was availability in fare classes, what dates are you looking for? I had no problem getting AA to book individual segments.

2. The tool doesn't handle having QR as your first flight, that is an almost given.

3. Unless comparing to BA/AA/QF, yes QR fuel fines are high. However, when i went digging deeper via ITA I found that QR may not be as bad as I initially thought, instead of maybe $230 it is maybe $161. I still don't think these will exceed or come close to QF fines.

I've just done a check in ITA

CPT-xDOH-MEL
- QR has fuel fines (YR) of ZAR1910

CPT-xJNB-xSYD-MEL (first flight on BA)
- BA fuel fine ZAR1047 :eek:
- QF fuel fine ZAR1819

Depending on who tickets the itinerary, these surcharges may or may not be collected
But for sure if QR tickets then it will collect its own surcharges; and the same for QF

I guess that with a travelling party of four, these surcharges become important

Here's my latest plan for a biz class RTW on a DONE5.

This plan involves buying separate economy class tickets for CPT-JNB and SYD-MEL-SYD and SCL-IPC-SCL.

DONE5, comes in at about 293,000ZAR in the booking tool for 2 adults+1 child. The infant is on top of that since I can't book that online.

JNB-SYD QF (Been on many Qantas 747s before, this may be the last)
SYD-NRT JL
NRT-CMB UL
CMB-KUL UL
KUL-RGN MH
RGN-HKG KA
HKG-LAX CX
LAX-ORD AA
ORD-CUN AA
CUN-JFK AA
JFK-BDA AA
BDA-MIA AA
MIA-SCL AA
SCL-GIG LA
GIG-LHR BA
LHR-EBB BA

16 segments, every stop is somewhere where I actually want to go (although Chicago is a bit of a case of "since I'm in that general direction anyway").

I'll be missing Papua New Guinea which I wanted to visit but the above is 7 months worth and I think I'll be out of time, out of flight segments and out of cash on this trip. Another year for PNG.

BUT - one of the things I'd like to do on this trip is make as many flights as possible on aircraft with good business class cabins. Therefore I wonder if taking so many flights on AA on 767s & 737s and KA's A321 is a bad idea.....?

Has anyone ticketed a xONEx with QR?

Right, I've cracked it.

A DONE6 itinerary ex-JNB and priced in South African Rand. Booked by phone through the AA ATW desk in Dallas with me generating the route first in the OW planner tool.

The AA ATW desk have given me the number of the AA General Sales Agent in Cape Town, who is Mindpearl.

Any recent experience with paying through them with a non-South African credit card?

As there are several tickets the entire deal is over ZAR 300k or over US$27,000

If you do not make transactions of that magnitude regularly in South Africa it's probably worth letting your card issuer know in advance.

Over the years I've never had any problem with Mindpearl. Your credit card issuer may be another matter, of course.

Changing carrier but not route
 

Are date changes where there is also a change of carrier but on the same segment free of charge on the OW Explorer?

Eg my CMB-HKG legs are served by CX and UL as a single flight number, SYD-NRT by QF and JL. Are the carriers on these segments interchangeable?

Yes, such changes are free of charge. However the airline making the change is allowed to charge a service fee (I know QF does charge this, and I also know AA does not charge it)

There is a special rule regarding changing the first segment (before departure obviously) - but other than that, changes to date/time/oneworld carrier are free of charge

How many AA flights do I need before AA will issue a RTW ticket?

At this point my itinerary probably only includes HNL-LAX-PHX on AA. (For now I will assume that US flights don't qualify.)

I have a few US-operated flights and probably BA 2 that could conceivably be taken as codeshares with AA, if that makes any difference. (And indeed if codesharing is even permitted.)

As per the one world explorer rules: (http://www.oneworld.com/documents/10...9-d346ec820edf)

It's no so much "number of flights" - AA have often required at least one intercontinental segment on an AA flight number.

So I could book QF 3 SYDHNL as AA 7359, that would be sufficient? (Better for me actually as I get nearly twice the Avios points that way.)