Fantastic!! Pandaperth- do you remember helping me out with my ex-MPM a few years ago? I was a disaster. I hope you are proud of your student's progress ;)

Okay- thank you! The only AA flight I saw for OSL-LAX is on BA and then AA, so I would incur more of those pesky fuel fines. But maybe not as much if it's short haul?

I thought I could only land at LAX on my North America routing one time. And, the ORD stoppover would put me at 17 segments, right?



Thank you! Keep the recommendations coming!

I'm not sure what you mean by "I'd like to get a little closer to Southern California" as you'll be in LAX twice. If you want to be in Los Angeles a third time you can, e.g., HEL-LAX-JFK-DFW-LAX, or if you'd like to go to San Diego you could do LAX-JFK-DFW-SAN, and I think you have one more segment, so you could fly SAN-LAX-PVR or SAN-PHX-PVR.

If you book it as an AA code then the fuel fines are much lower. If you book OSL-LHR on BA and then LHR-LAX as an AA code on BA or AA metal, the fuel fines are still low. Given the choice of AA or BA metal in business class, I'd pick AA as they have much better seats. But BA has better food and drink and service.

You can touch an airport as much as you like, but you can only fly between the same cities in the same direction once. I thought you only have 15 segments but I might have miscounted with the surface segments.

OK, I re-counted, and you do have 16 segments but that's counting JFK-DFW-LAX, with DFW-LAX as a surface segment, so changing that to a flight segment wouldn't change the count.

Ideally, I would like to get back to Southern California via LAX or SAN, but thought that this rule restricts me: Americas - "Within North America, only one transcontinental flight is allowed between selected cities on the East and West Coasts. "Transcontinental" is defined as a flight between one of ATL/BWI/BOS/CLT/FLL/BDL/MIA/EWR/NYC/ORL/PHL/PIT/SJU/RDU/TPA/YYZ/WAS/PBI and one of LAS/LGB/LAX/OAK/PHX/PDX/SAN/SFO/SJC/SNA/SEA/YVR. "

I just put in DFW because it's not on the above airport list and it is direct from JFK, so it doesn't eat up another segment.

Thanks for the help!

TBH I didn't remember you - but now I've checked my old PMs I do remember you:)

Oneworld TATL fuel fines are a rip-off. AA and the Oneworld European Carriers (BA, AY and IB) operate a JBV (Joint Business Venture = a government-sanctioned cartel). They fix prices, share revenue and all charge the same fuel fines between A-and-B.

I have been checking on The Matrix and:

• the fuel fine for OSL-xHEL-LAX is USD161. It matters not which oneworld airline is the marketing carrier for the flights.
• the fuel fine for OSL-xLHR-LAX is actually lower, at USD136.20

As [MENTION=40177]anabolism[/MENTION] said -there is no restriction on multiple stopovers at any point (other than the point of origin that is)
And anyway, your itinerary had you landing there twice already - from HEL and from PVR

You are allowed up to six flight segments in North America, but only one of them can a trans-continental flight. The others can be anything you like (except for restrictions on flights to/from Alaska and Hawaii)
So in your itinerary - your LAX-JFK flight is your one allowed trans-continental flight, and say JFK-ORD followed by ORD-LAX are just another two of your allowed six flights in the continent

Since you seem to have some doubt, I will just confirm that your itinerary has 16 segments, which is the maximum allowed - so there is no problem there
It has 14 flight segments
and two surface segments (DFW-LAX and DPS-SIN)
Changing DFW-LAX to be a flight segment would not affect the overall count of 16 segments and would increase your Nth American flight segment count to 5, so still within the allowed max of six
BTW Qantas subsidiary JQ (Jetstar) flies between DPS and SIN
QR flies from DOH to three destinations in Tanzania - DAR, ZNZ and JRO. JRO is close to a number of game parks and of course to Kilimanjaro itself.

One more reason to fly QR between DOH and North America.


The rules actually have a list of cities that are considered "west coast" cities for the purposes of this rule, and another list of cities that are considered "east coast" cities for the rule. There are occasionally opportunities to game this when nonstop service is added, but they forget to add the city to the appropriate list in the rule. I've done it with back-to-backs LAX-RDU-LAX and LAX-MBJ-LAX.

You would think/hope so, but
Earlier today I looked at QR's YQ for OSL-xDOH-LAX and it came to a whopping USD370 :eek:
(USD222 !! for OSL-DOH and USD 148 for DOH-LAX)

Looking at the reverse, it is even worse
- the YQ for LAX-DOH is USD609 (What the...!!)
- the YQ for DOH-OSL is only(!) USD96

Fair point.

