Looking at an AONE4 itinerary, was quoted EUR7099 by a TA in ROM. Is this due to the latest round of price increases/fuel surcharges?

This is nowhere near the EUR5622 quoted in WearyBizTrvlr's RTW Fares spreadsheet, nor the USD 7980 quoted in the Oneworld STAR file for Romania.

If the price is indeed correct, are the price increases similar across the board? Is ex-ROM still the cheapest starting point ex-Europe?

Would appreciate your thoughts.

Thanks and regards,

QG

Fuel surcharges are additional to that price (I'm sure), so they have nothing to do with the increase. There appears to be a lot of confusion but it seems all of the cheap originations in Europe have gone up in price substantially, to even things out. There is still some variance, and it is different for each xONEx combination, but it looks like Sweden is one of the best choices now.

The latest fares posted by kanebear in the OWE Star File Update thread had the AONE4 from Romania at $7099. However, there has been a lot of speculation since, that the currency for Romania (and Bulgaria) is incorrect and should be � not $. If it was $, some of those RTW fares would have come down with the last price increase. See that discussion here.

Thanks for the replies - and thanks to kanebear and wearybiztrvlr for their hard work too! That last thread was most informative. It looks like ex-ROM may still be one of the cheaper options. The great USD/EUR debate continues, although as MiamiBeach suggests, pricing in EUR looks like the winner..

QG

I had to have my DONE3 ticketed in EURO.
The price was EUR 4.099 instead of USD 4.099. I could only get BA ticket stock and BA quoted the EURO price.

Still cheaper than the rest of Europe...

I am doing a DONE5 from Turkey , which has cost me 6800 EURO.
How long will Europe be the cheapest place to buy RTW.
ELO

Depends on the RTW. At the moment Europe isn't the cheapest place to buy premium cabin (A/D)ONEs. Assuming the USD figures for Romania and Bulgaria are typos, Sri Lanka, Iran, Pakistan and various African countries are cheaper. Oz, New Zealand and the UK remain lowest for LONEx itineraries (which don't get a lot of attention here on FT but I suspect represent the majority of sales of Oneworld Explorer tickets.)

But "cheapest" is such a relative term. How much will it cost you to get to the "cheap" origination point? (Not just airfare or award miles, but also hotel nights, visas, wire transfer or credit card conversion fees, etc.) Is it worth it relative to your itinerary? For example, if you start in Romania you can't fly LHR-DXB-LHR because you're only allowed 2 flights between London and the "longhaul Europe" cities, and Romania is one of the countries on the list. On the other hand, if you start in Frankfurt, you'll pay more for the ticket, but you can travel intercontinentally to Asia, North America, South America, or Oz right off the bat. You can save all four European segments for the end of the trip, rather than "burning" coupons to get to an intercontinental gateway.

Or maybe having a TA or an airline office that knows what they're doing is worth something. Recent experience with BA in some of their smaller stations suggests this might be an important issue.

Plus the new members (with their route structures) might shuffle the deck big time. Japan is currently priced (A/D) comparably to some of the lower-cost European origination points. With JL's enormous route structure, and competition over the Pacific and from Europe to Japan, maybe Tokyo is the next "hot" origin point.

Too many factors to generalize. One person's cheap is anothers PITA.

Good summary and reminder, Gardyloo.

I just noticed today that Tal Aviation, who serve as AA's and CX's GSA in several cities, states on its website, www.talaviation.com, that it's opening an office in Romania "in the first half of 2006."

In the past, Tal has been willing to issue OWEs in WAW; they weren't willing to issue in IST when I asked them last year, the differences being ... I dunno. However if (a) they open an office in Romania, (b) they're willing to issue xONExs, and (c) they adhere to AA's interpretation of the star file fare table, well, then....

I've shot off an email to the linked email address asking about the status of the office and their willingness to plate tix on AA stock. We'll see how they reply.

Sorry to be the wet blanket, but the recent thread pointing out that the EUR interpretation is consistent with other European and Middle East originations, and the USD interpretation was a price *decrease* (unheard of), has a strong ring of truth. The star file has probably been amended by now (I wish our good samaritans would be good more often!)