Purchasing AONE5 in Canada, originating in Chile
 

I live in the U.S. but am beginning my RTW trip in South America, which saves me about $1,100/ticket if purchased in Canada. There are more than 16 total segments, although only 15 flown segments. The ticket will therefore be paper, though not handwritten (at least that's my understanding of how it works).

Assuming I don't want to use a travel agent (partly because I'm not sure if they can "take over" my existing reservation), my understanding is that I have two options: (1) purchase in person at a Canadian ticket counter using my U.S. credit card; or (2) purchase by telephone and have them mail me the ticket PROVIDED I use a credit card with a Canadian billing address and the tickets are mailed to that address.

First, is that others' understanding? Second, do you see any problem with using a mail-forwarding service in Canada? It seems I could set this up for a nominal amount and have my credit card bills and tickets sent there and then forwarded on to me. Doing this would only cost me around $100.

It seems that this would fully comply with the requirement that my ticket be purchased in Canada, since the requirement says nothing about whether I actually reside in Canada. Thanks.

jgold,

Your information is a bit skimpy for a definitive answer, but some points to consider:
1. there is absolutely no problem in having a Canadian travel agent assume your reservation, if that is your primary concern on this option. Using a travel agent is easy, since most will accept a US credit card and FedEx the ticket to you. This seems by far the easiest route, although some agents may charge a fee.
2. Have you checked the taxes, credit card fees, and costs for the positioning ticket to get to Santiago? If the saving over buying in the US is only $1,100 these may eat up a significant portion. Or did your cost savings estimate include these costs?
3. If you buy in Canada but do not want to use a travel agent, seems simplest to merely book and price via the RTW desk in US and buy in Canada at an AA ticket counter. Depending on where you are located, flite and perhaps overnight costs may be minimal. Be sure you can change an existing US credit card to a billing address in Canada; this may vary by issuer and some may view it as a significant change impacting card validity.


Best of luck in working this out. Please keep us up to date on how this results. It seems a creative way to reduce costs.

For AONE5's, oneworld.com indicates the difference as USD1,400 (11,700 ex Chile and USD13,100 ex USA).

Fair point. I've actually been on the fence about whether to ticket this as a DONE5 or AONE5, and I accidently gave the difference between the DONE5 for USA vs. Chile. Having thought about it a bit further, I'm almost certainly going to ticket this as a DONE5, so the savings would be $1,100. I just can't rationalize an extra $3,300 for the three or four extra A segments (of which two of them would be on my final flights home)...

According to AA's RTW desk, it would in fact be difficult for an AA agent to assume the reservation. Now, part of that may have been due to the fact that I'm waitlisted on a couple of segments, but it didn't seem to be as easy a process as I'd thought it would be for a travel agent to take over the reservation. Obviously an agent could build the reservation from scratch...

Just fyi, the Canadian travel agent I did contact quoted me a price of $500/ticket. This seemed a bit high.

The cost to get to/from Santiago from New York is 60,000 AA miles/ticket + $55 taxes/ticket. When combined with the DONE5, this gives us two stopovers in South America, then a break in the USA en-route to Asia (along with six segments in the USA). We finish in South America at the end and take our mileage ticket home 11 months later.

Also, in terms of the cost savings more broadly, our plan was always to return home after South America and before going to Asia anyway. Because of the anti-backtracking rules (i.e., starting in the US, flying down to South America, then crossing to Asia with a <24 hour transfer in the US), we were planning on using a mileage ticket anyway to go home for a week, so the use of a mileage ticket at the front of the itinerary (rather than in the middle) nets out (actually, it better than nets out, because we can still explore South America at the end of the trip, before returning home on the mileage ticket).

One open question is the taxes for starting in Chile. AA has not been very forthcoming in pricing out the different tax (VAT?) implications of starting in one South American country vs. another. It's been suggested to me by another person on this board that the differences may be considerable. However, AA, for what it's worth, suggested otherwise. I'd be very happy to hear others' views...


This is an interesting point, and is part of why I posted this in the first place. The way it was explained to me is that if I buy the ticket in Canada (i.e., if I am physically at the AA Canadian counter), I can use an AMEX with a U.S. billing address. Alternatively, I can pay by telephone without going to Canada (or from the steps of the Canadian embassy perhaps ...;)), but in that case I would have to have the tickets sent to a Canadian address and the billing address would have to be in Canada. My understanding was that this was an either/or thing, not a both/and (i.e., I either had to have a Canadian billing address OR be physically in Canada at the AA ticket counter when I make the purchase). Is that understanding incorrect? Thanks much for the replies.

Also, fyi, I had checked with AMEX as to whether I could change my billing address to Canada. AMEX said they didn't care.

Zero.

Yes, but it is not going to be easy, because you must end the trip in Chile, yet once you get back to SCL that is the end of the international part of the itinerary. These restrictions are very inconvenient, because SCL is LA's main hub.

