need pointers on rtw in j
 

i'm thinking about dfw-lax-mel-christchurch-jnb-lhr-dfw for wife & me. will be in mel a week, nz 3-4 days, jnb 10-12 days..someone had a fare list that i saw a year os so ago....not particularly interested in more segments because the trip will be long enough anyway....is this a 3 continent trip?...april is best guess for travel... you're advice is requested & appreciated...thanks

edit to add....well, the stickys tell me that it is 3 continents, the price in us is $7k or so...i doubt that we can get to swaziland from jnb or from kruger int'l to victoria falls on this ticket....

4 continents - N America, SW Pacific, Africa, Europe.

There are BA flights from JNB to VFA; drive or fly outside the RTW from JNB to Kruger/Swaziland.

Although your profile says AA EXP, if you're not tied to oneworld, you might look at the Star Alliance 29,000 mile RTW - might need some fiddling with your itin but if originating in the US you might save $800 or so per ticket.

The OWE would be much cheaper if you could originate in E. Europe or Cairo and do the trip starting there, maybe in reverse.

Until South African joins *A (and thus can be included in *A RTW) there is a major detour through Asia between Australia and Africa.

thanks for the *A tip. but, for a number of reasons, including living in dallas, we will use 1world..we will visit friends in swazi, and join a tour at kruger see wildlife, go to the falls & back to jnb from there.

anyone have a suggestion on routing from chc to jnb? probably to syd and?

thanks for help so far.

IIRC Qantas flights to South Africa leave from SYD only (from PER it is a codeshare operated by South African).

So yes CHC-SYD-JNB.

And that would have to be LGW-DFW. Unless you wanted to use AA67 which is a continuing flight via ORD.

I'd recommend BA's LGW-DFW over AA's for J.

You've got a fair few segments spare.

Didnt see the bit about visiting MEL. Could also do CHC-MEL-SYD-JNB all on QF (and spare sectors to go somewhere else in Australia or NZ).

If you dont want to cross the Tasman twice there are QF flights LAX-AKL and AKL-CHC.

Note no J for domestic in NZ.

Note that the LAX-AKL is in two class config, so don't get excited if you get 1B like I did.

AKL-SYD has very good service on the 763. I understand that CHC-Australia on JetConnect is a bit less stellar.

If you cross the Tasman twice, you'll also have two ruddy departure fees from NZ.

Yes watch out for JetConnect trans tasman. You can easily identify by doing a dummy booking or even just checking the timetable at www.qantas.com - they show up as operated by a partner (green square).

Crossing the Tasman twice (eg MEL-CHC-SYD) will only incur 1 departure fee from NZ.

Jetconnect actually has a very good J service. Good food, wine, and 1 FA per J pax (as the usual load is 1 J pax per flight!). It is on an old 737 but quite acceptable. Yes, the QF 763s SYD-AKL are better, but I wouldn't fly MEL-SYD-AKL-CHC instead of MEL-CHC just for that (and I do fly LAX-HKG-SYD instead of LAX-SYD but for good reason).

The SYD-JNB flight is quite good once again (was going downhill for a while). Note that you can't use QF's PER-JNB flight as this is a codeshare with SA. Very nice 4 continent trip. Remember the OWE ends when you return to your city of origin, sometimes it is worth keeping the ticket going so you can add more NA flights later.

#_6...returning to some other city [like aus] w/2nd ticket to/from dfw, could save a trip[s] for later which end in dfw?....i think i read that open jaws are allowed, so we could perhaps do dfw-xxx-dfw to end the trip? i'll reread the stickys, now that i have enough info to be dangerous & outsmart myself! thanks.

while i'm asking, are 2 flight connections on a continent counted as 2 segments? i think yes.

Each flight number is a segment. In general, you would have 3 segments to have 2 connections. AA123 x AA345 x AA578 where x is the connection.

If it is the same flight number (a 'direct' flight) then it is one segment, otherwise they count as two segments. Example: AA1859 (EWR-ORD-PHX) counts as one segment.

They wouldn't earn AAdvantage miles. Maybe BA LON MEX then AA MEX DFW?

here's where i am now.

aus-lax,aa-akl,qf-chc,qf-akl,qf-mel,qf-syd.qf-jnb, qf-open jaw-vfa-jnb,ba-lhr.ba-

ord/jfk/mia/lax.aa-dfw.aa-open ticket-ot-ot[aus].

15 segments.

ot probably bdl in june.

wn/aa to/from aus.

shouldn't violate the open jaw rule [i hope] jnb-vfa...it's the same distance each way...except i remember that that the oj must be less than the shortest leg.

thanks to all.... i will wait for a while to hear from people in swazi & mel before going on.