Yes, you can call AA RTW desk and they will be glad to check if your itinerary can be validated, if so, sell you the ticket. I can't comment on your itin as I am in a rush at the moment.

Yes. 800-247-3247.

Booking a Oneworld Explorer ticket in the Oneworld tool. I have Sydney SYD, Tokyo HND, London LHR, New York JFK, <24hr in Chicago ORD and then I run into problems.

I would like to spend several days in Kona KOA on the way back to Sydney SYD so I've continued the itinerary from Chicago ORD, Los Angeles LAX, Kona KOA. That worked OK.

Now I'm booking KOA back to Sydney and not getting any options. I could see there was a Qantas flight from Honolulu HNL to Sydney SYD, so I made Kona KOA to Honolulu HNL a surface sector thinking I would have to buy that as a separate one-way ticket but then the Qantas flight does not show up.

Ideally I want to travel back from Chicago ORD to Sydney SYD with a 3 day stopover at a beachy island (Hawaii, Vanuatu, Fiji etc.) or I am also willing to consider somewhere else beachy (thinking Mexico, Caribbean, SE Asia maybe?)

Any thoughts ?

You could take a routing back via Asia, there are several nice beachy places there best reachable via HK. For example ORD-HKG-DPS-SYD or ORD-HKG-CEB-HKG-SYD or ORD-NRT-KUL-BKI (or any other place in Malaysia)-KUL-SYD.

Another thing to consider, if you're planning on flying Business Class, buy a separate ticket to Tokyo and start your RTW there, the savings can be significant.

Thanks R2.

What time of year are you traveling? Australia has some nice beaches but of course are seasonal. Especially if you were to start in Japan, you could stop-off somewhere nice in Australia.

I love Hawaii but haven't stopped there on an RTW because you can't backtrack to the mainland U.S., and the flights from Hawaii to Australia aren't terrific.

You might consider the Caribbean. I'm personally very fond of Curaçao, which has some terrific beaches and the weather is great all year. With your six flights in North America you could visit there for a few days.

Welcome to FT Preemo

The online booking tool is known to have lots of bugs - we even have a separate thread on FT for that: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/onew...gs-thread.html

But I was puzzled by your reported bug. So I tried the itinerary myself (SYD-HND-LHR-JFK-ORD-KOA,HNL-SYD) and it worked fine.
So I suspect you might be doing something wrong in specifying your itinerary in the tool. I just typed in the list of airports, with spaces between them, marked KOA-HNL as a surface segment and then chose the other flights. Qantas showed two flights HNL-SYD on the day I chose (30th May)

FWIW -here are some of mine

Somewhere beachy for three days
You say you want three* days somewhere beachy between ORD and SYD. It sounds to me like you are time-constrained, which would mean a side-trip to say the Caribbean or S.E. Asia would eat too much time in flying. California of course has good beaches, starting with Venice Beach in L.A. You could fly home via SFO and stay on a beach somewhere there. Or on the Gulf Coast and fly home via DFW.

As I posted earlier, your proposed stopover in Hawaii should work. I checked on The Matrix and 1-way flights from KOA to HNL cost USD91

* Three days: remember you “lose” a day on the way home – by crossing the Date Line

The Global Explorer
This is Oneworld’s other round-the-world ticket. It cannot be purchased on-line, so you must either phone an airline such as Qantas or use a travel agent to buy it.
It allows more airlines to be used, including Fiji Airlines and Qantas codeshares on Air Tahiti Nui. So a stopover in either Fiji(NAN) or Tahiti(PPT) is possible.

It restricts the number of stopovers to 5, with no more than 2 in any region (the Oneworld Explorer has no such restriction).
So your stopovers would be HND, LHR, JFK, ORD or LAX, NAN or PPT.

If you are travelling in economy class, the Global Explorer is AUD600* cheaper than the equivalent Oneworld Explorer. If in business or first class, there is no price difference.

