ReelChief

Draft AONE5 Plan.

Earlier this week, I first discovered this valuable site and posted my first message asking for general information on a planned RTW trip including AU and Southern Africa. Number_6, SanDiego1K. Gardyloo, Unterwegs,and others provided extremely helpful advice. Over the past few days, my wife and I have spent most of our time trying to follow up on the suggestions- - immersing ourselves in the archives of FlyerTalk, consulting ExpertFlyer, SeatGuru, etc.. Below is our current AONE5 plan, and we would be grateful for any critique and further advice.

Background: We are primarily interested in visiting all the destinations listed (in some we will be staying 6 or more weeks), rather than collecting mileage per se (but are not averse to doing the latter). We haven’t yet completely decided whether it is worthwhile to us to do it as A versus D. We plan to leave in mid-October. We will use FF points (on AC) or pay extra to get from YVR to CAI.

Our AONE5 Draft Plan:
CAI-LHR(transit)-CPT-(surface: CPT-WDH)
WDH-JNB-SYD-(surface: SYD-MEL)
MEL-PER-SYD
SYD-SCL-PUQ-SCL-IPC-SCL-EZE
EZE-JFK-DFW-YVR-JFK
JFK-LHR-LED-LHR-CAI.


Some specific questions are:
(a) is this itinerary a valid one?
(b) after leaving Cairo, we immediately want to get to CPT. Is the transit through LHR the best way of doing this? (hopefully, it does not count as a formal visit in EU prohibiting subsequent re-entry).
(c) given the 5 SA segments, I assume that one can pay for the extra one?
(d) are the surface trips from CPT to WDH and SYD-MEL OK?.
(e) for extra travel within Australia, can one get a special price on a Qantas pass (given that one is using QF to enter and leave the country) which would seem better than paying for extra segments that would still be subject to the restriction on a single cross country flight?
(f) are the EUR segments at the end valid (it being the continent of origin)?
(g) are there any obviously bad segments (ie, we should travel them outside the RTW plan and replace them with something else instead)?
(h) of the OW airlines, we are currently only members of the CX FF plan, should we join and get credit on another?
(i) can someone confirm that the current costs for a AONE5 and DONE5 ex-CAI are 46270 and 33350 Egyptian pounds?

Based on reading the various posts, if this is a valid itinerary it would seem that we would want to contact the AA RTW desk and then contact Emeco in Cairo. Right? The initial advice was so helpful, and I hope it is not imposing too much to ask these further questions. Thanks.

Darren

(a) No. You can go via london to/from Cairo or St. Petes but not both.
(b) If the EU question is for a visa, then only you and your embassy will know that. For the purposes of the fare, it's fine. Only BA goes from Europe to Capetown. Iberia goes to Joburg.
(c) Yes. Also check into the price of buying the segment seperately.
(d) Yes.
(e) You can get the visit australia, but if you are just surfacing the one segment then it's not worth it. Fares on the MEL-SYD route (and BNE-SYD) are rather cheap. Fares to Perth run about US$300 if I remember correctly.
(f) Yes, you can use them at the beginning or the end.
(g) Bad in the sense of your question, maybe just the SCL-EZE or SCL-PUQ. Check the prices on lan.com (cheaper than on expedia). Bad in the sense of the fare, the LED segments.
(h) Do a search. Was discussed recently.
(i) Been no reports to the contrary.

number_6

Darren covered your questions quite thoroughly. Your routing is fine however does have some dangers in terms of vulnerability to schedule change or seat availability if you are doing this over an extended period of time and/or need to change dates. Most of your long-haul A flights are *very hard* to get, for example LHR-CPT is sometimes sold out for weeks in F never mind A! It all depends on the season (LHR-JNB is much easier to get though and is a viable alternative; however this only affects your difficulty in getting the initial booking as presumably you won't be changing the date of this flight). JNB-SYD currently offers F but in the past has not; in any case it has sub-standard QF service compared to the LAX and LHR flights. Still nice, and the seats are the same, but rather a shame that it isn't QF at its best. SYD-SCL has only 5 seats in the F cabin and operates 4 times a week, so you are competing for 20 seats per week. One conference or board meeting and they are all gone. With no alternatives except the much poorer J service on this flight. EZE-JFK is operated by AA (2 class 763) so it does not have F. And JFK-LHR is a 6 hour flight making it impossible to sleep trans-Atlantic. None of these issues are important enough to change your plans but you need to be aware of these considerations and factor them in when making routing decisions or deciding between A/D. If you want complete flexibility in dates you have to choose routes with frequent service. My own choice would be to buy AONE6 and go SYD-HKG-YVR-...-SCL-LAX-LHR... (you are allowed a 2nd NA transit from SA to Europe; but then the SA part has to be after the NA segments). You can also fly BA EZE-LHR or LAN SCL-FRA via MAD.

