Hi,
I'm thinking of doing a J global explorer from BOM>europe>us>SGN>BOM.

I have to go to Saigon for a friend's wedding; vietnam is ruled out on on OWE, but not global explorer.

Mileage isn't really a problem. but time is, and the only oneworld options i see for saigon>bom are a transfer in HKG or SYD, both of which would involve an overnight stay.

I could do same-day SGN>HGK>DEL trip, but would rather land in BOM.

As I understand it, I'm not allowed to do a surface sector (buy a o/w on vietname airlines from SGN>BKK) to pick up the BKK>BOM flight on CX.

Is there an option that I am missing?

It is not true.
HKG-SGN is valid xOWEx flight.

Surface sectors are permitted in both of xONEx and xGLOBxx.
In xGLOBxx, surface sectors are counted into your total mileage.

I hope this infor helps you.

Wasabi,
Thanks for the guidance. The OWE thread with a sticky on this forum says

"Asia - No tickets to Vietnam or Cambodia permitted."

You motivated me to look in the starfile, which reads:
146N FOR TICKETS ISSUED ON/BEFORE 30JUN05, TRAVEL NOT
147N PERMITTED ON CX BETWEEN HONG KONG AND VIETNAM.

So i guess travel to vietname is permitted on OWE (yay).

But for surface sector, it reads:
153N 4. ORIGIN-DESTINATION SURFACE PERMITTED:
154N .
155N . * WITHIN THE COUNTRY OF ORIGIN
156N . * BETWEEN USA AND CANADA
157N . * BETWEEN HKG AND CHINA
158N . * WITHIN AFRICA
159N . * WITHIN SOUTH AMERICA
160N . * BETWEEN BANGLADESH AND BKK/SIN
161N . * BETWEEN MALAYSIA AND SIN


Which seems to rule out SGN-BKK, right?

This is because SGN-HKG is operated under a JSA (Joint Services Agreement) between CX and VN and VN obviously is not a OW carrier. I think OW Explorer fares are only allowed to have revenue shared between alliance carriers (unlike Global Explorer fares) and obviously the VN/CX JSA would mean that revenue on HKG-SGN flights would get split between alliance and non-alliance carriers which is against their agreement.

Other OW JSA routes include the LON-BCN/MAD between BA and IB and MEL/SYD-LHR(via SIN, BKK and HKG) between QF and BA. I think there might even be a JSA between LA and AA but I cannot remember any details. Obviously all these JSAs are between OW carriers so there are no issues.

Sorry, I misread your original question. I failed to realize your starting point is BOM.
Wrongly, I wrote general surface sector treatment.

About Vietnam issue, HKG-SGN is operated by CX, so you can include this flight into your xONEx/xGLOBx fare.
However, HKG-HAN is operated by VN, so you can't.

There does not appear to be a rule covering Vietnam so not sure where you got that from - I just therefore assumed it was because of the CX/VN JSA.

So it would seem that you are free to pick up a CX flight from SGN through to HKG if you so desire.

Star files can be found here:

http://www.hardlink.net/~markdu/OWFi...eExplorer.html

edit: It seems that there may have been a time when the CX/VN flights on the SGN-HKG route were not allowed on a xONEx fare.