i guess this question is somewhat not to be asked and the answer seems obvious but just to make sure:we are just talking about a south africa xONEx fare hike here, right?
i am to finally book my first LONE4 ex LHR by the middle of next week but i won't be affected, will i?

So this means that they have had quite a few completed/approved OWE itineraries queued to them to ticket relative to their normal business. What is their normal threshold? 5/week? and now they have gone to 15/week? That is not a real big increase.

I appreciate your insight and heads up on this and I hope I'm just being ignorant to a future increase. But all the historical pieces are not falling into place quite yet. Again, I hope I am wrong as I'm a few weeks shy of ready to ticket my next OWE.

If you use a credit card, you will be charged in ZAR. It will be converted to your home currency when the transaction is processed by Visa/MC/Amex which can be several weeks later. I had once received a charge over one month later. The exchange rate one month later may or may not be close to what it is now. @:-) You lock in the fare in ZAR by purchasing now, but you cannot lock in the exchange rate unless you pay cash.

My experience purchasing earlier this year from MindPearl, using a US Visa card, was that there was only one day difference between charge date & post date. Of course, Visa take their 1% currency conversion fee, but that's actually a bargain compared with, say, Swiss banks!

Guess we will all see in Nov 1. (given the first seems to be the usual date for these changes).
Wonder if we will also see a Nth American reduction, given it is now the most expensive point. Australia is also rapidly heading towards the cheaper end of the table.

does anyone have the CC authorization form that mindpearl uses? The rate desk keeps cancelling one of my wife's segments as double booked, and have had to send it back for repricing THREE times now :( the ZAR is strengthened over 10% the past few days and I want to get all my info to them.

bah.. at this point its not worth it. i still dont have my tickets and the currency sweet spot is gone.

More to the point, perhaps, is that Mindpearl has to fill it out before they send it to you, inserting both your PNR code and the total fare and taxes in ZAR. I don't think that a blank form will do you much good.

Well I finally have ticket numbers but it's just been a screwup from the getgo. I'd made the mistake of both calling the RTW desk and sending mindpeal my itin via email, so my itin got double booked. One of my wifes segments kept getting cancelled. Then I forget the passport photo, then my credit card gets declined. So it's a comedy of errors. and now the ZAR is < 10.

Commiserations!

But I'm also rather relieved that our poor brave little rand has fearlessly clawed its way back to single digits. And to think that only a year or so ago it was at 7 to the USD.

It's certainly still a good deal! ^ But just was frustrating this week, heh. It's only my 2nd RTW booking, the previous one was done in person in Cairo.

I think at today's exchange rates Korea is closing the gap in many categories (a few highlighted.) Of course Korea also offers a 3-continent option.

Newby
 

I'm new to the forum and getting a little lost w/ all the acronyms but my wife and I are planning a RTW trip and w/ this post and the currency falling wondering if I need to speed up and buy tickets now. I'm unsure how I go about booking a ticket from Korea though and what most of the acronyms are saying... what is mindpearl? Thanks for the help:confused:

Welcome to FT (flyertalk), jmesax! (Mmm.... that's probably an acronym too. :))

AA doesn't have its own ticketing office in South Africa. Mindpearl in Cape Town is the GSA (general sales agent - a sort of outsourced ticketing agent) for AA in South Africa.

As to when to jump, that depends very much on where you think the various exchange rates are heading. Currently they are so volatile it is even more difficult than usual to predict. (I correctly predicted that the ZAR weakness was overdone - but I'm only correct for now; I could be proved wrong next week.)

For info on issuing in Korea do a search of this forum using "Korea" ans Seoul" as search words. It will throw up threads like this one for starters.

For some extra confusion, MindPearl also seem to operate the AA call centre in Brisbane, Australia, which deals with calls from quite a lot of the Asia Pacific region. Although I believe it's the same company as the AA GSA (General Sales Agent) in South Africa, the functions in the two locations are rather different.

