I am currently arranging a Global explorer ticket and part of the routing is SYD-SCL on LA. The flight itself LA800 flies SYD-AKL-SCL as a single flight number

I have held the flight as SYD-SCL which shows up on a mileage calculator as being approximately 7060 miles. When AA calculate the mileage on this sector they are coming up with a value of 7355 which is the summation of SYD-AKL and AKL-SCL

I would have expected that the lower mileage would have been the value that should have been calculated; can anyone confirm which is the correct calculation

Dave

Distance should be calculated as the great circle distance between city pairs on the itinerary. If the sector booked SYD-SCL then the distance should be calculated as SYD-SCL.

I expect this is a fault of the AA computer system and you could ask them to check the mileage for QF25 and QF175 BNE-LAX (with QF25 being flown as BNE-AKL-LAX and QF175 non-stop). If they are both reported as 7166 miles or thereabouts, you can point out the error of their system.

Qantas most certainly calculate between ticketed points and not via intermediate non-ticketed points.

I don't know the answer, but I did call the AA RTW desk once to ask precisely this question, and got precisely the same answer Dave Noble did; that for the Global Explorer - as opposed to some other oneworld products (like Circle Pacific or OW flight awards) - the distance is calculated per segments flown, not city pairs. I double-checked that answer with them, pointing out the different treatment compared with CirPac, and he confirmed that yes, it was different. I see no governing rule in the Starfile, but perhaps some of the TAs out there with access to all the files can help us out.

I did take it quite a bit further within AA and the response after the person investigated it is that according to them the distance for SYD-SCL is defined to be the 7355 miles as far as ticketing goes, but do agree that the geographic distance, as would apply to mileage accrual, is 7060. It was annoying since it moved the trip to being 29k rather than 26k.

I did also check the distance for the flight with QF reservations and they also quote it as being 7355 miles

Dave

That is really crazy to calculte in different ways for fare rules and mileage awarded. I would be very interested to see what they calculate for QF25 vs QF175 BNE-LAX.

.del.

My understanding (which may be totally flawed) is that the TPM (ticketed point mileage) which is the mileage IATA uses when assessing whether a trip comes within the MPM (maximum permitted mileage) for a particular itinerary is assessed at the minimum actual flight distance for the route.

So the SYD-LHR mileage for ticketing calculations is not the GCD (great circle distance) between Sydney and London but the combination of the distances of the shortest route by sectors eg SYD-HKG-LHR or SYD-SIN-LHR or whichever it might be. If there are non-stop flights between BNE and LAX (or they have existed at some point) then the TPM will be the direct GCD. But if there have never been direct flights then the TPM will be the combination of the shortest sector combination that exists (? has existed) whether that be BNE-SYD-LAX or BNE-AKL-LAX.

The TPM is actually something that can change. When the 747-400 brought in the reality of flying non-stop SYD-JNB the TPM dropped from the sum of the sectors SYD-PER and PER-JNB to the GCD SYD-JNB.

So getting back to the original point of the TPM for the SYD-SCL flight because no airline flies (or ever has flown) that route non-stop, the TPM used in calculating itinerary distances will be the shortest combination of sectors on that route ie SYD-AKL-SCL.

Be thankful that LAN Chile didn't stick with its original South Pacific routing and charge you SYD-AKL-PPT-IPC-SCL

When I discussed it with the fares department after the fares agent had researched the situation did seem to be basically be what 3544quebec said in that SYD-AKL-SCL is the shortest flyable distance and as such is the IATA listed distance for the toute

Dave

Ahh, the old days. That 707 route included (back in the 70's) hotel in PPT for one night, transfers, dinner and show, and in IPC a full tour of the island, all free. And, when coming from OZ, with the Chilean coast in sight, near the end of the final IPC-SCL segment, lots of applause, cheers, one or two singing the Chilean National Anthem and, inevitably, more than a few misty eyes.

Not wishing to open up any wounds but I would have thought that in the 70's there would have been more misty-eyed Chileans singing the Canci�n Nacional flying in the other direction wondering if they were ever going to see their coastline again.