Why would AA Canada be different than other AA locations where this is routinely done (NRT, STO, CAI, MAD,...)?

I agree with your understanding. The explanation you were given sounds wrong to me.

Viajero:

Thanks for the answer re: the taxes. As I said, the goal with this routing is largely to save money, so I obviously wouldn’t want to give back all/most my savings in taxes.

Here’s the routing, just fyi:

Mileage ticket: EWR-xMIA-SCL
Visit South America Pass: SCL-CJC (one of several segments I’ll be buying with that)
DONE5: CJC-xSCL-IPC-SCL//EZE-xMIA-EWR-xDFW-OGG//HNL-NRT//KIX-BKK//DPS-HKG-LHR-MRU//NBO-xLHR-xJFK-SCL
Visit South America Pass: SCL-LIM-SCL
Return leg of mileage ticket home: SCL-xDFW-EWR

Thanks very much for the feedback. Right now, I’m trying to persuade my wife that she really, really wants to fly to Buffalo from BWI so that we can see Niagara Falls, and, oh, maybe wander over to the Toronto Airport too. If not, there’s always Plan B…

I'm with your wife; who wants to go to Niagara Falls when you can go to Iguazu. :)

When you get this ticketed kindly give us some feedback. I'd like to have some more data points to the effect that the above is not considered by AA as 3 stopovers in continent of origin.

I'll let you know. Part of the difficulty with this routing, as I'm sure you guessed, is figuring out how to include IPC on an itinerary that starts in SCL. This was the best I could come up with. But I'll let you all know once it's ticketed (presumably in a couple of weeks). My current biggest problem is that my EZE-MIA flight is on LAN Argentina (holding two seats in D). The AA EZE-MIA and AA EZE-JFK flights have no A or D availability yet. And, because this is my first international flight, I can't make ANY changes (even to carrier) once I ticket this should D on the AA flights open up later closer to departure (and after June) (at least, that's how it was explained to me). This is a real pain, because it will mean I won't make Platinum (via a challenge) until way into my trip (my only other AA legs are MIA-EZE-DFW-OGG//HNL-NRT (codeshare)).

On Iguazu over Niagra, we will ultimately visit both Iguazu and Victoria Falls on this trip, so Niagra would complete the trifecta. :)

That's great! May I suggest you do everything possible to visit them in this order: Niagara, Iguazu, Victoria. To do them in any other order will lead to disappointment, IMO.

Thanks. That actually would be the order. Niagra to purchase the ticket; Iguazu in South America; and then Victoria Falls at the end when we're in Africa (in between flying into MRU and flying out of NBO). Thanks for the feedback...

Now that the other LANs are in ow this is not quite as inconvenient as it used to be. Just be sure to avoid returning to Chile on the RTW ticket until the end (or only domestic flights left). If you want to make extra trips out of it then purchase side tickets between EZE/LIM/GYE and SCL.

I guess I'll be disappointed as I have only been to Victoria Falls. ;)

jgold

Thanks for the very comprehensive reply to the points raised. It is very useful to have actual experiences and situations to validate the options possible. Your effort in relating your experiences to date is very informative.
My only point of disagreement is with the ease of having a Canadian travel agent "take over" the booking. I have done exactly that (book in US through RTW desk and ticket by a Canadian travel agent) with absolutely no problem. Perhaps the agent may have technically canceled and rebooked, but all that was transparent to me. I received exactly what I had booked. Perhaps it was something unique to your situation that prompted the suggestion of difficulty.
Do I take it that your final decision is to purchase the ticket in Canada?, hence the visit to niagra Falls?
Could you update us as to how this works out, in terms of ease, time, etc. May be a good moneysaver.
Sounds like a wonderful trip. Really like the idea of seeing the world's great falls in one journey.
Regards
Rens

I'll let you know how it goes. The itinerary has been set, and I've cleared my waitlists for EZE-MIA on AA (which means I can qualify for Platinum early on in the trip via the challenge), and the ticket's been rated at 8,500 CDS, which is (sadly) about $8,500 USD. My originally planned routing for the DONE5, when it began in the U.S., was pricing at around $11,000, so it's a pretty big savings (although it was a slightly different itinerary).

Right now, I'm seeing if I can persuade my wife to go to Niagra Falls for a night in the next month...

One point I'll just note is that AA is very flexible with its reward tickets (which we're using to start off/finish the trip). AA permits free date/time (but not carrier) changes, and also permits an upgrade from coach to business without paying a monetary fee, notwithstanding that the carrier, routing and airports may change (e.g., starting in JFK rather than EWR). Unfortunately, for reasons I don't know, LAN doesn't seem to have any award availability from NYC or MIA to SCL in January 2009. I was hoping to set an alert with ExpertFlyer in case award availability opened up on that LAN route, but that doesn't seem to be an option (whereas I was able to set up an alert with AA). Does KVS permit award alerts for LAN? Thanks again to everyone.

