Hi,

The BA office in MRU has quoted a price of $5700 + taxes for a AONE4

I am planning the following route : (tr) = transit

MRU-JNB (tr) -CPT -LHR (tr) - HKG - PVG - HKG - NRT - HKG - JFK - KIN - IAH- JFK - SFO - DFW - JFK - LHR - KBP - MAD - BRU - ABJ (end)

I am based in New York so will probably complete the European segment towards spring/summer. The point is also to maximise the number of true "F" segments.

Any suggestions/questions ?

Thanks

GK

Welcome to FT!

You're entering Europe twice. Even though the first time is a transit to get from CPT to HKG, it's still a violation of the ONE rules AFAIK.

You could reroute CPT-JNB/x-HKG instead. (JNB-HKG on CX does have F seasonally, during the Southern summer.)

BRU-ABJ has no OW direct service, plus you have an invalid re-entry in Europe.

No JFK-KIN or KIN-IAH (IAH-KIN is AA1723, but no KIN-IAH) or IAH-JFK so you'll need to re-jigger the NA part substantially.

Michael

I explicitly raised this point regarding entering LHR twice with the BA agents in MRU over the phone (230 202 8000 is their number) and they said it was possible to enter once for transit and the other time for actual entry into the continent. And besides London is the only real gateway out of MRU. Of course, it has not been ticketed yet.

And Micheal, thanks for the info on US segments. I want to touch jamaica..others are not really important.. what do you recommend ?

GK

Try and get it ticketed asap then! If they send the routing to London for approval prior to ticketing, it'll certainly get rejected.

Also if by some chance they do ticket this, you might still have problems if you take the ticket over to any OW ticket desk to make changes at a later stage.

AA1735, from LGA.

Unless a rule change is imminent (adding MRU to the list of allowed African cities). More likely it is a mistake; and yes, if ticketed, you won't be able to get a reissue done most of the time (or rather, any reissue will then remove all of your Europe segments). It is rather hard to take advantage of OWE mistakes.

The LGA-KIN is a through flight with one stop - okay with one coupon. However there's no direct flight from KIN back to NYC, although there is another stopping flight to PHL. Otherwise KIN is via MIA.

For the N. America transcon in F it's hard not to recommend CX's flight between YVR and JFK. If you want to get to SFO and depending on the season, you could connect to QF's 744 (with FC) SFO-YVR leg. A possible N. America routing might then be HKG-JFK//LGA-KIN-MIA-DFW-SFO-YVR-JFK (ending in NYC) or HKG-JFK//LGA-KIN-MIA-JFK-YVR-SFO-YVR if you want to end up in YVR for BA's London flight and don't need to include Texas. Other riffs possible.

As for the double Europe entry issue, the rules are pretty explicit - only on a <24h transit to/from Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. Not Mauritius, not SA.

If you want to end up in west Africa, note that ABJ only seems to be served by SN, which is not a OW airline thus ineligible. Looks like the closest you could get would be ACC from London. ACC would be eligible for the second Europe entry, so if you did your Europe segments at the beginning, you could go Africa - Europe - Asia - N. America - xLHR - ACC within the rules. Doing Kiev etc at the end would not be kosher.

If by any chance you're using the RTW planning "tool" (rhymes with "fool") from oneworld.com, don't.

And welcome to FT!

In May 2006 paddingtonbear wrote

"Just returned from MRU a few weeks ago

I purchased am AONE directly from BA- i called them ahead of my arrival and they were fantatstic. Speak with Crsytal on + 230 202 8000

Alternatively, email them on [email protected]

interestingly, have done my initial flight, MRU-LHR, i thne continue RTW to US, Asia, Australi, then to SA, and oddly, threw in JNB-LHR-MRU in as well to get me to finish in MRU...."

So it would appear that they allowed a second visit to LHR (in transit). Of course, this was before the BA/Comair MRU-JNB was announced, currently to begin at least once a week from Nov 16, 06. Who knows (probably not BA!) if they'll allow the LHR in transit for the other six days of the week.

Yes, I spoke with Christelle too. So it looks like you transited Europe twice without having it as a regular continent.

Wow, six months ago all I ever read on FT was how snotty BA was about ONE - North America (and other stations) wouldn't even make bookings if you planned to start elsewhere, took forever to price itins, insisted that the ex-Eastern Europe fares published in dollars were really euros (and apparently made up ONE-WC fare codes for them), and they seemingly put every obstacle they could in the path of the would-be bargain-hunter. I was convinced that the corporation had decided they hated the xONEx fare, and not being able to talk the other OW members into changing it drastically, were trying to take their baseball home and spoil the game. Now all of a sudden they're bending over backwards to be nice. It can't be MRU - I doubt they can issue an OWE that's not been blessed by the folks up north. What gives? Just a few tix slipped by the censors? (And I suppose the OP is gonna tell us that the "problem" with A availability has vanished as well...?)

I can confirm that BA-MRU is receving approval for the outbound and inbound passes through LHR (one a stopover and the other a transit) as that is what I have ticketed from them and began with flying MRU-LHR last week, with the final segment ticketed as LHR-MRU. I too wonder if this will continue to be allowed when the Comair MRU-JNB begins operation. To avoid any subsequent problem with reissues (which I will need to do in the spring), I plan to have it done by BA.

Is it possible to create a trip using only 2 coupons from JFK/LGA to KIN/MBJ (roundtrip) with any combination ?

Yes, but as an open-jaw: LGA-KIN//MBJ-JFK, or as a roundtrip JFK-MBJ-JFK with KIN as a sidetrip.