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*