SLF

I can confirm an AONE3 in June for EGP35400 - which is shown in the same published fares douments as the A/D ONE5 prices you mention. Don't forget to budget 10% or so extra for taxes.

You can also use BA Cairo, as your initial sectors are on BA. PM me if you need an email address, otherwise see ba.com for phone/fax numbers. I've found them nothing but helpful from initial xONEx setup, to ticketing and then even subsequent changes.

ReelChief

Thanks, Darren, for addressing each of my questions and providing useful advice on them. Thanks, number_6, for your comments. Your points about availability, timing, and quality of service, especially with regard to South America (along with Darren’s similar comments) has caused me to decide to drop SA on this trip and to replace it with Asia (stimulated by your HKG comment). Our current plan is CAI-LHR-CPT-(surface: CPT-WDH)-WDH-JNB-SYD-CHC-MEL-PER-HKG-DPS-HKG-NRT-HKG-LAX-DFW-YVR-JFK-LAX-LHR-BCN-CAI. However, before a final decisions, we will do more checking about quality of A class service on each segment and any availability issues. Ropmot141: it was useful having your confirmation about the CAI price and I may take you up on your contact offer when things become set. Thanks.

christep

That doesn't work because you have two transcons in N America: YVR-JFK and JFK-LAX.

And you could save segments by flying direct to DPS from Australia, or get a better CX F experience by flying from SYD or MEL to HKG, not PER, which is two class with regional J only on CX.

ReelChief

I appreciate you noting the dual transcon-I'll make the second through DFW where I wanted to stop anyway. And will obtain the needed extra segment by following your suggestion about MEL-HKG. Thanks.

ReelChief

I’ve spent many hours (this does get addictive doesn’t it), getting my itinerary in shape and trying to optimize credits/miles on BA-EC (of which I’m not yet a member). Using ONE validator, I’m confident that my AONE5 itinerary is valid (sorry to bother you last week with questions about that), so my remaining questions mostly involve BA credits. There seem to be a number of BA experts here, but tell me if I should post this on the BA forum instead.
Here is the plan:
Prior to the RTW, I’ll purchase a separate ticket and fly economy: YVR-LHR(on BA)-CAI(on BA).
My AONE5 itinerary is:
Segments 1-3: CAI-LHR(on BA)-CPT(on BA), JNB-SYD (Thus at this stage: 4 BA flights and 660points=Silver?)
Segments: 4-14: BNE-CHC-SYD(codeshared BA)-MEL(codeshared BA)-SYD(codeshared BA)-BKK(on BA)-HKG-DPS-HKG-BOM-HKG-LAX,
Separate ticket: LAX-DFW(on AA)
Segment 15-17: DFW-YVR (Thus at this stage: 4 more BA flights assuming code shared count and 1500 points post-Silver=Gold?)-JFK-DFW.
Return part of separate ticket: DFW-LAX (on AA)
Segments 18-19: LAX-LHR(on BA)-CAI(on BA). End of AONE5.
Then using the return part of the separately purchased initial ticket: CAI-LHR(on BA)-YVR(on BA). Thus 2100 points and 4 BA segments after reaching Gold.

I have the following questions:
I assume that the code shared BA/QF segments (CHC-SYD-MEL-SYD) will count toward the required BA 4 segments to reach gold status? Otherwise it seems hard to get BA segments in SWP/Asia/NA.
Does having 4 more BA segments after Gold do anything for me in terms of extension of the Gold status?
I assume I can buy the fifth Asia segment (I had to remove one of them to run the Validator)?
Any suggestion for the unused segment?

Final comment: Over the past week, I’ve spent more than 40 hours on FT. The amount of very helpful information is amazing. I feel that I have learned a lot. (A week ago, my message above would have been incomprehensible to me).

