Guys, pls. be nice. I tried to use the search function and got lost in tons of abreviations and cryptic language. Being a Star Alliance maniac and using BA only for domestic UK and LHR-NYC I have little to none expericene with what we call the Dark Alliance. However, for a change I would like to try a First Class RTW on OW and would very much apreciate a helping hand - and you have the chance to convert me to OW. This is, what circles within my head...

1. My regular routing on *A is Europa - North America - (Australia -) Thailand - Hong Kong - Europe - South Afrika - Europe. What OW product should I concentrate my research on?
   
2. What is the best place either in Europe or in SE Asia to buy this product?
   
3. What would be the best OW FF program to put the mileage into? I am BA Gold but simply because I never thought about something else
   
4. On *A I normally start with the big circle, have a long stopover in Europe in another country as my country of origin, do a little bit of touring within Europe, have another long stopover in Europe and have my final trip down to South Africa. Does this work on OW too?
   
5. Any Sources of good information and TA's

1. OWE (the other RTW products cost roughly double cents/mile but allow using additional (non-OW) carriers).
2. In Europe, Sweden. Otherwise MRU, NRT are also cheap. However price varies for each product (there are 12 different OWE fares for each country of origin, and the fares are not linear by class/number of continents; so cheapest for AONE3# may be different origin than cheapest for AONE4 or DONE4, for example). Hence the existence of the fare spreadsheet in the sticky.
3. AAdvantage for miles; BAEC or QFF for status.
4. Maybe (your description is incomplete). OW rules prohibit re-entry to country of origin, and to continents after you leave them with a few exceptions. OWE is not mileage based, thus the rules are needed to control the mileage implicitly.
5. Stickies in this forum. Most TA's are not knowledgeable, and 99% of airline agents also do not know the rules (and often insist on wrong rules).

1. IMO, the Global Explorer. A oneworld explorer (generally referred to as a OWE or a _ONE_, wherein the first _ is A, D, or L, depending on class, and the second _ is the number of continents) is a continent based fare. Your routing would be a five continent fare (North America, Europe, Asia, Southwest Pacific, and Africa). A global explorer is more of what you are familiar with in the Star Alliance because it's distance based. The prices are generally the same as a four continent OWE, irrespective of the actual number visited. The first and biz fares allow for 34,000 miles, which your itinerary appears to fit within unless you have a lot of sidetrips. An example is FRA-LON-JFK-SYD-BKK-HKG-JNB-LON-FRA is 32000 miles. The oneworld explorer would require a five continent. In first, an AOWE5 would be 10299 euro, and in biz a DONE5 would be 6599. With the global explorer, you're within the 34,000 mile limit, so a first would be 9099 euro and a biz would be 5899 euro.

3. Aadvantage, imo. It gives you the most bang for the buck when it comes to miles redemption. Status on a RTW isn't a biggie because you get the perks by virtue of being in an upper class (assuming you will be). Otherwise, I imagine that you're not going to deviate from the Star Alliance enough when it comes to your non-RTW flying to warrant making status a primary concern.

4. Not so well. It is more restrictive on a number of levels.

Keep in mind that all the Oneworld RTW products prohibit going the routing you originally proposed due to the South Africa trip. You will learn the quirks if you decide to do the trip. Although you didn't ask, whether I would recommend deviating from the Star Alliance is really dependent upon the type of trip you're looking to take and your reasons for deviating. The RTW offerings are just different. As I said, the GlobEx is closest to the Star RTW, but it is more restrictive, especially in terms of routing and the number of stops. That's why you don't hear much about the GlobEx on this board. Most people who post have done or do the ONE, because the ONE gives a lot more bang for the buck than the Star Alliance. Since it's sector based rather than mileage based, you can get a lot more out of it. It's not that difficult to get top tier on most of the OW airlines with one OWE trip, something that just simply won't happen on Star Alliance with any RTW other than with one of the smaller carriers or possibly LH. On the other hand, the OWE is a lot more restrictive in certain respects than the Star Alliance offering. If you want to set up an RTW that you visit 15 cities in Europe, one in Asia and one in North America, IIRC, the Star Alliance lets you. None of the OW offerings will. Now that you're probably thoroughly confused.

Interesting. May I ask if it is only for that reason? I often wonder about doing the same myself, but the "loss" of so many miles and/or status points is what prevents me from going ahead with the change, even if it is, like you say, for a change.

A question to those who have done this switch: is the grass really greener on the other side of the fence?

OP's specific questions have been answered perfectly (albeit with a little Global Explorer OWE controversy) but I have one brief comment: the only reason I see for Lawyer leaving familiar territory (we don't seem to have a rude description for Star Alliance, btw) would be to take advantage of the unique unlimited-miles opportunity afforded by OWE. (Well, also to sample the excellent service and creature comforts afforded by the top OW airlines.)

