Is that right? The fuel surcharges will, except for some IT bugs, be levied based on the operating carrier, not who tickets the itinerary, surely?

Not necessarily
In general, there is no requirement for a ticketing airline to collect fuel surcharges on behalf of an operating carrier
Some do, some don't

You can, of course, expect a ticketing carrier to collect the surcharges for its own segments.
AA is considered one of the 'better' carriers - in that it seems to not collect surcharges for carriers other than itself, and possibly BA and IB with whom it has a 'special relationship'

Dear Flyertalkers! (SO embarrased!)


Thank you so much for your swift and competent help. It means the world!

I'll be following your advice figuring out the best way/place to begin my RTW-trip.

Quick follow-up question: If I choose CAI as the place to start, and travel from CPH to CAI using a non-OW airline, will I be required to pick up my checked in luggage, clear customs and once again check in?
-And, in that case, do I need a visa for Egypt, since I technically will be leaving the airport?


I'll post my itinerary, once I make the first draft. Yet again, thank you for your help so far ^^



Ps. Been scouting Tripadvisor looking for places to stay, hence the confusion regarding my initial greeting! Won't happen again, (I hope) :rolleyes:

Here's a page from the Timaticweb (data base the airlines will refer to) that seems to say you'll obtain a visa on arrival (US$25) if you claim bags and go through customs. If you've obtained your RTW ticket number (not the PNR locator) in advance, the original airline might be able to through-ticket your bags to your first RTW stopover, but that would be at the discretion of the originating airline, assuming, of course, that they have interline arrangements with the first RTW carrier. I would bet against it, however, and just figure you'll go "landside" at CAI.

If you fly a Star Alliance carrier you will arrive at Terminal 3 and will need to clear immigration and customs and head over to Terminal 1. The other carriers arrive at Terminal 1. If you arrive at Terminal 1 and you check luggage you have to pay the $25 visa fee (must be USD) to clear immigration first, claim luggage, and then customs. You will have to ask your CPH-CAI carrier if they will through-check on a different PNR.

If you arrive at Terminal 1 and don't check luggage you can do a transit without visa and stay airside.

Stretching flexibilty
 

I am considering finally splurging on DONEX ex-JNB to bridge an existing gap between two tickets and cover my travel next year. My first segments is JNB-MAD, but after that I really don't have a set itinerary. I was wondering could I do dummy segments to fill out my itinerary, then later on do more than just date changes but also re-route per my plans and only incur the up to $125 change fee with no repricing etc?

Example (after JNB-MAD, assuming OW flights actu)
Go from MAD-DXB/DOH-LHR-LAX to MAD-HEL-LHR-SFO
Go from LAX-DFW-JFK-YVR-ORD-DCA-JFK-HKG to DFW-YVR-JFK-SJU-DFW-HKG

and so on.

I am thinking of initially putting in some basic segments to route Africa-Europe/ME-North America-Asia-Africa. Then later making changes as I plan to visit each continent, meaning 3 major routing changes. Is this a viable plan or am I expecting too much flexibility and should rather choose my destination points now and stick to the date/time changes only?

Thanks in advance.

No idea of statistics, but I suspect the majority of xONEx tickets are changed at least once during their lifespan, maybe more. I certainly know I do.

A note on "repricing." If you keep the same number of continents, all that happens when you make changes is the taxes and fees are re-computed, e.g. if a transit turns into a stopover (airport/departure taxes) or if you add flights with fuel surcharges that replace those that don't have them. FWIW I've never had a re-issue where there wasn't an additional taxes and fees hit, on top of the $125. Some airlines (BA, Qantas) also charge service fees for changes, usually in the US$50 - $150 range.

Iberia no longer flies JNB-MAD. Your options for South Africa > Europe are BA via LHR or QR via Doha.