Mwenenzi

Why BA-EC? If you are a not a member of BA-EC you should consider joining the AA program. You will get status quicker and the miles earn to burn ratio is more favourable. Do the AA Plat challenge to get AA Plat quickly (see AA forum).

number_6

You cannot join BAEC now until you fly on a qualifying fare; almost certainly YVR-LHR-CAI will not qualify and cannot be credited to BAEC (unless you are paying USD 4000 or thereabouts for that ticket). So your first BAEC credited flight might be CAI-LHR and you will not have 4 BA flights when you qualify for silver; in the past BAEC has been sticky about that, and may throw away all of your subsequent tier points, not crediting them towards Gold, until you do get your 4 BA flight segments (and codeshares do count). Maybe flying 2 BA segments CPT-JNB-CPT or something like that is your best solution. Otherwise you lose credit for the long JNB-SYD sector. As for extra BA sectors after you reach Gold, they are worth precisely nothing. Finally purchasing the 5th sector in Asia is an option, but might not be cost effective (something like USD 500 in A and USD 150 in L, haven't bothered to check the current pricing). MEL-SYD is usually very cheap and readily available as a separate ticket.

number_6

Not true for status, for F fares BAEC earns status quicker than AAdvantage. And is worth more for someone based in YVR. If this is AONE5 is all the flying for the year it really doesn't matter; otherwise AA and BA are very different plans, presume the advantages have been duly weighed. If I was limited to only 1 plan probably would choose BAEC today (instead I have QF and AA with CX Diamond being likely next year, but that is the hardest one to earn by flying). The AAdvantage awards are generally cheaper than BAEC awards, but it varies by specific award, however AA can be half the price and has roughly the same availability.

ReelChief

[QUOTE=number_6]You cannot join BAEC now until you fly on a qualifying fare; almost certainly YVR-LHR-CAI will not qualify and cannot be credited to BAEC (unless you are paying USD 4000 or thereabouts for that ticket).


On Travelocity, for example, I get a fare of US$1511 for the dates (approx 9 months apart) that I am considering --it is for BA 84/155-BA154/87. Is your point that the class being quoted is too cut-rate to qualify? Is there any way on Travelocity or other sites to tell the class that is being quoted?
BTW even on BA's own site, I get a WT+ quote of CA$2600. Are there WT+ fares that are "qualifying" and those that are not? How can one tell- even on the BA site?

JimmyTheJock

Unless of course you purchase a fully refundable BA ticket...use that to subsequently join BAEC...then cancel the ticket for a refund.

Gardyloo

If it's BAEC you want then you should look at a WT+ "T" fare ex-SEA rather than ex-YVR. Generally WT+ rides on the Seattle flights are considerably cheaper than on the YVR-originating ones. Taxes and demand, I presume.

You can tell when a fare on BA is a qualifying one when you book it through BA.com; you will get a prompt on the confirmation screen that tells you it's a qualifying EC fare. Generally WT+ "T" bookings (not "W", the high-priced ones) are competitive with economy booking classes that would also qualify, except WT+ is more comfortable. All WT+ paid flights are EC-qualifying. Most booking engines like Expedia don't offer premium coach ticketing options, so one is left with pathetic BA.com. Use the "premium economy - cheapest" option when booking.

I thought about going for BA EC Gold on our current DONE4, but I couldn't justify it when I looked at our travel patterns. AA's plan is just too generous given AS EQM/Pts for all our west coast flying, as well as points for BA transatlantic if we just drive a couple of hours north and are prepared to pay for WT+ instead of WT-, which is no contest.

ReelChief

Thanks for these comment, Gardyloo. I'm happy to go from SEA but doing a search on BA, for YVR-LHR-CAI I still get the WT+ price of CA$2600 but for WT+ with SEA-LHR-CAI a price of US$3700 comes up (using Oct2005 and June 2006 dates in both cases)! So I guess in this case the demand is reversed.
I tried to check out your point about looking at the BA confirmation screen but it seems to come after the payment screen so was reluctant to go that far-- didn't want to accidentally hit an irreversible "purchase" button.
I do have a question too on your last point about going for BA-Gold. Since I will be travelling with my wife, would it make sense for one of us to do that while the other did the AA Plat Chal (both of which should be attainable in our AONE5)? I suppose someone has discussed pros and cons but I've been unable to find it in my searches.