Reetmafreen

Total noob at RTW planning, but I’m intrigued by its potential to get some serious travel done when we finally get through the trials and tribulations of the last year and a bit.

I've played a bit with the tool and yes, I have seen the “call airline x to price” error multiple times

As I played with tool, I’ve noticed that by starting in YVR, the fare is quite a bit cheaper vs a US starting point. I had a 15 segment journey, so I thought I would add a start point of YVR and add a segment down to LAX to make use of the cheaper ticket. The issue is that the default option the tool picks for segment 2 departs ONT, rather than LAX, so it burns another segment and calculates 17 segments in my itinerary and will not price. If I drop my very last home segment, I get back to 16 segments, which drops down to 15 segments when I opt to depart segment 2 from LAX rather than ONT (flights depart within 5 mins of each other) but can’t see to add back my final home segment to get me back to the full allotment of 16 segments.

Anyone have a work around?

TIA

pandaperth

Welcome to the world of struggling with the on-line tool

I too have experienced your problem. In the middle of a 16-segment itinerary I wanted …BNA-JFK-LHR... The problem was the tool kept choosing BNA-LGA thus inserting an LGA-JFK surface segment and pushing me over the 16-segment limit. (I reached the conclusion that the tool is auto-selecting the shortest flight for the segment)
My solution was to book the itinerary on the phone with AA 😊

BTW – since you are new to RTW planning, have you read the wiki of the Oneworld Explorer User Guide thread? It might give you some tips (but I notice you found on your own that starting in Canada is less expensive than starting in the US )

Happy planning, and in due course happy travels

Reetmafreen

Thanks for the feedback. I got round the issue by changing the order of some flights. I reversed direction and started out with a YVR-DFW-EZE route. That saved me a segment, so I was able to tack on my final flight back home to SAN

I also discovered that it’s about $2K cheaper to start in Oslo, rather than in Vancouver (about $4K cheaper than ex-US). That said, a positioning flight to YVR costs around $150-$300, vs around $3K to position to OSL, so a bit of a false economy here.

I was also able to get round the “cannot price error” to on another sample itinerary. I was just trying to see what was possible and how timings worked out and as you stated, the tool picks the shortest duration. I decided to opt for a longer layover on my 4th, or 5th segment and suddenly the tool was able to fully price the RTW ticket.

allset2travel

Agree about "false economy" part in deciding to position (and re-position) or not. Personally, I often go beyond just the simple ticket price of positioning. I also consider the benefit of positioning, such as added EQM, EQD and award miles (or simply burn miles with an award to fly a partner airline that I like, think QR QSuite). For example, to position to OSL from LAX (or SFO) via DOH and return on QR. R fare less than $3K can be found. (I recently booked SFO-DOH-ATH-DOH-SFO in R fare for $1870). The BIS miles is more than 22K if LAX-DOH-OSL return. That extra miles can potentially lift your year end elite status to the NEXT LEVEL!

Glad to hear that you got it to price.

Reetmafreen

I’d definitely be interested in a sub $3K QR positioning flight to OSL and I’d be all over a sub $1.9K.As you said the EQM/EQD would be significantly more that what one could earn on a similar spend, but on a 001 ticket.

I guess I need to look harder. I was looking at LAX-DOH-SOF on QR for a different trip and that come out at over $7K. I might just have to stick to BA on that one at just over $2K

Reetmafreen

After doing a few test itineraries, I now think I know what’s causing the cannot price issue. As was discussed above, the tool is selecting the quickest/shortest option. What I’ve found is that on one of the later segments, the shortest option was not selling business class and was opting for economy. Looking at the other available flights and selecting a business class option and the itinerary immediately priced for me.

pandaperth

Tool keeps saying "For the date you selected, we were unable to find any availability, please select an alternate day."
But EF shows plenty of availability

Thoughts?

