Hi all,
I'm finishing off booking an itinerary in June, but my TA is calling a problem with the last segment. I can't see what it could be, and Mileage Monkey thinks it's OK too.

The itinerary is
SYD-JFK-SEA-DFW-ORD-MIA-DFW-SFO-LHR-SIN-HKG-BNE-("stopover" until August)-ADL-("stopover" 3 days)-PER-MEL-BNE

They say I can't have the final MEL-BNE, and I can't see what the problem is.
Aren't I allowed 2 stopovers and four segments in Australia?
I had to take the HKG-BNE as no availability to other ports in "D" class, so will arrange the initial BNE-SYD as a separate ticket, and I understand that I can end at a different point to the start, can't I?
Thanks.

From the starfiles:

Although some Federal politicians have cast doubt on this from time to time, I think Queensland & NSW have been in the same country for a hundred years or so.

Looks OK
Is D class available on day you want MEL-BNE ?
Or are they saying you must start & end in the same city ? (but is OK as in above starfile post)
Are they counting the "missing last surface segment" BNE-SYD ? (but is OK as in above starfile post)
Is it your TA or the airline (QF or ??) rejecting it ?

Try flicking it to a QF travel shop. Costs nothing to ask



And on the other matter
Nahh. Its the state politicans who think they are a country.

Is there a funny connection in there somewhere. For example you think you fly SYD-JFK but you actually fly SYD-MEL-LAX-JFK.

Otherwise I can't think of any reason why you can't book this (provided there is availability and you meet MCT).

SYD-JFK is available as a single flight number. SYD-MEL-LAX-JFK would be more than one flight number.

Of course. That still wouldn't stop a crazy TA from telling the OP he is flying SYD-JFK when in reality he is going the scenic route.

To the OP: What is the solution to your problem? Did you find the reason?

No, the routing is as listed (with QF 107 SYD-JFK as one segment).

I spoke with the TA today, who said "too many connections". I started off trying to explain "transit without stopover" vs. "stopovers" for the PER-MEL-BNE, but ended up getting that feeling that she wasn't following me. I thought of using the example "but imagine I lived in Mt Isa and had to travel ISA-BNE-SYD to start and finish my journey.."
Ended up just saying to check it directly with QF, and if they haven't figured it out by Monday, I will call QF myself to sort it.

It must be a sign of frequenting FT too much when you find yourself trying to explain subtle details of OneWorld products to people in the travel industry!

Thanks to all for the advice too.
I'll let you know what it takes to get it sorted (and then I can put an entry in the QF upgrade lottery for the QF 107 and QF10 segments!)

Do as Dave Noble indicates; it's often better to book these thengs through the AA ATW desk! (forget TA's andTA fees, The only issue is they may look to have an A transcontinental segment in the booking).

Plus you will save a lot of money this way as well.

I think maybe they're counting BNE-SYD by ground as segment #5? Even though it's legal to start in SYD and end in BNE for the overall itinerary, I bet they count a BNE-SYD segment against your total.

An update, after I checked with QF and they again confirmed it was ok, the TA still was saying it couldn't be done because of passing through BNE twice (I felt this was a misunderstanding of the "can't cross point of origin" rule).
I persisted and asked them to specifically check with QF in light of the rules.
By this stage I was starting to feel that the TA was getting her back up at my persistance, and was seriously thinking of starting over again with QF or AA directly, but for the fact that the flights I had spent time finding were held under the TA's PNRs and would have to be cancelled and started over again.
Eventually, I got a message back saying that Qantas had agreed to "waiver the rules" and book it

So, the moral of the story for me: Next time will book with AA!

But now I have that contented feeling that comes once an itinerary is finalised, and just the travel to look forward to!