Some changes to xONEx rules? [02NOV2008]
 

Whilst casually scanning xONEx rules, I chanced upon the following:

Addition of booking code 'W' for LA/LP on DONEx bookings:
Extension of "Canadian exception" to the EU
Rerouting before departure in TC2/3 now attracts a fee:
No-show penalty:
Cancellation penalty:
That's all I could spot atm. Admittedly I've not been paying much attention for a while so I apologise in advance if some/all these are old news. :o

The extension of the Canadian exception to the whole of the EU is a massive change. If the local airline office is difficult about credit cards or whatever, who (in the EU) will care? Currency fluctuations? No worries - just take today's BSR & buy locally.

So where's the bad news? Have the ghosts rattled their chains with price increases?

Thanks for posting the LAN premium economy booking code change - a question that was asked of Oneworld4u in another thread over a week ago but hasn't merited a response.

The only bad news would seem to be the cancellation penalties that used not to exist in some markets. a 5.5% penalty for economy and 11% penalty for business/1st may impact those in Australia for example. A >$580 cancellation penalty on J is quite a big increase over zero

Overall looks like good news

Dave

So does that mean that Canadians and Europeans can book and price tickets in the lowest priced departing country?

Yes, as long as they depart from that lower priced country, that is.
The change was probably prompted by a new EU Regulation (Reg 1008/2008) that prohibits, in certain circumstances, discrimination on grounds of residence or nationality for air fares except that the new rules seem to go further than required by the new Reg.

Book W for LAN is a hopeful sign. I'm still trying to sort out my invol downgrades from business to (regular not premium) economy.

I don't like the new rerouting and cancellation penalties. It is a bit odd that GST is included in the penalty for Australia.

Although not included in the fare rules for when you purchased your fare :td:
At least it provides a solid base for an argument

Perhaps the new rule will also be an enabler for the online purchasing of an xONEx?

For folks living in the EU and Canada yes. The rest of us will still have to dance around the "higher of 2" restriction.

But this opens up the possibility of trying an AA office in the EU if there's no local AA office at the cheap point of origin, or if the local AA office doesn't want to play ball with remote CC payment etc.

*A got rid of the restriction entirely, hoping OW will do the same at some point but I can understand why they won't.

Real shame about this bit. Recently returned from backpacking DONE4 where I missed a number of flights (unintentionally!) with no issues at all rebooking. I always thought this was generous but was a real bonus of the ticket for me.

Can anyone please explain to me this Canadian/EU Exception?

WHEN TRAVEL ORIGINATES IN A COUNTRY FOR WHICH
THE SPECIFIC LOCAL CURRENCY FARES IS PUBLISED AND
THE TICKET IS SOLD IN ANOTHER COUNTRY THE FARE
WILL BE THAT PUBLISHED FOR THE COUNTRY OF ORIGIN
CONVERTED TO THE CURRENCY OF THE COUNTRY OF SALE
AT THE BANK SELLING RATE.
THE RESULTANT FARE MUST NOT BE LOWER THAN FROM
THE COUNTRY OF SALE. EXCEPTION -
NOT APPLICABLE FOR SALE MADE AND/OR ‡
TRAVEL ORIGINATING IN CANADA OR THE EUROPEAN
UNION.

Does this mean that when buying in EU, I pay always the price of departing country?

a) Buy EU, start S.Africa = old rules EU price, new rules S.Africa price
b) Buy EU, start EU = no change
c) Buy S. Africa, start S. Africa = no change
d) Buy S. Africa, start EU = no change (you pay EU price)

Anyway, this is great news ;) I guess Mindpearl will be a bit less busy now.

I interpret this as you do, except that there are quite a few countries where the published fares are in USD & not in local currency. I haven't done an exhaustive search, but examples are Indonesia and large parts of Latin America & Africa. Probably the condition about specific local currency fares being published would exclude such countries from being used in this way.

There is a change when the country within the EU you depart from has a different price to the EU country you buy it in (not all EU countries have the same price for RTWs):
old rule: you pay the higher of the two.
new rule: you pay the fare from country of departure

eg: buy in UK and depart from Poland
old rule: you pay UK price (assuming UK price is higher than Poland price)
new rule: you pay Polish price.

Hi QF009, what do you mean by *A got rid of the restriction?