Just a thought, but looking at your initial plans (yes, I know they're likely to change) I wonder if you need to go to South Africa for the start. Granted, I love South Africa, and if it's on your bucket list, by all means go for it, but if you don't especially need to go there, the current strength of the dollar makes both Egypt and Japan fairly attractive for start points. Instead of a 4-continent ticket ex-South Africa (and one that would in all likelihood include a ton of BA fuel surcharges added to the price) you might want to look at Japan, where a DONE3 is just over $6000, vs. $5900 for a DONE3 from CAI or a DONE4 for $5300 from JNB or CPT. That $700 difference could very easily get eaten in fuel surcharges, not to mention the additional cost - in miles or money - to get to and from SA before and after.

Using AA to issue the ticket (either through their GSAs in CAI or CPT, or directly in Japan) would tend to lower the total cost since AA doesn't always pass through other airlines' fuel fines. The "extras" can easily amount to 15% - 20% or more of the base price.

Use the online booking tool to experiment with total costs (including fees and taxes) from various start points (JNB/CPT, CAI, NRT, AMM) to get a sense of the additional expenses that would apply to given itineraries, then compute your "positioning" costs. You might be surprised at the results.

Thanks for this answer, I am feeling a lot better that my strategy might work and turn out well for me. Certainly would rather avoid airlines with a lot service fees, especially for changes and those with crazy fuel fines.

I am starting in JNB for two reasons, I do tend to spend a lot of time there and in this instance I will actually be there in need of a one-way ticket to Europe. I took advantage of the low cost BA I sale from the US to Spain/Italy and combined it with a general sale/favorable pricing of for ex-Spain/Italy fares to South Africa, but due to minimum stay and day of travel restrictions I couldn't pair them perfectly. My SA to Europe return will be weeks later than my Spain - US return, so I therefore have to bridge that gap.

My first option is buying a cheap one-way QR Y ticket or a business class return at about $2700-3300, which is not too bad considering the European and SAA fares for both Y and C. Second option is going the DONE4 route (a DONE5 isn't quite attractive to me due to the seasonal mismatch for either South America or Oceania). My plan to limit fuel fines would be to take the QR route from JNB to MAD, and then only flying AA,JL and CX, no rewarding BA. QR has the 787 on the JNB route, which was quite good when I flew it in August, and timing is better too in terms of making my connection in Madrid.

I guess the price increases last year really hit South Africa hard if Japan pricing is now that attractive on a relative basis. $6000 is how much a close-in roundtrip C ticket will cost from the US.

Your logic is certainly sound. Go for it. I'd probably use Mindpearl in CPT (AA's GSA) for booking as it sounds like you'll have a fair number of AA-metal flights.

It's more a case of the USD-JPY exchange shifting in the dollar's favor. Personally I'd use miles for access, but doesn't apply in your case. South Africa's still the best deal if you can get there and also avoid BA fuel fines.

It depends what you mean by "change". I've completed 8 xONEx's, only 2 have had reroutes and one of them was due to rioting and travel alerts for BKK. Though I've changed flight times at least once on all of them.

and not forgetting that sometimes involuntary changes are required to due airlines dropping routes or rescheduling flights (broken connections)

oh right, that happened to me one too. One of my last LONE4's before I started using DONE3's.
Had booked NRT-MEL as last flight. QF canned it after ticket issue and reissued the e-ticket to a 17 sector paper ticket before departure. Then during the trip Thailand starting having issues resulting in BKK being dropped (and a stop in SIN instead of the planned connection) causing the paper ticket to be reissued back to an e ticket with remaining sectors and paper stock to be returned to agent upon return. (not that the ticket change stopped BA from demanding the paper coupon)

If there's one thing I've learned over the years, it's that Gardyloo knows his stuff on xONEx tix. That said, -- I thought that such a ticket is subject to repricing any time you change the city sequence, and the reason is that such a change would change the fare ladder. Is that no longer the case? Have I been wrong all along? (about repricing, not about Gardyloo!!)

Where is the Middle East? :D

The OW Explorer rule sheet
http://www.oneworld.com/documents/10...9-d346ec820edf

I can't see it explicitly says which countries are in the Middle East and which are in Europe. For example, is Turkey the Middle East or is it Europe?

Can anybody give me a definitive list of all countries which are classed by One World as Middle East?

I'm booking an ex-Cairo trip and working out where in the Middle East to end the trip.