What is the Country of Sale
 

I have just tried this, and while I got through the entire process on the itinerary, selected 'Book Now' when the One World site directed me to Qantas but then timed out. It was a four continent RTW starting in New Zealand..

It gave me an error code which I will call on

What I am really curious to know is if I am in Los Angeles, with a U.S. credit card, but want to use this tool to purchase a ticket originating in New Zealand will the system try to charge me the New Zealand fare or the the higher U.S. DONE4 fare as the U.S. is considered the point of sale? Obviously I want to pay the New Zealand fare as it is about 2K less...

Any input and actual experience would be appreciated

I would expect you will be charged in the currency of the originating country. (As well as the fare for that country).

What about after-ticketing changes? Are they supported by this tool? If not, I assume that changes would be handled in the same way as any other RTW tickets are booked. If so, then this is another reason to be concerned about the issuing carrier. Although the RTW rules state that you can use any OW carrier to make any change, it's been well documented here that not all carriers are willing to do this in all circumstances, and there are widely varying degrees of ease of doing so and general RTW competence and knowledge between carriers.

For both the fuel surcharge reason and the change/re-issue reason, I'd certainly prefer to have RTW tickets issued by AA. It seems to me that the US-based AA RTW desk is among the most efficient at handling these kinds of tickets.

Certainly it's best to use the booking/ticketing carrier to make such changes.

Since AA do not seem to charge any service fees for this for ("001- ticket stock") it another reason to ensure you book though AA.

Yes, but if you try to purchase this and pay with a card using a billing address other than the country of origin, the pricing in the country of origin will be compared to the price in the country of sale and the higher will apply

So first objective is to find a friend who lives in India, South Korea and/or Japan and convince them to receive some of your credit card mail for a while?

This is simply not true. The Country of Sale is something entirely different from the billing address of the credit card (which has no relevance to the question at all); it is also entirely different from the Country of Issue of the card (which also has no relevance).

It seems clear in the online tool that the Country of Sale is regarded as the Country of Origin, for any credit card.

Christep

I remember you had said a few months agao you buy RTW's starting in Taiwan but you live in Hong Kong...Have you puchased one yet using the on-line tool? And if so what currency were you billed in?

No I haven't. But I would expect my credit card to billed in TWD at the Taiwan price; when I last bought tickets from CX Taiwan (over the phone, for later pick up on a same plane turnround at TPE) they were billed to the credit card in TWD.

I only do one or at most two a year these days, and most recently bought in Manila, ex-Manila.

I have noticed that if I click on the RTW booking tool on the QF site, it comes up with the following URL address

http://oneworldrtw.innosked.com/default.aspx?Origin=QF

I wanted to see if I could access an AA booking tool at any time, but haven't been able to try one. For some reason, I can't change the "QF" in the URL to say "AA" or "BA" or "CX" etc. Does anyone know of how to get around this....as if I want to book an xONEx....I don't want to pay QF's ridiculous fuel fines!!!

Two ways:

1. Book your first segment on an AA Marketed flight (AA flight Number) using the oneworld version of the tool.
   e.g. AA7311 MEL-SYD or AA7315 MEL-LAX
2. Book through AA directly using the AA ATW desk on +1 800 247 3247
   *Here's a thread on Australian Frequent Flyer with some useful information on how to do this: Detail on using the AA ATW Desk

AFAIK, QF is the only oneworld airline that has created its own 'branded' version of the online tool. There's no need to use their version - just go to the oneworld site and start from there.

As serfty points out, when you come to actually book the ticket, it will be ticketed by the marketing carrier of the first segment (and this should be true even if you start on the QF site, unless QF has done something to circumvent that) so make sure QF is not the marketing carrier of your first flight.

QF provided the IT resource/skills to develop the tool, hence the QF branded tool...

Thanks for all the valuable advice guys. When I get around to booking a xONEx, I will just use AA for a segment such as MEL-SYD. This seems to cut the amount of taxes/surcharges by atleast $1300 according to prices quoted on the QF website, and probably more than this. Once again, thank you so much. For the record, QF website tool does circumvent other systems, and makes you book through QF. For example, I experimented with a AONE3 ex-ICN, and it quoted me the same price (albeit in KRW) for a AONE4 ex-Aust......

Pure fantasy.

What is your factual basis for making this [false] assertion?