Transoceanic rule- and MRU
 

In setting up an intinerary ex-MRU, I have received the following message from the BA office there.

"AS PER FARE RULES THE SURFACE BETWEEN CMB AND NRT
IS NOT PERMITTED TAKING IN CONSIDERATION THE FACT THAT CMB
IS IN THE INDIAN OCEAN AND NRT IN PACIFIC OCEAN."

Question: I know of the trans-atlantic and trans-pacific rules but did not know of this constraint. Is this actually in violation of the rules? (Incidentally, I was planning to use some segments of another RTW between NRT and CMB).

Also for general planning information ex-MRU, note that the JNB-MRU does not yet seem bookable as per the message today:
"PLEASE NOTE THAT THE SECTOR JNB/MRU ON BA6399 IS NOT YET
PUBLISHED IN OUR SYSTEM"

The comment about CMB and NRT is rubbish. Ask them to check with their ticketing desk.

BA scrubbed the September launch of JNB-MRU and are now evidently planning on it to start in November/December.

The MRU message is one more reason to think one should just mentally increase the price of any BA-sold xONEx by USD125, have it issued with a dead-simple-no-brainer itinerary, then change it when one can deal with more experienced airline reps. Otherwise you're talking with people who have no experience with one of their airline's most complicated products making judgements based on their reading of the rules.

Even a simple itinerary may be a problem. I deliberately chose a departure date when it showed (and is still showing) two "A" seats available on MRU-LHR (using Expert Flyer) but two attempts to have BA-MRU book it have been fruitless-- although we are waitlisted. (Also ITA also shows two A seats as being bookable). If BA-MRU can't book them, who can?

Try calling a different BA office (e.g. North America, or UK) :)

What I meant was to set up an itinerary with a good outgoing flight (MRU-LHR is your only option for the time being; use the date with your two good A seats) but with the rest of the itinerary somwhat fictitious (eg MRU-LHR-JFK-LAX-HKG-JNB, whatever) and then change it to what you really want (paying the $125 reissue fee) once somebody who knows what they're doing can handle it. Open-date the segments past LHR if you want to make it ultra easy. Note you will also pay any tax/fuel surcharge differential when you have the ticket reissued, but no more than you would have paid if the full "real" itinerary had been booked at the outset.

I started the process some weeks ago by calling the BA North American desk and got the standard response (reported here on various occasions) "If we were to do it for you, even if you started in Mauritius, we would have to charge you the ex-North American fare". Not helpful.

I experienced this type of problem when booking my last xONEx; ExpertFlyer was showing D4 on QF9 MEL-LHR but CX in CMB could not book it; they could not even get QF to release any on request! In the end I went SYD-LHR with a cheap flight MEL-SYD.

I have been advised that in quite a few cases, fare bucket availabity can vary depending opon the region it is beeing booked from. In most cases this is not an issue, but in my case above, and it seems, your's, it becomes a problem. FWIW, I believe ExpertFlyer shows availability from a North American "viewpoint".

Re your comments Gardyloo and Serfty.
What really surprised me was that BA-MRU was not able to book even the first segment starting in MRU-- it can't get much more direct than that! And it would have been nice if there is no "A" inventory for the date I suggested (even though it is showing on Expert Flyer) if they had suggested some proximate alternatives. It may be that EF is not reliable as to available inventory- especially for "exotic" locations but in the past I have found it to be quite reliable.

Damn! I was just planning a trip ex MRU and that news just sank it. :mad: I had my hopes up because I just updated my OW timetable and it now shows the JNB-MRU flights in October.

BTW: Anyone know if I can do an xONEWCx (Circle Indian Ocean) from MRU? The star file with prices I have doesn't list an MRU price - but it is old.

Alternatively could you PM me the BA contact in MRU so that I can enquire directly. TIA :)

edited to add:
I see that the earliest date for which KVS shows the JNB-MRU-JNB flights is 16 December.

I'm an outsider to the subject of the various CRS's and how they're linked, but "poorly" seems to be a reasonable adjective. For example, I wanted to use LA801 between AKL and SYD in A. The AONE4 was issued by Cathay, the flight was showing A4 on EF, but Cathay couldn't get seats despite messaging Lan a couple of times. So I called Lan from North America. Their agent firstly had to be convinced that they even flew that segment - she clearly couldn't even see it in her CRS. When I insisted, she asked a supervisor, and eventually came back with the seats. So the fact that a BA outpost can't see seats on a BA flight might not be so astonishing.

The BA contact in MRU is the publicly listed TravelShop. I haven't dealt with them but did some PM chat with an FT'er who was in the finals of getting an ONE issued. Apparently no real problem except that the MRU station isn't self-sufficient in ONE matters and will be looking to their rate desk in the UK for answers.

Is the matter of "ask us for help and we'll price your ticket ex-NA" dealt with by calling BA when the Canadian rtw desk is closed (but UK is open)?

The phone number for BA-Mauritius is 230-202-8000. In the dozen or so times I have called, except for one call it has been busy or they can't hear me. If you can't get through, PM me for an e-mail contact there. They have been very good about responding to e-mails promptly.

Got through first time and got the e-mail address. Same generic format as I was using for HRE. (Really can't see what the big secret is. :( It's not like it's somebody's personal mail adddress.)