I see Jan '09 LA award availability from MIA and JFK to SCL as wide open, both economy and biz.
 

And yet, everytime I call and ask about LA (or AA) business class award availability on Jan. 8, 2009 from JFK-SCL or from MIA-SCL (there actually doesn't appear to be a direct flight from NYC-SCL that day), I'm told there's none. (There is D availability, but apparently not award availability.) I am holding coach seats on the EWR-xMIA-SCL flights for 1/8, so at least that's something. Thanks for checking though...

There is a direct from JFK. In biz, you have one seat available on 1/9 and two on 1/10 and 1/7. Nothing is available on 1/8.

From Miami, you have two seats available on the direct on 1/7. Nothing on 1/8 or 1/9. You have one seat available on all three days.

:Well, that's a little different, your previous post says "in January", so my response was framed thinking you had at least some flexibility. :)

If it must be on the 8th then you have two biz seats on Lan Peru via LIM.

Edited to add: on second thoughts, I think that is not going to work as an All Partner Award; but, it brings the question of the choice of award, meaning that, if all else fails, maybe you should consider a oneworld award. There is the hassle of the second airline, but that can be worked out, and the cost in miles should be the same, maybe even 10K less.

A very reasonable assumption, but unfortunately I wasn't being as clear as I should have been. While we could probably pick a different departure day if we HAD to (e.g., if there wasn't even a coach seat available), given that we can get from NYC-xMIA-SCL, albeit in coach, I think we'll stick with that departure.

On the LIM connection, I actually had reserved seats on that, and was later told that the reservation was improper because Lima and Santiago are in different regions of South America, and I wasn't allowed to touch down in both regions. But maybe it's worth arguing with them further over that...

Don't; they are right. I was actually editing my post as you were posting this.

Calamity!

So, I took your advice, and began looking into a OneWorld Award, which actually seemed to work very well (JFK-GRU (JL)//SCL-LIM (LA)-JFK (LP)). But then a very, very big problem occurred to me and the agent--with an award ticket, as distinct from a $$ ticket, all travel must be completed within one year of the date of issue. Presumably this rule applies regardless of whether it’s a OW award or an All-Partners Award. Here, our RTW trip would commence Jan. 2009, and would finish in Oct. 2009. Assuming I purchase both the DONE5 and the mileage ticket to/from South America today, there would be no problem with respect to the DONE5. But for the mileage ticket, I think I wouldn’t be able to extend my return date any time past April 17, 2009 (i.e., one year from today), at which time I would be half-way across the world and in the middle of my DONE ticket. Given that, I cannot see a way to use a mileage ticket to get me to and from South America, unless I’m willing to wait until Nov. 2008 to ticket, which may be a bit of a challenge from the standpoint of finding award availability for Jan. 2009. Any solution? Thanks.

None, I'm afraid. The one year from date of issue validity is firm and there are no workarounds.

Well, I guess that brings me to Plan E: Use a 60,000 Milesaver award to fly one-way from NYC to SCL on Jan. 8, 2009. Since buying a one-way ticket (or even a round-trip ticket) from NYC-SCL is about $1,000 - $1,200, it still works out to a $.02 redemption rate, and I'll also still save about $2,000 on each DONE5 b/c I'm starting in South America (the taxes actually appear more favorable when purchased in Chile than in the U.S.). (fyi, I need to fly into Chile on a OW carrier so that I can purchase a Visit South America Pass.) The downside of this plan is that at the end of the trip, I'll be "stranded" in SCL, but maybe I can buy a OW Award in early 2009, which will let me do a second RTW and finish in the US (with the origin/destination being the one allowed open leg).

one-way mileage awards
 

I don't know if you have any BA miles, but they permit one-way awards at half the RT mileage...without regard to which OW airline you're using....

Yes indeed! That actually works great, and I've now cancelled my AA reservation (60,000 one-way), and switched to the same flight for 20,000 BA miles. (Although I don't have any BA miles--and didn't even have a BA account until an hour ago--I do have about 100,000 Starwood points, which means this only costs me 35,000 SPG points, including the 5,000 bonus for transferring points.) 40,000 BA points (i.e., 35,000 SPG points) vs. 120,000 AA points. Thanks!

IPC is easy to get to via BA miles....
 

In regard to your earlier comment re difficulty of IPC itineraries, my wife and I used BA miles to fly JFK - SCL - IPC - SCL - JFK on LAN earlier this year. BA charged us 80,000 BA miles per person for travel in the new LAN business class, including SCL stopovers in both directions. We found the LAN business class product to be superior in virtually every regard.....

That's a fair approach. My point was more that it's hard to work in IPC if you're starting a *ONE* in South America (and trying to see other parts of South America) because of the two stopover rule. For whatever reason, it's harder for me to justify buying/redeeming miles for a separate ticket to IPC than it is contorting my RTW ticket to fit it in. Illogical, I know...