OK, I have friends who are planning an DONE4 originating in HNL. They plan on doing this trip over 6 months and in conjunction with their move from Hawaii back to the mainland US, so at the end of their DONE4 they will not be returning to HNL. They wanted to fly from HNL to the mainland, visit some friends and then continue on to Asia/SWP, and then Europe, and then back to their new home on mainland US.

I spoke with the AA ATW desk and they said this was not allowed. The answers given had an air of uncertainty and were not that convincing so I decided to float a question (in a minute) to the FT experts. Anyway the AA ATW desk said that after visiting friends in the US they would then have to continue on to Europe, then Asia/SWP, and then they could fly back to mainland US from Asia/SWP. I do not see where this would be any different than what they are currently planning other than being done in a different order. This would result in their having to adjust their dates, for seasonal considerations. The other option for them according to the AA ATW desk was to depart westbound from HNL to Asia/SWP and continue then to Europe followed by mainland US.

Now the question. Does anyone have any personal experience they can share with regards to departing on a xONEx out of HNL? Any other insights would be appreciated too.

From the FAQs:
"Also, in North America only one segment is permitted between the continental US and Hawaii"

But there is also the rule:
"It is a round the world ticket, so you must cross both the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean, but can only do so once for each ocean."

For departures from Hawaii ending elsewhere in the US mainland, it is not possible to fulfill the later rule specified above as best I can tell.

Despite the obvious geography I was not aware that the HNL-mainland leg was treated as transoceanic, any more than crossing the Tasman is, or flying to the Canary Islands or Madeira. It certainly isn't counted as an intercontinental segment when one flies mainland-HNL-SYD, just as another US domestic flight. Plainly your friends wouldn't be able to transit Hawaii later in the route, but if it were me I'd try phoning the RTW desk again.

I agree with Gardyloo. What your friends are proposing looks valid to me.

They are allowed to take 2 stopovers on the originating continent, so that would as I interpret the above make 3 segments, so HNL-Mainland is one segment, then max 2 more segments before international flight to Asia/SWP. If they use all these segments they will still have some segments left in NA, as xONEx allows 6 segments in NA, but again maximum 3 flights from international flight to final destination (which can be anywhere in NA, as you only need to finish your trip on the same continent).
Bear in mind though, that the flight to a continent counts as a segment on that continent, for example I will do MAD-SCL-GRU//GIG-SCL-IPC-SCL
My TA and BA who was the ticketing agency counted this to 5 segments,
MAD-SCL 1
SCL-GRU 2
GIG-SCL 3
SCL-IPC 4
IPC-SCL 5
so I had to pay $150 for that extra segment.

[Edit: It seems as the intercontinental segments do not count and that BA just were incompetent, I will call them tomorrow to get it sorted.]

Sorry to break it to you, but your TA got it wrong. The intercontinental segments (MAD-SCL) are not counted in the continent segments.

Please if you have some information about this (ie. webpage or something), please post so that I can argue with BA about them screwing up. If possible reply in this thread to avoid double postings: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showt...=485147&page=3

Thx

Gardyloo answered your question about the rules on the other thread. Loo for the rule that says, "FREE FLIGHT SEGMENTS WITHIN EACH CONTINENT ARE LIMITED AS FOLLOWS:" and then lists all the segment limitations. The key word is "within", which by definition limits the restriction to only the flights inside the individual continents.

Thank you for your help, looks as I will talk to BA tomorrow, let's continue this in the other thread.

Gardyloo and Christep,

Thank you for your responses. I forwarded to my HI friends this link and have also urged them to register so they can take advantage of the FT resource. I also advised them to do their research first, use the search tool, and then if they can't find what they are looking for to ask questions so they would not have the over zealous jumping down their throat to do a search.

I also sent them the AA ATW desk phone number so they can follow-up and call AA ATW desk themselves. Once they get some kind of definitive answer I, or they, will post it here for the benefit of others in a similar situation in the future.