Hi everybody,

am currently planning LOWE5 and am really stuck with my routing. My route so far is:

LHR-GRU-SCL-LIM-LAX....and heres where the problem starts....

1/ on the way to asia I would love to stopover at HNL but there seem to be no OW flights fom there to Asia and as backtraking between Hawaii and US is not allowed it looks I am stuffed. Any suggestions? I have to say though that OWE is a must for me because of 4 segments in South Africa.

2/ anyway if I can't go via HNL than next stop is going to be HKG-PEK-HKG(transit)-BKK...from where I want to do overland to SIN. My next question is: is PEK-HKG-BKK considered as 1 segment or two and also does overland with OWE count as segment or not? The reason I am asking is that from SIN I need to go back to HKG for transit to JNB.

From then on it's pretty simple:

JNB-DUR-CPT-DUR(for personal reasons)-JNB-FRA-LHR.

Any suggestions and answers will be greatly appreciated. Cheers, Pavel

You can ONLY do HNL if you continue on to Australia, NOT on the way to Asia.


Two.


It does not count as a segment,


AFAIK there are no OW direct flights JNB-FRA.

When is your trip? AA has applied for the rights to fly HNL-NRT starting in November. Otherwise you can only fly is HNL-SYD, which changes your route to a LONE6. Might be worth the extra $$ as you have a few extra segments still to use. Try this,
LHR-GRU-SCL-LIM-LAX-HNL-SYD-SIN-BKK-HKG-PEK-HKG-JNB-DUR-CPT-DUR-JNB-MAD-LHR. And if the price is right, start somewhere other than LHR, eg AMS-......MAD-LHR-AMS

If you don't fly to HNL, then you must buy an extra segment since HKG-PEK-PEK-BKG is 3 segments with SIN-HKG being the 4th segment.

Also be aware that if your wish to accumulate FF miles, your opportunities are limited, depending on which oneworld FF program you use.

Yeah I know there are no flights JNB-FRA-LHR.....got mixed up....the final stage of my journey is JNB-LHR with BA.

Want to leaveby the end of Nov so I suppose its too early for AA to have applied for HNL-NRT.

Don't really want to go to Oz so I suppose I will have to skip Hawaii.

Hi, it is almost certain that buying extra coupons for your trip will be much cheaper than starting from LHR. As you only have 18 sectors in the trip to date, use the extra two to save money. You will still have to buy a single ticket to pick up the LONE ticket but this can be quite cheap if you plan it properly and use an appropriate cheap return on BA/IB/AY/EI and throw the other half away (or tie it up with your return and start again) or use a low cost carrier to position.

If you need any help with this starting option, just ask on this thread or PM me. It would be useful to know which frequent flyer programme you have joined and where you live/want to start from.

Spotwelder

Thanks Spotwelder, my FFP is CX. I live in London so LHR was my first optin but thanks to cheap budget airlines I can get anywhere in Europe for peanuts. Any suggestions for cheap starting point? Thanks.

From the Universal Star File a LONE5 high season ex-UK is 1919 pounds, and low season 1719 pounds.

There appears to be some interest in purchasing tickets ex-WAW, but in the case of Pavel's LOWE5 I can't see the benefit as the price exPoland is $3400 (US) approx 1905 pounds? Am I missing something?

Added: Ex-Croatia and Yugoslavia, $3100 approx 1736 pounds.

Does anyone know how a high-season versus low season departure is categorized for an LONEx ex-UK? I have found the dates in the STAR files, but can't seem to find what must occur within the relevant period (i.e., first departure, first intercontinental departure, first transoceanic, etc.).

From the star file:

12N THE DATE OF THE FIRST INTERCONTINENTAL FLIGHT
13N DETERMINES THE APPLICABLE SEASONAL FARE FROM THE
14N COUNTRY OF ORIGIN FOR THE ENTIRE JOURNEY.

I am quite new to RWT and flyertalk so have no idea what or where Universal Star File is. Any advice?

http://www.hardlink.com/~markdu/OWFiles/

http://www.davidrosner.au.com/owe_starfile.htm

In many cases, there is little benefit in starting a LONEx trip from a different country. The fare is low enough that the savings are not anywhere near as much as for DONEx or AONEx. In fact, in some cases from countries where D and A are low, the L fare may be higher. This is the case with buying ex-BKK compared with ex-Australia.

However, one good reason not to start in LHR (or any UK port in some cases) is that London is the major hub for BA and if you start there you cannot come back through later except at the end of the journey. That lmits your ability to maximise the benefits of the Europe segments since you can only have one international departure from the country of origin and cannot pass back through London.

So taking a cheap fare to somewhere else in Europe can add some flexibility to your European flights, which may prove to be more of an advantage than any savings obtained on a LONEx fare.

Agreed with the previous, I was not going to complicate the issue too much at the start. Low season savings are marginal. High season savings are significant in some cases. The flexibility of non ex LON can be critical. However, if you are going to burn all your sectors outside Europe then this is not important.

The other thing is that not everyone lives in LON so a cheap regional low cost flight to greater Europe and then coming back into LON on BA can actually work out cheaper than some of the domestic costs in the UK for getting to LON in the first place.

(The other reason in more psychological, perhaps if they experience a bad first sector on a low cost, then they won't complain too much about 1W in Y!

Oh yes, NM the visit to BNE has been postponed so the beer is on hold for now. It will be before year end. I will probably wait until early November as I don't want to waste too many status points on this year but going for QF 2100 points after Nov 01.

Thanks a lot to everyone. You've been really helpful...let you know about the final rute. Just one very last question though. If I purchase LOWE5 with open dates after my first intercontinental flight and part of my journey is HKG-PEK-HKG-BKK,SIN-HKG and change my plans along the way due to whatever, can i use the later ticket and go to BKK first? As in HKG-BKK,SIN-HKG-PEK-HKG as for the tickets are not dated and there is no change to sectors? Take care all.

No. You have to use the coupons in sequence even though they are not dated, so you would need topay the US$75 rerouting fee.