Just tried the tool for the first time. Here's the itin I was trying to book: CAI-LHR-DOH-CDG-DOH-SYD-NRT-DEL-NRT-CMB-NRT-BOS-LAX-MBJ-LAX-DOH-CAI. The only problem I had with the online tool is that it would only allow 15 segments. Said that my itin was invalid for too many segments. Removed the last one (DOH-CAI) and it was fine. (Since it's not until July, I assume that there will be schedule changes before I start, anyway.)

So I called AA RTW Desk and booked it there. Very nice and apparently knowledgeable agent; he validated it, was mildly amused that I'm flying so much with only one real stop (BOS). (I also have a >24 hour stop in Los Angeles, but barely, at 27 hours. Just enough time to have a day off and maybe do a little sightseeing.) Submitted to rate desk for faring, should be back in a day or two.

The recent rule change so that local ticket issue in country of origin is no longer required is a most welcome one. Makes the whole process much smoother. Unfortunately, this will undoubtedly cost Mindpearl some non-trivial amount of business, -- they were always both knowledgeable and pleasant to deal with.

Did the tool offer you the option of booking online? (I assume not). Did whoever you dealt with at the AA RTW desk have any comments about the ex-CAI fares, like many of us were receiving while booking the ex-MPM fares?

I had no comments re: CAI start when I booked last Friday, other than call back on Mon/Tue to day after the rates people have time enough to calculate.

I suspect it is still a bit early for Cairo specific comments. Or maybe all the die-hard xONEx people already have their tickets for the next year.

Happy wandering

Fred

No, no option to book online. It told me that there was an error in the online payment/ticketing process (even after I had removed the 16th segment), that this ticket could not be ticketed online, and that I should call BA (carrier of my first flight, CAI-LHR).

No comments about ex-CAI fares. Agent couldn't have been more pleasant, actually. I expect that by Monday, they'll start to figure this out.

many people have 1 or more ex mpm tickets in hand. it is hard to fly another rtw.. no matter how cheap it is.

While ex-CAI is a very good price, it is not the super deal that ex-MPM is. I lost out on the ex-MPM deal, so I'll settle for an xONE4 from there.

i purchased my first done3 ex japan in august 15, my second rtw ex jnb in jan 16, and 2 more rtw ex mpm in july. i cant fit more rtw in my schedule anymore. :(

The online tool definitely allows 16 segments. However its error messages are not the best.
The message was actually telling you that you had too many segments (5) in Europe/Middle East, where only 4 are allowed.

Ah, I see. You mean the last one, DOH-CAI. Interesting that AA said it was OK. Let's see what the rate desk has to say.

This is very odd. Did something change in the tool? A few weeks ago I used to be able to price out a xONEx ticket, and in some cases (i.e. if the longest segment was AA, etc) I used to be redirected to an AA page where I'd input my credit card and pay. I played with routings for like a week, and finally bought a ticket like that. But now, if I try the same thing, I get to a page that creates a PNR and tells me to call in.

I don't really like calling people, so I'd really prefer this be done automatically. What happened to the old page? Or am I doing something wrong?

Yes there is a new version of the tool - being discussed here - http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/onewo...king-tool.html

It seems the new version is as quirky/buggy as the old version:rolleyes:

Does it do that for all airlines now? It used to only require calling someone if it was sent to BA.

AA would not issue my Aone4 or Aone5 ex CAI last week, But BA did after calling. I could not process on line.
The web site will not give me a price now.
Perhaps the ex- CAI price is been raised?
I did manage to but 2 RTW tickets ex CAI. from BA.

but will not count towards my EXP spend.

What are you talking about? Of course it will. That's why AA published the EQD for all of the partner airlines for next year. It's distance-based and a D class fare will generally get you 25% EQD for the distance traveled (a much better deal for the passenger than the fare based model AA uses for its own flights). However, I recently ticketed a RTW fare through QF and the amount I paid immediately showed up in my AA account, so let's see which method they ultimately use.

A number of airlines have withdrawn their CAICAI fares.

