AONE4 ex-MRU | so far, so good
 

Just wanted to thank everyone on this board. You continue to make travelling an exciting experience.

And booking my first AONE4 is going well: so far, so good.

I've been to Mauritius a couple of times on holiday, and already have a LHR-MRU trip booked for January 2009. It's a beautiful island with lovely people.

I decided to take advantage of the trip to start a RTW trip there.

I emailed the BA office in Port Louis, Mauritius ([email protected]) just yesterday afternoon.

I asked to book two adult first class Oneworld round-the-world tickets, starting and ending in Maurtius. I also provided the relevant BA Exec Club membership numbers.

I was specific about the dates and times of the first three flights. The other 13 segments remain open.
This afternoon (less than 24 hours after my original email) I received an email confirming the itinerary, along with booking reference and personal note from XXXXXX.

The booking also appears on MMB on ba.com.

Will keep you posted about what happens next!

(BTW, I would thoroughly recommend staying at La Maison D'été. It's just brilliant for a quiet get-away.

Good to hear. XXXXXX helped me with my AONE6 ex-MRU and was very helpful and very responsive.

I found the MRU office very helpful and was all set to book a RTW in 1st when I realized about half of my flights were in business class so I opted to buy a Biz RTW out of Joburg for about $3,000 less.

I noticed only 6 of your flights are in genuine International First Class.

Here's the price...
 

Sent a reminder to XXXXXX yesterday because I'd not heard anything. This morning I received confirmation of price. It's much more than I thought:

The fare is MUR 188000 (as expected). But there are a further MUR 54063 for taxes and fees, taking it to a total of MUR 242063. That's £4630 which is a little steep.

However, I really want to fly first class long haul (and you're right there are 6 international first class flights: MRU-LHR-DXB-LHR-LAX; JFK-SYD-JNB).

From what I can understand, if you want to go business class, it's a better deal getting the ticket in South Africa. It's interesting to note that business to first in SA is +30% whereas business to first in MRU is +17%.

Alerting my credit card company

I phoned my credit card company yesterday (AMEX) to tell them that a rather large charge would be coming their way, rather my way. I did this because I wanted the ticket to go through seamlessly MRU-end.

Confirming my intention to buy with BA office

I phoned the BA office in Port Louis, gave my CC details over the phone. XXXXXX asked me to confirm via email, just giving part of the CC number. Within a matter of minutes, she'd started to book the ticket.

Thing was, there was a slight change in price. I received an email stating that while the fare was still MUR 188000, the taxes/fees had risen to MUR 55442 (they were originally MUR 54063). I don't know why this happened, but gave the go-ahead anyway.

I am now the proud owner of a great RTW ticket in first (and business).

Making changes to open segments

Quick question, though, that I can't easily find on this board: most of my e-ticket is open. Who do call to fix dates/times for open segments? I seem to remember a specific RTW desk being mentioned. Can't I just call the regular BAEC phone number now the ticket has been issued?

Sparkster

I thought that e-tickets could not have open segments. Has this changed recently?

I guess so... never done this before. I've got the email and ticket numbers. My booking is sitting happily in MMB on ba.com.


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THIS DOCUMENT IS AUTOMATICALLY GENERATED.
PLEASE DO NOT RESPOND TO THIS MAIL.

ELECTRONIC TICKET
PASSENGER ITINERARY RECEIPT
BRITISH AIRWAYS MRU DATE : 15 MAY 2008
C/O IRELAND BLYTH LTD AGENT: XXXX
IBL HOUSE - CAUDAN NAME: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
MAURITIUS FQTV: XXXXXXXX
IATA : 524 80142
TELEPHONE: 202 8000

ISSUING AIRLINE : BRITISH AIRWAYS
TICKET NUMBER : ETKT 125 XXXXXXXXXX-XX

BOOKING REF :1A/XXXXXX,BA/NOSYNC

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and whY ;)

Congratulations. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have been on my AONE ex MRU I started in Feb.

At this price, it does not appear that MRU is now the cheapest place to start AONEx... South Africa looks like now the cheapest.

Yes, this has been the case for a few months due to currency rate fluctuations. I had four AONEs ending in MRU and so "purchased" two one-way MRU-JNBs using BA bonus miles and then had another two AONEs issued ex-JNB, all done in time to beat the June 1 deadline for paper tickets. Phew! No more for some time, at which point the prices will have risen inexorably.