* Approximately AUD600 cheaper – the total price depends on the various taxes, fees and (sur)charges for different itineraries

Maximising the ticket benefits
These RTW tickets are not cheap – therefore I always try to get as much value of them as possible. So I have a couple of ideas in this regard. But first, I will list some relevant fare rules:

• You are allowed a maximum of 16 segments (either flight segments or surface segments]
• You are allowed up to 6 flight segments in North America and up to 4 flight segments in other continents
• You are allowed a maximum of 2 stopovers in your continent of origin
• You must finish up back in your country of origin, but not necessarily at the same point you started from (this is a simplification of the rule, but is correct for Australia)
• Travel may not be via the point of origin
• You are allowed 1 year from your first flight to complete your itinerary
• A second visit is allowed to Asia

First Idea – A holiday in Australia
Make your point of origin somewhere other than SYD (for example MEL or BNE); travel round the world and return to SYD (SYD will become 1 of the allowed 2 stopovers in the continent of origin)
Sometime within the ticket’s validity have up to 4 flights in Australia and one more stopover (any other ‘stops’ will need to be transits, meaning less than 24hrs). A sample itinerary is:
MEL-NRT-LHR-JFK-ORD-LAX-KOA,HNL-SYD-PER-BME-BNE-SYD

The Australian holiday could be before you leave on your RTW trip instead of after MEL-PER-BME-BNE-SYD-HND-LHR-JFK-ORD-LAX-KOA,HNL-SYD

Note 1: the online tool has a bug that enforces an old rule restricting stopovers in the country of origin to 1 before departing RTW and 1 on return from RTW (booking through an airline or travel agent will get around this)

Note 2: this idea will not work for the Global Explorer, only the Oneworld Explorer, because:

• Your South Pacific stopover (NAN or PPT) and your SYD stop will use up your 2 allowed stops
• The economy Global Explorer has a maximum number of miles allowed (26,000) and your itinerary leaves very few miles at the end. Business or First allow more miles (34,000) and you can pay more to get more miles on the economy ticket (but you are still only allowed 2 stopovers in your continent of origin)

Second idea – a holiday in Asia
Do as [MENTION=2110]R2[/MENTION] suggested and fly from the US back to Asia, have your beachy stop, and then
Fly back to Australia on a separate return ticket
Return to Asia sometime later and pick up the RTW ticket again; travel around there and return to Australia

Note 3: I did this some years ago on an ex-PER RTW ticket; the relevant part of the ticket was …LHR-PEK-HKG-SIN (cheap SIN-PER return on Scoot then, six months later) SIN-BKK-BOM-SYD-PER

Note 4: The first and second ideas can of course be combined :D

Third Idea - Start (and end) somewhere other than Australia
[MENTION=2110]R2[/MENTION] made this suggestion. Its potential benefits are:

• Lower ticket price (though offsetting this – you have to get yourself to the starting point and back from the ending point)
• Australia is no longer the continent of origin so there is no restriction on stopovers there, just the allowed 4 flight segments

R2 suggested starting in Japan because its prices for Business and First are lower than Australia (other Asian countries are similar to Australia).
These are the approximate savings on your ticket:
Economy – AUD850 more expensive in Japan!
Business -AUD2000 less expensive in Japan
First – AUD2250 less expensive in Japan
(The Aussie dollar has been falling in value lately, so these savings are not as good as they used to be)

I have several questions:

1. If I book this on my AMEX will I get 5:1 points?
2. I need to book FOUR RTW tickets, 2 of them are identical itineraries. The other two are slightly different from each other and 80% the same as the two identical ones. I have all the dates, flight #s and times for all four tickets. Should this be as simple as finding an agent to read it to?
3. Can I call the AA EXP desk and do it through them?

Thanks, so much. To follow up.

1. If it's on AA stock and these are J tickets, will I earn 2x EQM on all flights regardless of operating carrier (some are usually 1.5x on their stock)?
2. The two identical itineraries are for different people on the same flights and dates. The other two itineraries are different for the first 1/3 of the trip, then all 4 people are in sync same flights, dates, times the rest of the way.
3. No prob, the last GRU-JFK flight will be AA metal.

I believe that only tickets issued by certain travel agents earn the 5× MR points. Yes, the charge does come from the airline, but AMEX can tell the difference. On the 3 xONEx tickets I purchased recently from an agent, I received the 5× MR points on none of them. I did a little research and read (but I now forget where, it was several months ago) that agent tickets do not normally attract the 5× bonus, but that there a few agents whose charges do attract the bonus.


All true and good advice. However, remember that the fact that a codeshare exists doesn't mean that you're going to be able to purchase it, especially for an RTW itinerary. And it works the other way, too. On a recent AONE5, I couldn't get LAX-ORD-LAX on the AA number, but was able to when my agent used the QF number.

How to clarify re. the 5x? If I am only going to get 1x on AMEX i'll take the 3x on CSR, but of course 5x would be best.

I was not aware of this, thank you. I've always had the AmEx MR 5x on all of my tickets charged to the card, issued by agents or an airline.