The whole area of OneWorld (OW) ticketing can be a bit complex, so please don't be afraid to ask even simple questions. Most of us will try to help out newbies, given that we all had to begin somewhere. Obviously, reading the "stickies" is a bit of a prerequisite, given that a lot of fundamental information is in there.

Nevertheless, if you get stuck on an acronym, try a search & if that doesn't help, just ask.

That is correct - as I discovered today from Googling their web site.

So any 1 Nov surprises?

Thanks for the info... I did follow-up by reading the stickies... Now I'm thinking of maybe starting our trip either in S Africa or NZ (both around $2700). Couple of questions... one about if we started in NZ we want to travel in AUST and possibly Fiji but I know there's the 2 stopover limit. Could we do one stop in AUST and just book other flights w/in Aust and Fiji? Maybe it would be better to start in S Africa b/c we only have a couple of stops there... Also wondering about when the currency is actually exchanged if I pay for ticket w/ Credit card as I read one post that said it took a month for the charge to actually post and the exchange rate could be very different. Any experience w/ this? Thanks.

As you say, if you start in NZ, you can stop no more than twice in "South-West Pacific", but you can take whatever additional flights you wish during a stopover, which could be for months, should you so wish. This could be especially important for going to Fiji, as the Fiji flights can't be done as part of an xONEx. (This is because they are codeshares and not actually flown by QF themselves. Confusing, I know, especially as they can be part of the Global Explorer fares.) Alternatively, you might find it best to go to Fiji from AKL before starting your xONEx.

As to the credit card posting delay, I replied to the post you refer to with my own experience with MindPearl, which was that the delay was just one day. Of course, YMMV. [Your mileage may vary - i.e. Your circumstances could be different]

Shhh! I'm not superstitious but on All Souls day we really shouldn't go out of our way to waken the dead. :eek:

*crosses fingers, dons the garlic necklace, pours libations on the alter of the travel gods*

I don't think that we have much to worry about. The rand has recovered enough so that the fares are nearly back to where OW had them set before, AONE4 now up approximately US$1,000 from the sweet spot hit at about the beginning of last week and the end of week before.

As other posters have noted, South Korea does look like a pretty good place to buy right now. And, with the rule change, you can buy the South Korea price in the EU as long as your trip starts in Korea.

{deleted}

KRW, South Korean Won has risen around 15% from the low reached early last week. @:-)

And....???

Very tight lipped...all I know is the folks are watching currency changes very carefully..

So I'm wondering what the best way to contact mindpearl in S. Africa is to go ahead and book my ticket. Do people usually call, email, skype? Thanks.

Korean Won has hit the sweet spot once again. DONE3 about $3800.

And AONE3 at US$5,930.

With the recent suspension of the constitution in Fiji a new opportunuity has arisen. The Fijian dollar has fallen from 1.25 to the AUD to 1.50 buy 1.70 sell, so depending on what rate IATA uses there has been at least a 20% falll in xGLOBxx fares, taking an AGLOB34 to about $AU10000 ( approx $US7100). Much better than $AUD15499 ex-OZ or $NZ17099 ex-NZ.

Likely to be a bit of volatility in the exchange rate.

In Fiji tickets can be issued by Air Pacific or QF offices at NAN airport, but be aware that Air Pacific doesn't have a ticketing agreement with the LAN group of airlines. Anyone interested in the intricate details of getting a ticket issued at NAN just ask - I'm in the middle of an AGLOB34 issued in Fiji at the moment and if the rate remains as is or deteriorates I might buy another one next week in Canada.

Note the xGLOBxx cannot be booked online with Oneworld

OWE not available in Fiji, per OW website.

But the Global Explorer is, and that's what 3544quebec's post is about.

Right, but currency devaluation is currency devaluation. I buy AONE3s and AONE4s, so I thought that I'd check. Once I got the info, I posted it here to share and save others the time. ;)