I'm trying to book my next DONE4, but I keep getting this error message
As a specific example, I'm getting the message when trying to select JFK-HKG for October 1st
EF shows that Cathay Pacific has four flights that day, three of them showing D9 availability (and the fourth shows D0)
I've also tried the day before and the day after, with the same result (there's also decent availability those days according to EF)

petez

Any update or did you find a workaround to this ? Seems specific to AUS flights

pandaperth

I kept trying and trying, and eventually it worked for my itinerary
I reported the problem to Oneworld back at the beginning of April. No response (no surprise there )

In my experience, not specific at all to AUS (neither Australia nor Austin TX )

littlevoices

The tool seems to be really buggy on direct flights at the moment, any ideas... or do I just need to take collective wisdom here and then call up Qantas (my first flight). I have been trying to flights on Qantas, Cathay, American direct and the tool isn't finding me any routes on dates that should have lots of availability months out. e.g. BKK-SYD, SFO-LHR, MEL-HKG . Instead I am always offered 1+ stop flights that use up segments and aren't the route I want to take. I remember in the past it didn't like it when Qatar was the first flight, but now it seems to be covering way more.

Is there a recommended booking route when the tool breaks, I didn't see it mentioned in the sticky, but am really looking to sanity check the route against the rules and then to purchase, ideally self servicing online as far as possible.

henry999

I've just discovered a new-to-me enhancement of the Tool. I don't have EF or any of those other deluxe subscriptions so when I want to get an idea of the base xONEx fare starting from Country X, for planning purposes I'll explore a minimal dummy itinerary. But now, the Tool oh-so-helpfully looks at the routing and gives you the price of the xONEx or the Global Explorer, whichever is cheaper. I know that my final routing will not qualify for Global because I always try to maximise the miles. But now, instead of a simple three-flight, Europe > Asia > N. America > Europe itinerary, to get the xONEx base fare, I have to enter 12 or 14 or 16 hypothetical sectors into the slow, clunky, pain-in-the-arse Tool, in order for it to recognise that the Global won't work and I need the xONEx.

If there's any kind-hearted soul reading this rant who does have easy access to current prices, I would be ever so grateful for the following numbers:

DONE3 ex-OSL
DONE4 ex-OSL
DONE3 ex-TYO
DONE4 ex-TYO

TIA!

pandaperth

For just $99 per annum, you can save yourself serious brain injury

In my experience the base fare of the DGLOB34 is always the same as the base fare for the DONE4

From ExpertFlyer
ex-OSL
DONE3 - NOK52,398
DONE4 - NOK57,959
ex-TYO
DONE3 - JPY656,300
DONE4 - JPY780,400

You're welcome.

typical

Looking into an ex-TYO DONE3.

Can I do TYO-CGK-DOH....LAX-HKG-CGK-TYO with my two Asia stops both in Jakarta? The tool gives the following error:

"Your trip may not include two stops in Jakarta without visiting any other city in Asia. I am dropping one of the visits to Jakarta."

But if I add HKG:

"Your itinerary is invalid for the following reasons:Your trip may only include two stops in the continent where your journey started

You are making 3 stops in Asia

Please remove 1 or more visits from your itinerary"

Is this keeping me within the rules or just a limitation of the tool?

ETA: That was with the map. With the itinerary form, I instead get:

"Your trip may include two stopovers over 24 hours in the continent where your journey started. If your itinerary includes both of these in your country of origin, one must be outbound and the other inbound. Additional stopovers under 24 hours are permitted in your itinerary. Please select a different date or flight."

I don't understand what rule I'm apparently breaking.

littlevoices

It's six months later and as far as I can tell the tool is pretty much cutting off Australia from Asia: Cathay and Qantas flights no longer seem to really show up in the tool, trying multiple dates or routes, e.g. HKG-PER, HKG-SYD, HKG-MEL. Very frustrating: The tool is only showing routes via Japan, which then become 2/3/4 legs, and break the "Home city" answer since I am trying to go from TYO. I realise its a pretty pointless rant, but made me feel marginally better.

debnken

I am trying to book a RTW fare on the Oneworld site. It is acting very glitchy because there are absolutely no gateways available to begin an itinerary. Anyone else running across this?