WOW I hope you are right. I placed my BA number on all next years flights. So should I put my AA number back in??

Thanks for the heads up.

My calculations on my part-completed ex-MPM DONE5 are:

• I will fly the remaining 8 flights on the ticket in 2017
• The whole ticket cost me less than AUD5000 all-in (so about USD3,750)
• For the remaining 8 flights I calculate I will earn
• > 55,000 AAward Miles
• Just under 38,000 EQM, and
• > 6,000 EQD (so sufficient to qualify for PLT status)

I have two LAN flights which will earn me 20cents EQD per flown mile
and six Qantas flights which will earn me 25cents EQD per flown mile
:):):)

The tool will still process some ex-CAI xONEx itineraries; I was able to book one and after it showed me the price pay for it online at the ticketing airline's web site. But it was very persnickety about the routing and flights. Many flights or cities caused it to error out instead of giving a price and telling me to call.

Can you still price online your itinerary? I've been playing with it like crazy and have yet to have it price any itinerary, from 4 segments to 16 segments, no dice!

Yes, I just priced a simple six-flight , four-continent trip.

What itin are you trying?

Website Fail?
 

I'm unable to use the tool at all right now; https://rtw.oneworld.com/rtw/ just keeps loading and loading and loading. I've tried various browsers and clearing browser data. :td::(

Anybody able to load the site and use the online tool today?

Same problem for me today, tool not loading.

Seems to work for me now - at least as far as putting a few flights in an itinerary.

New xONEx booking tool totally useless. Ideas?
 

Last Nov oneworld gave us a new booking tool which I've just tried to use for the first time. The previous tool was very buggy, but I was able to reserve numerous RTW trips, have them priced out and then give BA a print out of the results to use as a basis for issuing the ticket. Problems along the way, yes, but nothing like the new tool.

Any two flights on the same day and it tells me the connection time is insufficient, even when there are eight hours in between.
It tells me LHR-DBX-LHR is not possible as "flights between Europe and the Middle East are not allowed". What?
It chooses the flights for me (usually the first flight of the day) and I then have to go through a lengthy procedure to cancel that flight and add a different one.
It tells me my itinerary has 16 segments, then returns to tell me that I have too many segments and "that only 16 are allowed".

On and on. In short, it's impossible to make a booking. I've tried different browsers on a Mac, Safari being the worst - on it, I couldn't get past the first page listing the city codes. Others tried: Firefox, Chrome, SeaMonkey & Opera.

Does anyone have any ideas, please?

Get a decent travel agent?

Put what you want together, discuss it with us here in this forum, contact an airline directly.

Too many Europe sectors - 4 !!!
 

I've asked BA to issue an AONE4:

CPT-JNB-LHR-DUB-LHR-DXB-LHR-MIA-GCM-MIA-SAN-ORD-HKG-NRT-HKG-JNB-CPT

Their response "too many Europe sectors" because of "new" rules. WHAT???????

Why don't they provide a dedicated RTW desk?

They used to have one but it was closed around 10 years ago - budget cuts. AFAIK the AA RTW desk is the last one standing with Oneworld.

Trying to book a LONE4 with the on-line tool and constantly receive the below message

Is there any reason why this may be happening? Am i going to have to spend hours on the phone with BA to book it?

Not hours, days!

The oneworld tool is a bad joke. I've found it impossible to enter my itinerary without numerous errors. It used to be just about useable, but the last "upgrade" rendered it hopeless.

My last AONE4 booked with the Manchester BA office took 24 days to complete. Horrendous. I finished up having to send the 10 page, oneworld, Feb 2017 rules to them and that after speaking to six different agents on the YouFirst desk. No-one knew the rules and the Fare Dept took forever to give a quotation - and then they stated incorrectly that certain European legs weren't allowed.

There has to be a better way. Before the Canada rule was abolished I used a terrific TA in Montréal, but it's just not worth his while anymore. He too used to have to deal with BA and his hair turned grey!

Agree wholeheartedly.

