My wife and I are going to purchase a LONE4 ticket from either here (Taiwan) or from London. Regardless of where we purchase it, we see that we're only allowed 2 stopovers in the continent of origin but are still allowed 4 flight segments. Is that correct? We've been reading the sicky's and this site: http://members.shaw.ca/fewmiles/oneworld/owe-fares.html

Our first continent itinerary (continent of origin) is:
LHR � CAI (BA) Stopover #1
CAI � BCN (Iberia) transit
BCN � HEL (Finnair) Stopover #2
HEL � MAD (Finnair) transit
MAD � GRU (Iberia) inter-continental flight to our second continent...

Will this first part work okay?

Correct ... 4 flights, but only 2 stopovers allowed in continent of origin.

FYI, transit period can be up to 24 hrs, so if you work it right you could spend a day in BCN and / or MAD ... if you wanted to?

Enjoy!

Instead of going from MAD - GRU, I'll go from MAD - CCS on Iberia.

I just finished my 2nd and 3rd Continent itineraries:

2nd Continent (South America)
CCS � LIM (Lan Peru)
LIM � EZE (Lan Peru)
EZE � GRU (BA)
GRU � SCL (Lan)
SCL � AKL (Lan) = inter-continental leg

3rd Continent (South Pacific)
Overland to CHC (Christchurch)
CHC � SYD
SYD � NOU (Noumea, New Caledonia)
NOU � BNE (Brisbane)
BNE � PER (Perth)
PER � DPS (Denpasar � Bali) or CGK (Jakarta)

Does this work? I'm working on my last continent now... Asia.

Okay, finished. My 4th and last continent is Asia:

Overland to BKK
BKK - HKG
HKG � ICN
ICN � TPE
TPE � NRT
NRT � LHR

The cost savings of CAI vs LHR make it worth buying a single to CAI (or a return and "forgetting" the return).

The rest of your route is OK for Europe and you gain another stopover & sector!

I'm sorry, but I don't really understand your post about the cost savings of CAI vs LHR. We're interested in including CAI in our trip because it's part of the "Europe" continent for Oneworld.

Have a look at the pricing sticky at the top of the forum. You'll see how the pricing for the UK vs CAI is quite different, even for an LONE4 in the high season. If you're going LHR-CAI as part of the trip, you could save some money and gain a stopover. Study the CAI DONE prices and you may even tempted to go up a class......

LONE4 (from the pricing sticky)
United Kingdom high �1,519
United Kingdom low �1,319
Egypt �1,142

Although starting in CAI is a good idea in my opinion, one can easily get a return between the UK and Spain and start the trip, BCN-CAI. That will save some money without a lot of hassle.

Leaving from CAI does sound interesting since it saves us a combined total of over $800Cnd from the UK and $1,200Cnd from here (Taiwan)... but We would still need to pay our own way from Latvia to Cairo in order to buy this ticket. I just did a quick search for oneway tickets from LHR - CAI and the cheapest I could find is about $450Cnd which means we end up paying more then if we bought it in the UK.

If we did decide to start in CAI, how do we purchase it? Over the phone or internet from here and have a travel agency in CAI mail the ticket to us? Or go there in person to a few different travel agencies hoping they speak English and don't rip us off? I'm still not sure exactly the best way to purchase this tickets.

Forgot to ask... what's the high season or low season for purchasing these tickets? I think I saw it was before Aug 15 for high season and after the 15th for low season.. is that right?

There is much discussion of this already in this forum. You can buy from AA or BA in CAI. Please do a search in this forum using the keywords EMECO and SOBHI and you will find lots of info.

I think I heard elsewhere that any overland sectors I do on my own will count towards the total allowable number of flights. Is this true?! For example.. I fly from Sydney - Jakarta, then I go overland from there to Bangkok and continue my RTW flights from Bangkok.

I've read the rules on www.oneworld.com and the starfiles and don't see any mention of overland sectors.

Thanks

No. On the Global Explorer RTW product (mileage-based) the distance between open-jaw points is included in the total allowable mileage. The Oneworld Explorer product has no such rule; its main restrictions on surface segments are that you can't go transoceanic on the surface (i.e. the Queen Mary, unless you go B2B.)

Another example of the oneworld web site being almost useless. Every thing on it says to refer to your airline for specific details. To answer your question, the segment based Oneworld Explorer do NOT include any surface segments, only flight segments. The mileage based Gblobal Explorer does count the mileage of any surface segments which is why the ONE's is better than GLOB's.

Thanks guys for the quick reply! It makes sense now.

Can you shed some light on my other post here?

We'll be going overland from here to Latvia. Flying down to CAI and purchasing a ticket from there sounds more expensive then flying to LHR and purchasing one from there. Is this correct?