I recall discussion of that. I don't understand why you were not able to book it as an AA prime. As for booking codeshares in general, I believe it is supposed to only be possible on an international flight or a domestic flight booked as a connection to or from an international flight, but I have had no problems having agents and other airlines book, for example, domestic AA flights as JL, QF, and BA codes even when not a connection.

If you buy your ticket directly from an airline (airline website, or, in the case of a RTW, from the airline's RTW desk), you'll get the 5× MR points on the ticket(s). If you buy from a travel agent, you will probably, but not definitely, not. I have no idea how to tell in advance whether or not that agency's tickets attract the 5× bonus. To be certain. buy directly from the airlines. For an RTW, try the AA RTW desk, +1-800-247-3247.

Ah, I misread. I am going to book directly through the AA RTW desk, so it should be 5x for sure, no problem. My other questions, are:

1. If while we are in transit we want to tweak the routing a bit or dates (within the rules) is this possible for a change fee, or is it locked once travel starts?

2. If something unforeseen comes up after booking but before travel, are the tickets refundable?

Thanks so much!

1. Yes.
2. Yes, with a penalty.

Wonderful, thanks!

[MENTION=165293]pandaperth[/MENTION] [MENTION=40177]anabolism[/MENTION] [MENTION=128120]Dr. HFH[/MENTION] - thank you!!!


It wouldn't let me enter "JRO" into the OneWorld itinerary builder- I'll try it when I call to book.

Trying to do Oslo- DOH-LAX, but it adds an extra segment, putting me at 17.

I'm going to give it a shot!

You're welcome :)


Yet another bug in the online booking tool. You cannot enter ZNZ either.

Replacing OSL-HEL-LAX with OSL-DOH-LAX will not change the segment count.

Got it! Will book JRO

When I put OSL-DOH in the booking tool, there are no direct flights, but I do see the direct flight with a quick google flights search, so I will see if I can snag it. By starting out via DOH, will I still be able to use the DOH stop I have set for the end of the trip (MLE-DOH-NBO-LHR-OSL)?

The tool will not let you start any xONEx with a QR flight. However, TAs or RTW agents can book such itineraries.

Yes.
In general there are no restrictions on how many times you can stopover/transit at any point (I stopped over in PER 3 times on one DONE4).
However remember that in your continent of origin you are restricted to two stopovers

Correct. I had forgotten that.

Hi experts! Thanks to all your help, I was able to put my ticket through with not issues yesterday. However, the pricing is a bit higher than what I expected, so hoping you can help me figure out why and how to reduce it a bit. It priced out to $7751.50 usd/ticket. Here's what I have:

OSL- xHEL-LAX-JFK-DFW-LAX-PVR-LAX-HKG-(DPS-SIN surface sector)-CMB-MLE-DOH-NBO-LHR-OSL
[MENTION=165293]pandaperth[/MENTION]- I loved the idea of xDOH and JRO (as opposed to NBO), but couldn't make them work for itinerary.

Thank you!

Is NBO-LHR on BA? That might be a big YQ. How about something like this:

OSL- DOH-LAX-JFK-DFW-LAX-PVR-DFW-HKG-DPS//SIN-CMB-MLE-DOH-NBO-DOH-OSL

You don't say what FFP you're in but this is more miles so it should be more points. As long as the DFW-HKG is on AA, they should be happy to book it.

NBO-LHR is on BA? Do you think that one leg is racking up that much of a YQ? I guess not that it would surprise me that much.

New route looks good to me and agreed- much better mileage.

I was going to use my AA FFP for this one. The HKG portion is from LAX (LAX-HKG) and it on Cathay and they are fine with booking it...so far.

Thanks for all the great help!

If you want to fly LHR to Africa on BA metal, you might try booking it as an AA codeshare. I had an RTW that had LHR-JNB and it was a huge amount more on BA than on AA.

I haven't done this recently, but I do remember that years ago you could only use AA codeshares on LHR/Africa if you were connecting to or from an AA metal TATL flight.

My ticket has me flying QF SYD-LHR, then the AA code LHR-JNB. It was ticketed by an agency, not AA, so it's possible the AA desk would have a problem, but my recollection is that there is a restriction on using other airline codes on AA domestic flights (that they can only be booked as a connection to or from an international flight on that airline) but not on international flights.

I just double checked and it is an AA codeshare. Any other ideas? I thought this ticket should be around $6800, so just trying to figure out how it is almost $1000 more and what changes I can make.

Thanks all!