or maybe they have a ticketing desk in a canadian airport......don't know if that's more convenient at all for you

The South African Rand (ZAR) is really suffering at the moment. It's almost at a mid-rate of 11 Rand to the USD. If you use a rate of 10.8, a S African-based DONE4 is less than US$4,200 & an AONE5 just under US$7,100! (This excludes taxes/fuel fines, etc. but 8-12% should cover these, even with some UK stopovers.)

I foresee lots of work for Cindy @ Mindpearl.

Just a mention on a Canadian LONEx. I ticketed 3 tickets last May ex LHR paid in Canada. AA's number in Canada bounces you back to the US and I had to really stand my ground to get the ticket done. Big time lags on getting it priced and then repriced and then repriced again because of the lack of knowledge on their own rules. It became exasperating. Also I found that the L tickets had a change fee of $150 which added up while a AONEx ticket purchased ex LHR but in the US did not incur any change fees. It appeared that the business class ticket ex LHR was not a big savings like the L ticket ex LHR. I do have a Canadian credit card and address to use and was always questioned on this point once they had decided to read their own rules. On that note it seemed that notes in my file were always debated with me and never accepted by the next agent who dealt with my reservation. One point is that it was my first time adventuring in so I was not as seamless as I would be a second time. It was truly the FT machine that prompted me to persevere. The result was a fantastic trip and a rather sad obsession with FT. Now things have changed since I did this ticket so perhaps my experience would not happen in the same way.

I've been following the rand as well and it looks like it's time to get an itinerary together. I just wonder how much further it can fall. I also wonder if they will change the pricing to USD if it falls any more.

Just ticketed a AONE5 from Mindpearl.. Cant say for sure, but there may be a very significant price hike in the VERY near future due to currency changes in SA.....

Interesting. Using xe.com for conversions, it was around US$6,080 for an AONE4 ex-SA about 30 minutes ago, but right now US$6,151. Looks like it may be a bumpy ride for a bit. But at these prices, down substantially from a few months ago, I may try to buy my next one or two tix today. (I usually use four per year.) Ex-MRU still much higher, and a little over US$6,500 for AONE3 ex-South Korea.

Can you elaborate on that?

Also, how much in taxes did you have to pay?

Did you need a Canadian credit card and/or address because you did not ticket in person at a Canadian airport?

I live in NH, so could I drive to Montreal and pay using a US credit card at the AA ticket counter?

Yes I can elaborate. A very close friend is suggesting that due to the rapid fall of the Rand.. there will be very significant rises in round the world airfare over the next two weeks....

That makes sense. Someone posted here that IATA only updates fares on wednesdays so if it's not done today people should have another week at least.

Looks like you might have ticketed a day to early! Another 10% drop... unbelievable.

What kind of taxes did you have to pay on that itinerary?

I do have the distinct impression that the Can. credit card was important as I was theoretically calling from Canada. They were very clear that they wanted a Can. credit card. Now I can see no way that they can refute you purchasing a ticket in Canada with a US credit card but as I said they are very difficult with this issue and it would be hard to confirm it unless you actually gave it a shot. I felt it was important to have the rules from oneworld that reference this anomaly in front of you everytime you speak to someone. I had to reference it more then a few times.

I did some re-computing using current rates, and noted that Korea has improved greatly as a starting point for USD customers, especially if you don't want/need to schlep to South Africa, or just need a 3-continent ticket.

Wow, Gardy. AONE4 ex-SA US$5,643 and AONE3 ex-South Korea US$6,265. Both incredibly cheap. I'll still do the CPT start due to the cost and inconvenience of getting to South Korea (much easier for me to get to S.A.), but they're both excellent. Just submitted one to Dublin for overnight faring, and will try to get the next one in process later this afternoon. I don't see these lasting at these prices, but I also don't see that they can get it together quickly enough to increase fares in the next, say, 24-48 hours. Next week might be a different story, however.

In 2001 - another period of massive risk aversion - the ZAR blew out to 13 to the $. I don't think the alliances made sudden changes to their fares then, did they? Of course, the speed of FT arbitrage may mean they have to be more nimble these days.

Also worth remembering that that blow out corrected pretty quickly. My guess is that could happen again. Yeah I know, wishful thinking. But if I'm right, the lesson for the alliances will be no need to do panic repricing and the lesson for FTers is make hay while the sun shines.

I've consulted my crystal ball and predict that Hungary is the first central european economy to face difficulties as they're already running emergency measures there to defend the forint.

If the currency collapses, it will be the place to go until they can increase the prices. It's not yet very attractive but if the currency slips another 25%, which in my opinion is a likely scenario, it will knock AONE3 down to 5500� or so. Not as cheap as RSA or Korea but still a bargain compared to eurozone prices, Egypt or even Jordania.

/hv