Joe36
The airline of the first flight is usally the issuing carrier if done on line. Unless you can get another carrier to issue eg. AA via MindPearl

A flight AAA-BBB-CCC on 1 flight number is considered as AAA-CCC (1 segment) provided its an airport only transit You cannot stop over for a day or 2. If you do stop over its another segment

There is no guarantee that a A, D or L (*ONE*) seat wil be available when you want it. At the FIFA WC 2014 dates it will be hard to get any seat at GIG. Airlines only have reservations 355 day / 330 days out (depends on the airline)

Upgrading a xONEn – what happens if the fares have increased?
 

Upgrading a xONEn – what happens if the fares have increased?
The relevant fare rule is
11.(c) Upgrading
So let’s say you purchase a LONE4 and later want to upgrade it to a DONE4

If fares have NOT changed then presumably you simply pay the difference between the DONE4 and LONE4 fares (plus any difference in taxes and surcharges – e.g. the UK APD and BA has different surcharges based on CoS)

If fares HAVE changed, then what is the situation?
Do you pay the difference between the DONE4 fare at time of purchase and the LONE4 fare paid, or is it the difference between the DONE4 fare at time of requesting the upgrade and the LONE4 fare paid?

Oneworld Done4 possible improvements?
 

Hi,
Long time lurker, first time poster. This is my second Done,last one being a Done3, organised by travel agent.Not sure if this is the right place to ask for any areas i can improve (i.e. save $$, earn greater miles etc) my Done4 ex AMM. I am planning to book for Sept 2013 as partial work travel.

Currently this is what i have constructed:
AMM-CDG-HEL-MUC-LHR-BOS-JFK-IAD-YYZ-SAT-SFO-NRT-HKG-SYD-BKK-AMM

The CDG stop is just transit (>24hrs)for a surface sector, and possibly HEL will be transit stop aswell. I am wanting to add more sectors in Northern Europe if possible.

Q1)If i land in SYD is it a valid stop,or i will have to create Done5 instead?
2)I must to go London for a few weeks, but from my reading that on this forum, pax taxes make it more expensive. Can anyone suggest an alternative ?
3)What is the cost of adding two additional sectors for Europe?
4) How can i ticket this, AA rtw desk, then Emeco still available? With what going on in CAI atm, is there an alternative?

I am halfway to AA platinum, so i should hit PLT status halfway through
Any help would be appreciated. I plan to book this is the next few days if possible.

Thanks in Advance.

Until the experts come along, I'll have a crack.

1) Adding Sydney makes it a DONE4. If you leave Sydney out you'll have only a DONE3 (Europe and the Middle East, North America, Asia) which will drop the cost quite significantly. Additionally, if you stick with Sydney, your second entry to Asia must be less than 24 hours, as per rule 2(e)(2).

2) Yes, the UK departure tax is significant and will add well over USD100 to a ticket like this. Unfortunately, your options out of MUC are severely limited. It doesn't look like you can wait a couple of months but if you could Qatar is supposed to be joining oneworld, at which point you will be able to fly MUC-DOH and then onwards to the US (such as JFK, IAH and ORD). Ideally, if you can limit LHR to a transit (less than 24 hours), or ideally don't go there at all, your itinerary will be much cheaper. As you're already going to CDG, a good option is to take the Eurostar to and from London, or buy a separate Economy ticket.

3) It used to be possible to purchase additional sectors (for roughly USD500 per sector (in Business)) and may still be but I can't find it in the fare rules. Regardless, you still cannot go above a total of 16 sectors for the entire itinerary.

4) A valid itinerary can be booked through the online tool and that's also a good place to validate an itinerary. It's located here: http://www.oneworld.com/flights/plan-book-online/. That will also give you the price. Generally, the carrier of the first sector will be the ticketing carrier but I believe there are some exceptions.