Trouble is now the mail keeps bouncing back. Same with HRE. Both generate error messages from Postmaster at ba.com. Phoned HRE and they said customers were also complaining about not receiving e-mail. Is something wrong with the whole mail system at BA?

Has anyone successfully ticketed an AONEx in MRU through BA? If so, is it possible to do a quick turnaround collecting the ticket at the airport?

Thanks

The Travelshop there should be able to directly answer that question for you.

I'm in the final stage of ticketing a AONE5 through BA MRU, all my segments are confirmed, just waiting for the calculation of taxes.
They answer my emails within 24 hours, but like mentioned by JohnAx they need London to answer all the questions and it's also London who calculates the price.

I'm also planning to do a quick turnaround and this is the answer BA MRU gave me: "CONCERNING YOUR TICKET CAN YOU ADVISE IF YOU ARE ARRIVING THE SAME DAY.IF YES ONE OF OUR BA REPRESENTATIVE WILL GIVE YOU THE TICKET UPON ARRIVAL."

If everythings works out I'll start my AONE5 on 10/02, so hope i can confirm this soon.

Having just started our AONE4 last month ex-MRU, I can confirm that LHR-MRU-LHR on the same aircraft is perfectly doable, although it's a shame when you catch a glimpse of all that tantalizing coastline and beaches out of the aircraft window.

We arrived just before 7am and wandered through to the immigration hall. Just before the immigration desks, on the right hand side, is the transfer desk. It was unmanned when we arrived - I spoke to one of the handling agents and within a few minutes, her supervisor arrived with a thick wad of tickets, itineraries, invitations to the lounge and boarding passes for the return sector to LHR and even our onward journey from there. She even escorted us through security back into the departures area. (Now that's what I call service!) ^

All this took less than 15 minutes, so we had a good hour and a half before boarding for the flight back to LHR, so we were free to wander through the duty-free shops offering a choice selection of stuffed dodos.

So, perfectly doable as a double-header but definitely worth stopping off for a few days, IMHO!

I hope also to book an AONE5 out of Mauritius. Would you mind sending me (or posting) the email address mentioned for the TravelShop (I assume this means the British Airways Travel Shop in Mauritius).

QG, I guess you used BA to get to Mauritius from London to start your trip. Did you just buy a return ticket, or use award? It seems just looking briefly at ba.com that a single is more expensive than a return (I'm looking at end of October). I'm hoping to hop over from London, AONE5 out of MRU, then head to South America via London. Presumably when I end the RTW, I will have to come back to Mauritius (and use the return part of my ticket?), or I guess it would be easier to fly back to London from Morocco if I'm paying for it myself?

Thanks for your advice all..

The proper thing to do, at the end of your trip, is to begin the next one. It's a lot like eating popcorn or potato chips - one just gives you the appetite for the next.

Talking about jumping from one RTW to another: in a couple of weeks, my wife and I will be finishing an AONE5 in Cairo and will begin the next one in Mauritius. We found that there were very reasonably priced F and J fares on Emirates from CAI to MRU.

I've just changed my existing RTW, which began in CAI, to end in DOH so as to do a further AONE3 from Qatar. I could end this in BAH or DOH.

Do you happen to know if Emirates also do reasonably priced F or J ONE-WAY from BAH or DOH to MRU? I thought of using a UA award on Emirates, but UA don't appear to allow one-way use in the same manner as BA. It would mean throwing away the return leg of the UA award.

If you don't mind me asking, how much was the F/J fare from CAI to MRU? And what is the best time of year to go to MRU, avoiding extreme heat and rain/storms?

We used QF points and got WT+ award tickets one-way to MRU. A word of caution with one-way tickets, though. They normally require you to show an onward/return ticket and we were asked about these at check in. I explained that we were to pick up our tickets at MRU, and could only produce our emailed itinerary which, fortunately, had our ticket nos.

Good luck and happy travels :)

The cost of my CAI-MRU ticket in First on Emirates (EK924-EK701) is US$1096 ($981 plus taxes) and has the advantage of a layover of only 90 minutes at DXB. I didn't consider ending closer to MRU because after rushing through Egypt at the start of the ticket a year ago, we wanted to spend time on a Nile cruise this time around.

Your question about cost to MRU originating in BAH or DOH led me to check ITA to see how much I might have saved by ending there instead. However, for a randomly picked day (Oct. 31) the First-class fare from either BAH or DOH is about $300 more than from CAI- i.e. both are about $1420-- and seem to have layovers of about 20 hours at DXB. Interesting, while flights from all these three origins obviously pass through DXB. The cost for DXB-MRU itself is $1753!!

As for origins, note that even though you can do an AONE3 from Qatar but not from MRU, the AONE4 from MRU is about $1100 cheaper than the AONE3 from Qatar.

Because this is my first time in Mauritius, sorry I can't help on when to go from personal experience but I have read that summer (Dec-March) can be hot and humid and this is also cyclone season. Sep-Oct appear to be the driest months and also the more moderate temperatures.

EK J fares one-way to MRU tend to be around USD750 from the less prosperous Middle-East countries. Their web site is pretty good for pricing and booking. The biggest problem imo is the little island of Mauritius isn't an economic or tourist powerhouse and thus has quite poor air service, making connections through there somewhat boorish. Iirc connections through DXB were painfully inconvenient, the flight left at around 3 AM, and arrived an hour after the BA departure.