My wife and I just purchased our Oneworld Explorer RTW tickets and these are the miles they have calculated out for us:

Qantas Airways: 1800 miles
Cathay Pacific: 11358 miles
Finnair: 5451 miles
Iberia: 11752 miles
LAN Airlines: 4664 miles (12019 miles incl. back to Syd)
LAN Peru: 2070 miles

We're not using the last flight back to Sydney from Santiago, since it'll be cheaper to purchase a couple flights from South America back home to Canada. Do we still get points since we have that last Santiago - Sydney flight booked?

Anyways, should we just join 1 miles plan out of the above alliance members or should we go ahead and join all of them since they're free, I think?

Thanks!

Just join one program as far more useful - both in terms of earning enough for awards (small number of miles scattered in many programs is useless) and also to have best chance of earning some status.

Given you are based in Canada I expect AA would be best to go for.

You wont get miles for SCL-SYD if you dont fly it.

Miles earned will depend on class of travel.

Thanks, but why would I join AA if I don't have a single flight with them?

Based in Canada you will have more opportunities for earning on AA (promos, credit card, hotel, rental car, etc) than on other programs.

All OW flights can be credited to any OW program. So you would get miles from all these flights on AA.

Er, depending on what class this is in... yes if business or first, but if it's Economy (L) then earning miles is trickier.

What about www.asiamiles.com? It looks like they cover all the same airlines as Oneworld. I'm not wanting AA or a North American airline like that because we're going to continue working abroad. Our next move will be after this RTW trip to France.

Should we just stick to Asia Miles? It looks like we can get miles from all of our flights onto asia miles.

Technically failing to fly one of the Atlantic/Pacific ocean crossings invalidates the xONEx fare and it can be recalculated as point to point and charged back to your TA (if purchased through a TA). In practice this rarely happens unless the airlines have you pegged for some other abuse; but it is not a good idea to plan on throwing away segments on this fare type, particularly the trans-oceanic segments, as it is against the conditions of carriage and does get monitored. It is particularly ironic that you are tying up not one but *2* of the impossible to get SCL-SYD seats and not intending to use them ... maybe the hardest to get, most desirable and sought after seats in the Oneworld network. Sadly they will go unused as LA doesn't overbook this flight (or so I've been told; usually it is weight limited so they just put on extra cargo when pax no-show).

So we will probably be charged extra at the end of our RTW trip if we don't use the last couple flights and head home our own way?!

How much more should we expect to pay as a "fine"?

The flights back to Canada from Aus/NZ are just too expensive.. a lot more so then a flight from Venezuala.

All of the FF plans allow redeeming on all of the Oneworld airlines (and some others) so it doesn't matter which country you are in as to which FF plan you use. There are small nuances to this, and it gets very complicated, but broadly all plans are the same for redemption in terms of where and whom you can fly. They differ widely in the cost of the award and in the earning potential. A mile credited to Asiamiles is not worth the same as a mile credited to QFF or to AAdvantage or BAEC. This creates some arbitraging possibilities if you want to maximize the benefit. Similarly the earning potential isn't the same. For the number of miles you get from a single RTW trip it really doesn't matter much. For larger numbers of miles, the various plans differ by over 100%. Unfortunately the optimal plan differs on how you earn miles and how you use miles. For example Asiamiles lets you upgrade on CX and is the only way to do so; while AAdvantage miles give roughly twice the travel on awards as Asiamiles. So for upgrades on some airlines/routes Asiamiles is by far the best; while for free travel on other routes Aadvantage is. Every plan has some good and bad points. Most people find Aadvantage is the best plan for them; in my case it is worth at least 50% more than the 2nd best OW plan (but I use miles in unconventional ways, for example many one-way trips). So the bottom line is you cannot pick the best plan unless you also pick how you will use the miles (and hope the plan rules don't change too much by then).

In practice it isn't charged back, and you can always argue that you couldn't get a date change due to lack of availability before the ticket expired (1 year validity). However the potential is there, and much more likely if you bought through a Travel Agent rather than directly from the airline. The fare difference depends on your routing and class, but worst case routing in F it is about USD 30,000, typical is about USD 10,000. Many thousands no matter what....you'll have to decide if breaking a ticket rule that is very clear and explicit -- you must fly across both Atlantic and Pacific ocean for this fare to be valid -- is worth the risk. Today you can fly SYD-LAX for about USD 800 which can't be much more than from Venezuela (esp. with the USD 200 departure tax that Venezuela instituted recently for US and maybe Canadian flights).

Thousands of dollars for a fine?! Now I wish I hadn't had paid a deposit on our tickets. I hope I can get out of them now. It's with a travel agent.

I just thought that if we were paying for the flights crossing both oceans, that it would be okay that we're not physically there for one of them..

We're flying Economy class all the way. Our tickets were about $3000Cnd per person. We don't even have enough money in our banks combined to pay for one of the fines!

I can't find the USD$200 departure tax for flights out of Venezuela - the US. I found a flight on www.aeropostal.com (VH506) CCS - MIA for $163.25USD including taxes (which were $48.25). I also found a flight with Americawest MIA - YYC (my home) for $278USD including taxes. The least expensive flight routing I can find from SYD - YYC is at least $1400USD whereas CCS - YYC is $441USD.

as Number 6 stated above The combined point to point fare for your 19 segments will be much more than the 20 segment LONE* fare

Number_6,
I've searched through all the information on the oneworld alliance website as well as the sticky in this forum and all the tiny fine print conditions and rules for this Oneworld Explorer ticket. The only related point is that you must only cross the Atlantic and Pacific oceans once. No where have I found anything saying that "if you do not cross both oceans, we will split up your ticket and charge you the point to point fares for all your 20 flights".

Sorry, but I'm just wondering where you found your information on this. There is nothing that I can find that says what may happen if we do not follow all of the fare conditions.

One more question.. where did you find the information about the $200USD departure tax for Venezuela? The flight I found only has just over $40USD tax.

Thanks for the help, guys.

The rules are in the conditions of carriage, but it is up to your TA as they are the ones who will have the chargeback from the airline (if it happens). You can ask them what they will do if it happens (presumably they have your credit card number or other details). Again the chance of it happening is low, but it can and does happen sometimes, particularly with a high-profile leg.
The USD200 departure tax is new and is for J/F; for Y it is about USD 30. We don't have much discussion on FT of non-F/J travel, unless stated otherwise most comments apply to premium classes. Don't know the effective date of that tax (I expect never to fly to CCS, for various reasons), but it caught my eye because of the amount and the turbulent background. Several other countries in SA have even more stunning taxes (I think Ecuador has something like a 15% "luxury" tax on J/F tickets which applies to award tickets based on the full fare, so you get over USD 1000 in taxes for the free tickets originating in that country).

I've searched through the Oneworld conditions of carriage but still have yet to find anything relating to this. I also looked through the terms on LAN Airlines website for the SCL - SYD flight and can't find anything. I never knew this was a high-profile flight.

Looks like if we go back up to Taipei after returning to Sydney, it will just cost us an extra $200Cnd per person to get back to Calgary then leaving from CCS and risking the chargeback. That and we may need to give up visiting Venezuela. I forgot why I was wanting to go there anyway..