The old Canada exception is now a World-Wide exception (and so is now the norm)
So your Montréal TA can set the ticket up for you.

When purchasing in a country other than the country of origin, the fare is first calculated in the currency of origin and then converted to the currency of purchase. There used to be a rule that stated words to the effect "the resultant fare must not be lower than the country of sale". That rule was removed some time ago.
For example: last year I was in Tanzania when I phoned the AA atw desk and set up an ex-Mozambique DONE6 telling the agent I wanted to pay in AUD by telephoning AA's Australian office - it all worked perfectly:)

So, as far as this tool goes for me, it's only helpful to make sure I'm not breaking any rules in the itinerary.

Other then that, it will never quote a price.
It just pops up with the message to contact whatever airline is the first flight. (Tried a dozen different routes, and noticed it just changes to whoever you're flying with first)

So, is it only bookable through calling the airlines now? Silly to have a tool 'up and running' if it doesn't work as it should.

Star Alliance's one works like a charm.

Starting a DONE4 with a QR flight
 

It is well known here that the online RTW tool will not allow an itinerary originating with a QR flight. But has anyone ever got the alternative method suggested in the note quoted by danger above to work?

Is the inability to book through QR by using the tool only a bug / failure / limitation of the tool or is there something else going on?

The word is that Norway is the cheapest place in Europe to book a DONEx so that's what I'm trying to do. I want to start with OSL-DOH. Today when I was playing with the tool it gave me the following error message:

> 280: The carrier selected for your first flight cannot issue tickets in this country.
> You must change your airline selection or change your itinerary to remove this carrier
> from your first segment.

Is this new? Doesn't it contradict the previous advice (i.e., 'to start on QR, contact your TA or QR')? Or, is it merely another error coming from the error-filled tool? Obviously QR can issue tickets in Norway. But is there some reason why they cannot issue xONEx tickets?

I think you'll find lots of people have booked an xONEx with QR as the first carrier, myself included. My current DONE5 is ex-Maputo on QR and it was booked with Qantas.

You shouldn't have any issues using a travel agent or a oneworld airline (although you'll have to chose your airline carefully as most can't do it properly or want to do it at all). The fact you're having issues with using the tool to book with Qatar is, unfortunately, not remotely surprising. However, there may be some prohibition on Qatar issuing tickets in Norway but I would find that odd.

Yes, unlike the vast majority of air tickets sold today, xONEx tickets are manually priced and QR doesn't want to train its employees to do it.

Use another carrier to issue the ticket.

I've booked some DONEx tickets with QR as the first carrier (first few, actually) by calling the AA RTW desk.

OW tool won't accept RTW starting in SA and/or Norway
 

I used to be able to put details into the oneworld tool for a RTW starting in JNB.
It would notify me of the price, but then refuse to accept a booking which I then had to make via the BA Exec desk.

Now, it appears that even this isn't possible. It won't accept an itinerary beginning CPT-JNB-LHR..... Ditto out of Oslo.

Why doesn't someone at OW overhaul this appallingly implemented site?

There is no rule that requires the first marketing carrier ticket the trip. The online tool only does so due to a technical limitation. Older versions of the tool had tickets starting with certain carriers (such as QR, JL, LA) sent to another carrier (AA, QF) to issue the ticket. The current version did away with that.

My DONE3 last year was ticketed by QR. First flight was on JL. Travel agent sent it to QR as QR was operating the longest flight on the trip (DFW-DOH).

I thought I'd just check what you said, and of course the tool worked perfectly for me!! Had no trouble entering the itinerary, getting it priced and entering contact details. I now have a PNR for my itinerary!

A very simple itinerary: CPT-oJNB-LHR-LAX-HKG-JNB in J for ZAR88,410 +++ ZAR12,748 = total of ZAR101,158

Also, the tool seems to have reverted to the old way of choosing flights - selecting each segment individually instead of the tool automatically selecting and the user having to change the flights to what is really wanted.

FWIW I accessed the tool in Internet Explorer by going straight to rtw.oneworld.com