Some other tips:
i) Avoiding Muscat will also drop a fair bit off the price (maybe USD200 to USD300).

ii) BOS-JFK-IAD is essentially wasting a sector because the cities are so close together. Considering dropping one or two and catching the train instead (or getting separate tickets).

iii) On AA two class domestic flights a DONEx books into A (First) class which boosts mileage earning. The flights to and from, Canada, however, will book into Business.

Welcome to FT!

Because you're originating in Europe, you can't add additional segments in your continent of origin, and, more importantly, you're limited to two stopovers > 24h. (And your current itinerary is 15 segments so you'd only be able to add one more - in some other continent - anyway.)

This is probably a case where looking at your plans in western Europe might make a lot of sense. Originating in AMM, your DONE4 (and that's what it is, not a DONE5) means you're paying ca. $475 per flight, which seems a lot for short hops in Europe where conventional tickets might be less. (For example, in September, HEL-LHR-HEL in Club on BA comes in at US$566.) So doing your Europe-heavy travel before you start the RTW might make financial sense. Use the DONE4 where it gives the most value - on longhaul and "thin" routes where conventional tickets are prohibitive in premium classes.

Emeco is still selling tickets, and you could easily do an airside turn-around at CAI should you choose that route. Egypt is considerably cheaper as a starting point for DONEx tickets than other locations, but FWIW Israel is the same price as Jordan, and AA's GSA at TLV, Tal Aviation, is very skilled at this stuff. Or of course you could book online.

Read up on the rules regarding transiting Asia en route to other countries. You can't stop over in Asia someplace, visit Australia, then stop over again in Asia on the way out. Transfer, yes, but not stop over.

Again, welcome to FT!

Just to be sure: is it not possible to issue an ex-CAI DONE4 simply by using the online tool?

With RJ as the first carrier, I understand that AA would be the ticketing carrier - but I can't recall if they still peskily insist on only issuing tickets at ex-CAI prices to persons using a credit-card that bills to an Egyptian address.

herschelflyer007 asked if Emeco is still able to sell xONEx tickets and IIRC the answer is yes.

Regarding using the tool for ex-CAI, it ought to be easy; however there are two considerations that might make Emeco an easier approach.

Only RJ and BA serve CAI (IB has dropped it) so the online tool would issue the ticket on behalf of one of those airlines.

If it's BA than the tool will add all of BA's fuel fines for the whole itinerary. Ouch.

If it's RJ then the tool will ask AA to issue the ticket, sending the whole process into the ether as the online tool has never been able to handle the interface between AA and RJ when it comes to the final payment screens. (If somebody has a successful result with RJ-ticketed xONEx's using the tool, please report your story.)

So as AA's GSA in Egypt, Emeco might be able to issue the ticket without all of BA's fuel fines. Might not, but IMO worth the phone calls or emails to see.

Hi,

Firstly,thanks for all the input, its has been very helpful.
From looking at my options(flights/trains/time constraints) the DoneX seems cost effective for my Europe travel.

A few follow up questions:

1)So if take out SYD sector it makes it a Done 3? Giving me 4 Europe sectors,instead of 2 transits <24hrs?
2)If i want to take advantage of as many Europe stops(as possible) would a Done 3 from ex Asia be a better option. Can anyone suggest a good price point ex Asia ?
Thanks for ex TLV suggestion Gardyloo, i would have not thought of that departure point.
3)would it be possible to end DXB/AUH(making awards flights easier) instead of originating point and how much would it add to the costs?
4) instead of LHR departure tax and BA fuel charges, could someone suggest an alternative departure to East coast USA i have been looking at MAD?


Appreciate all the help, thanks in Advance.

Removing Australia would make it a DONE3.

You're allowed four segments in the continent of origin but only two stopovers (24h+).

By originating anywhere in the Middle East you can end anywhere in the Middle East, so ending at DXB (or TLV or AMM or AUH or MCT...) would be easy. A problem has cropped up with the online booking tool in that when you use this option (ending in a different Middle East location) it erroneously prices the trip based on the ending country's prices rather than the departing country's. The work-around to this is to book the trip as ending in the starting point (e.g. CAI > CAI) but then paying $125 to re-issue the ticket with the new endpoint. The humans doing the reissue will interpret the rule correctly.