I have done it three times on the Star Alliance, so I would like to know how is life with the Dark Alliance . Two more questions: Are the rules for these fares published somewhere? What are the airlines you propose to stick to? And maybe I am too stupid (iudex non calculat): How does the spreadsheet produces OW fares other than business class?

Assuming for a moment I would start in South Africa: Would this allow me several stops in Europe, before going on a great circle and returning to South Africa via Europe (or skipping this segment)?

Yes. The basic stuff is explained on this site. For the finer points refer to the sticky and post your questions here.

Nope. On your return you can only transit Europe (no stopover allowed) on the way to a few countries that do not include South Africa. (the rule is a little complex so I'm leaving it out for simplicity).

Several links to the rules (from different dates) are in the sticky; use the newest one for a newly purchased ticket (rules apply for life of the ticket, so the airlines have to keep multiple generations). All of the OW airlines are good for some purpose, but most view CX having the best F product, BA having the best J product (esp. in their NNCW), while AA has better A/D inventory availability and cheap/easy upgradability (from D to pseudo-F).

Excel must be optioned to allow macro execution on the internet; newer versions of Excel default to denying such execution (as it is also good for installing viruses), and the spreadsheet cannot compute the fares if this option is not changed.

Starting in JNB or CPT does not allow 2 entries into Europe, so you must go JNB-HKG or JNB-SYD, but can return LHR-CPT or MAD-JNB, etc. You cannot do JNB-LHR-....-LHR-JNB.

Re the spreadsheet, it's actually not macro execution that is the problem, but the auto-calc. You can force a manual recalc by pressing F9 (on a PC) or cmd= (on a Mac), or change the setting to auto-calc. I usually save them as auto-calc, but I forgot in a few versions.

To see fares other than business class, choose the appropriate class from the in-cell drop-down menu.

WBT - for the last month or two when I try to update the exchange rates I get nothing but "#N/A" in all the fare cells, all 3 alliances. Doesn't matter if I auto-calc or do it manually. Am I doing something wrong? (Macros enabled.)

Ah yes, the FX update seems to be broken again. It's because of a layout change on the website where I pull the data from. My last fix was short-lived. I need to create an update for *A fares soon anyway, so I'll attempt to fix it again then.

Thanks for this, but I had already found this very basic stuff. I am looking for the Amadeus type for fare rules which would help me (remember I am in legal business) very much to understand it. But couldn't find it on the OW webpage.

Try here. (Hope Sabre is okay.)

Maybe being in the lawyer business will help - I find the rules maddeningly poorly worded and subject to interpretation (and you will find a zillion reports here of disagreements between wise and experienced FT members and various airline staff.)

Note also that OneWorld appears to be a very loose alliance, and each carrier seems to have great leeway in applying their own rules and charges. BA generally acts as if they're not being fairly compensated by xONEx fares and is relatively uncooperative in making tickets and seats available, while AA seems to be at the other end and is quite generous in many ways (except for their few "real" first-class seats in North America).

It can be a close call whether to choose OW or *A, and I find it really depends on the places you really need/want to hit on the RTW and the class of service you decide to go for. I've done F and C on both, and neither is a hardship (as long as you avoid UA as much as possible).

I'm about to buy a RTW where I wanted to hit NRT, PEK, BKK and/or HKG, Italy, and South Africa. For optional spots, Israel would be nice.

An ex-Japan DONE4 ticket would be a great buy for such a trip. In January, I could fly NRT-BKK-HKG-JFK-BOS (where I live), then pop off for weekend trips to Aruba and San Francisco during the spring. Later in the year, I could fly to TLV via Amman, then stop in Rome, and then head won to JNB before returning to NRT via HKG. I'd be Platinum on AA by the time I got to JFK (using an AA codeshare on the CX flight), and I'd wind up with over 100k spendable miles.

Problem is, I'd prefer to fly in F. There's no F service to Amman, so I'd have to go to TLV via Heathrow, which really takes a lot of the fun out of flying up front. Also, the JNB-HKG sector is business-only at the time of year (Sept) that I'd want to fly.

So, I'm sticking with *A. I won't get to Israel, nor will I do the weekends in Aruba or San Francisco. But I will be able to fly to Florence or Bologna without having to change airports, and I will be flying in F on a bunch of good airlines: TG, SQ, LH, and LX; I'll also get to try F on Asiana. I'll fly a lot fewer miles (about 34000 instead of about 48000), but I'll get 3.0 or 3.25 redeemable LH miles for every mile flown in F.

In short, you likely won't go too far wrong either way; in fact, it's probably a good idea to see how the other half lives. SkyTeam, however, would seem to be a place to avoid, especially in F. While I'd like to try AF and Korean in F, the Skyteam RTW rules appear to charge you $100 every time you change a date or time of a reserved flight segment! Good grief.