The BA fuel surcharges come when BA issues the ticket. The online tool will have the first airline issue the ticket and if it's BA then you'll get whacked for the maximum fuel surcharges. These are not taxes (unlike the UK air passenger duty) but merely additional revenues pocketed by the airlines. Have some other airline (including American through one of its ticketing offices or GSAs) do the issuing and you'll reduce the amount of fuel surcharges.

There are plenty of departure points from Europe to the US besides London - Paris, Madrid, Barcelona, Helsinki, Rome, Frankfurt... you name it.

I have a ticketed ex-Japan DONE3 (issued by CX 18 July) which I need to change.
It currently routes HND-xHKG-JFK-SFO-xORD-ATL-ORD-xMIA-BCN-HEL-xLHR-xDXB-xLHR-PVG-KUL-xSIN-HND departing mid Oct.

I need to change the ATL stop to RDU. I'm trying to get a reprice in the online tool with the change to check for any tax changes in addition to the 125USD change fee, however the tool is popping out errors when I try to check.

Is there any other way to get an actuate costing of the revised routing?

Codes used:
CX HND-HKG
AA HKG-BCN
IB BCN-HEL, LHR-DXB
QF DXB-LHR
MH HEL-LHR, PVG-SIN
JL SIN-HND
BA LHR-PVG

Help - invalid booking class code?
 

Hello Flyertalk!

After months of planning our LONE5 itinerary we're finally ready to purchase our ticket!

We spent several hours with the online booking tool and kept getting the "Invalid Booking Class Code" error... does anybody know what this means and how to fix the problem?

Another issue we have is flight availability/calendar. Our RTW trip will be from December 2013-December 2014, but the flight calendar will only show flights up until June 2014. Is everyone else just fudging their dates at initial booking and then just changing them as the flights become available?

We haven't gotten very far with the booking tool, but we're hoping that we can pay the NZ LONE5 fare with a Canadian credit card. We're trying to avoid paying the $50/pp ticketing fee by calling the actual airline. We tried calling the AA RTW desk but the rep wasn't very nice nor helpful, esp since we don't have any AA legs, or even flying through the US.

Our intended route is:

AKL-HKG-KTM-HKG-JNB-CPT-LHR-IST-AMM-DME-MAD-GRU-LIM-SCL-IPC-SCL-AKL

Thanks in advance for all your help!

The online tool has a number of bugs in it, which for whatever reason don't appear to be getting worked on :(. Most of the bugs have work arounds, but we would need to work out what is causing the bug to appear in order to work out a work around.

Yes, that is what most people in that situation do. Depending on airline, flights don't become bookable until about 330-353 days out.

No issue with billing address if you can get the tool to work. Which airline were you looking at? Yep, AA tends to want at least one "over ocean" flight before they will book a RTW ticket.

FYI the ticket rules are here - http://www.oneworld.com/documents/10...Explorer+Rules

Edited to add: I see Himeno posted answers while I was busy typing:)

Are you able to expand on Emeco? Is it like a travel agent, or like MindPearl in South Africa? I have a DONE3 all set up on the oneworld tool with the first sector being SSH-AMM on RJ. It's all fine in the tool but I'm waiting for other flights to become available before proceeding to payment.

Are you saying that in such a case the tool fails and I won't be able to pay online?

online tool cont'd
 

Hi Pandaperth and Himeno,

Thanks for your time and quick response!

We are actually flying to NZ in October to visit family (aunt works for Air NZ and can get us there cheap), and also visiting Australia before starting our RTW in December. Would we be cutting it too close to purchase the LONE5 in NZ mid October for early Dec departure? Since i'll physically be in NZ, i'm assuming the Cdn credit card won't be a problem...

Other idea is to ask my aunt to call CX New Zealand and pay for it with my credit card. Do these sound like workable solutions? :confused: