Another Done4 itn to critic
 

Hi

Second Done4, seems I am getting hooked on them I was looking at the following

jnb-mru-lhr-cai-lhr-hel-lhr-sfo-ord-lax-dfw-yvr-jfk-hkg-dps-hkg-jnb

Now firstly when I priced this itn the taxes came to around $2000 AUD does this seem right, would AA ticket an itn like this from south africa to try to lower the taxes.

Now can I use any of the double entries to get more use out of africa as really i am only using one segment. LAX not really necessary to go to just wanted to use an extra segment. In NA want to keep SFO,ORD YVR,JFK in Asia only really want to get to a wedding in DPS. CAI in europe is the only must.

If anyone could had some interesting additions or perhaps I missed something and can be bothered

I guess main issue for me is seat quality and services ie fully flat.

kind regards

You should look at the fare construction provided by the online booking tool to see what portion of the "taxes" is actually fuel surcharges (typically "YQ" on the table.) Because your first segment (JNB-MRU) is operated by BA (okay, Comair but no matter) the tool will default to BA as the issuing airline, thereby invoking BA fuel surcharges for the whole itinerary.

AA in CPT might be willing to issue the ticket, but in my experience they're reluctant to do so unless one over-water segment carries an AA code. LHR-SFO is BA, so they might play ball if you book JFK-HKG with an AA code on the CX flight, but that might be stretching it. Are you booking miles to QF, AA, BA...?

You might check pricing - the Rand has strengthened greatly in the past few months. If SA is not mandatory, you might find it's cheaper to start a DONE3 in Asia someplace.

good points
 

I am currently qantas platinum but really i am not that fussy I have been tempted by the better redemption levels of AA and dont really no alot about the BA program although currently I am london based

I have downloaded a spreadsheet regarding the pricing of Done3/4, and apart from South Africa I was tempted by Pakistan ( a little dangerous perhaps), Jordan with a oneworld airline so good connections or perhaps even Uk (but problems with using london to transit etc)

Well I guess I could fly AA to Lax from LHR or perhaps instead of JFK-HKG
I could give JFK-NRT on AA a chance that would give one overwater and probably get a better price.

I thought going BA would result in higher fuel fines I tried pricing with CX but no change from the BA price

thankyou once again

Might I recommend looking at Poland or Sweden as a start point for a DONE3/4? With the current 10% fare sale, prices ex-WAW are cheaper (in USD equivalent, not sure about GBP) than ex-JNB, and clearly easier to access from London. ARN is not much different. AA also has excellent GSA representation in both WAW and ARN - Tal Aviation, so if you used the AA RTW desk to ticket the itinerary, it could be issued by Tal in Poland or Sweden, you'd probably save quite a lot on fuel fines, and end up significant money ahead.

Just a thought.

BA, CX, QF etc are all high on fuel surcharges. AA really is the one which stands out from the crowd. If you credit to QF, make sure you are booked on the AA code on CX anyway as you will get your status bonus points this way.

I too am toying with the idea of doing a OneWorld RTW in J sometime in the middle of next year. Here's the itinerary as it stands in my head right now.

ICN-xHKG-JFK-ORD-PDX-DFW-YVR-LHR-DXB-LHR-HEL-LHR-BOM-SYD-PER-xHKG-ICN

Mileage Monkey verifes this as a valid itin provided the 2nd intercontinental entry in Asia is under 24 hours. I did have a few hops around Asia in mind. Can anyone clarify if, e.g. ICN-xHKG-JFK is classed as 2 segments, with ICN-HKG counting as 1 of 4 asian segments?

The only cities where I won't be in transit (i.e staying more than 23:59 are NYC, ORD, PDX and BOM.

Also, is the maximum number of segments still 16 or has it been upped to 20? I remember reading so somewhere but can't recall what the exact discussion was!

Cheers

That only works if you are in BOM less than 24 hours, so that's not valid if you stop over in BOM.

You can only have the second entry to Asia if one is a single plane service or transit without stopover between Europe & SWP.

Maximum flight segments is 16 (where every flight with a different flight number is a new segment).

so if I find a way to go ICN-USA, the itin would be valid?

No. If you start & finish in Asia then the only stopovers in Asia may be at the beginning or end of the itinerary. The rules are reasonably clear on entries to continents - only one, except:Some managed years ago to get that interpreted to mean you could go SWP-N America in transit via Asia for a non-Asia originated ticket, but even that not recently; there's no chance of you doing what you wish to do.

Guess in that case it might be easier to spend time in Bombay first and then use that as a positioning trip to CMB or Lahore (two of the cheapest places to pick up a DONE4 in) and pick up a cheap DONE4 from there. Something like -

CMB/LHE - HKG-BKK-SIN-NRT-SYD-LAX-DFW-PDX-DFW-LHR-HEL-LHR-DXB-LHR-BOM-CMB/LHE (The last one being a surface sector to pick up another DONE4 - I hear these are addictive :P )

Yes, although that isn't valid because you can only have 4 segments in Asia (and can't buy any more when it's the continent of origin), and you can't finish (in general) with an international surface sector. And you could do much, much better for miles in N America.

another go
 

Okay had another play around with some cheaper countries to price came in at around 7600 AUD with first over water on AA so they should be able to ticket and sin-lhr get to go on the A380 .

waw-lhr-cai-lhr-lax-ord- sfo-dfw-yvr-jfk-hkg-dps-hkg-bom-sin-lhr-waw

with the europe stopovers being london and Cairo

Perhaps I could earn some more points in asia with trips from nrt instead of hkg but so far this is what i have come up with

QF SCs? BA TPs? AA EQP? Otherwise it looks good, but a question - what time of year?

Those are very different itineraries. Where do you actually want to go and do you want to optimise for QFF status purposes?

By dropping SIN and changing BOM for HKG you can make the second itinerary a valid one.

Why not look at ICN-HKG-BOM-HKG-JFK-DFW-ANC-DFW-PDX-DFW-LAX-LHR-MCT-LHR-HEL-HKG-ICN?

If you credit to QF, do you want to maximise points or status credits. If it is status credits than YVR is a bad destination as US-CDN flights are business class and not first class. So you lose a significant amount of SCs. Almost better to fly into SEA and take the bus or car. Of course you will the miss out on the CX YVR-JFK flight (but get more QFF points and SCs for SEA-JFK).

Thanks DUF.

1. I do want to optimise for QFF Status purposes.

2. About the only place I need/have to go is BOM. My next trip to BOM will more than likely include a trip to London (just easier to continue on than to come back to Sydney and fly all the way to London!) and I do have plans to visit friends in N. America sometime in the next 18 months, hence toying with the idea of doing a RTW.

3. Starting the RTW in ICN because I understand it is considerably cheaper to start one there than in Sydney.

4. Want to include SYD in the RTW so I can use the last segment to ICN to reposition myself for the next RTW.

5. If I pick up the RTW in Colombo or Lahore (two other considerably cheap starting points for DONE4), I'll use a one way ticket to get to Bombay the first time around, use a part of the RTW to get back to SYD and the remainder to get to BOM and reposition for the next RTW.

With these in mind, if you could suggest an alternative itin. that'd be great!

Price of a DONE4 (in AUD):

South Korea $8912.16
New Zealand $10431.64
Australia $10080.00
Sri Lanka $7649.52
Pakistan $6684.07
South Africa $7745.58 (DONE5)

So lets assume you start in Sri Lanka or Pakistan then you can do

CMB-HKG-BOM-HKG-LHR-MCT-LHR-SFO-MIA-BOS-DFW-ANC-DFW-JFK-SYD-HKG-CMB

16 Segments, 56345 Miles, 2110 SCs (Partner Gold).

Just checked that the price of a DONE4 starting in India is about 200$ more than ex-Sri Lanka. In which case I might just start the RTW in BOM and swap BOM and CMB in the itin. suggested by DownUnderFlyer.

Cheers guys and if there are any more tips, suggestions, crazy ideas, please keep them coming. I'll also read through the other relevant RTW threads.

India has a luxury tax paying on DONEx and AONEx. Did your comparison of fares between India and Sri Lanka factor that in?

Another good thing to do is to fly via HNL. DFW-HNL is a super status credit earner and it is a nice opportunity to visit Hawaii if you don't know the islands. From HNL you must continue either to SYD or Japan.

A slight change
 

now a little bit of a change to the previous itn

waw-lhr-cai-lhr-sin-bom-hkg-dps-hkg-jfk-yvr-mex-yvr-ord-sfo-lhr-waw

Now instead of going to Dallas I thought I would go to Mexico and use the JAL 11/12 which would be at least reasonable seats for 5 hours and earn 100 status credits on QFF also another weird thing was that JFK-YVR and YVR-MEX are according to great circle mapper the same distance 2449 interesting i thought

I noticed AA have brought back ord-yvr which is handy as that was the only reason I was going through dallas before, and LAX is not high on the list it was just to use a segment and I have never been to mexico

now status credits wise fore NA i would get the following

jfk-yvr 100, yvr-mex - 100, yvr-ord - 80, ord-sfo-120 so for the continent 500 not too bad, now I assume if JAL cancel service to mexico they will rerout me through Dallas anyway so I should get some extra status credits that way

The problem is there is no SIN-BOM. In terms of SCs, 500 is not bad but you can get more than 800 SCs in North America if you would optimize for that. The other disadvantage of your itinerary is that you are missing out on a lot of QF bonus points for the CX and JL flights.
The good thing of course is that you have lots of nice flights and go do great places.

Yes there is, QF 51, three times a week.

qf bonus points
 

Well I thought as follows

Europe - BA so bonus on all flights

lhr-sin-bom on QF so bonus
bom-hkg-no bonus unless AA codeshare

hkg-dps-hkg i thought aa codeshared on this flight ? maybe if I link it with JFK flight

hkg-jfk- aa codeshare
jfk-yvr CX maybe has an AA codeshare

yvr-mex JL so no bonus

yvr-ord AA bonus

ord-sfo AA bonus

sfo-lhr-waw - BA bonus

so I was hoping the only flights without bonus would be the two JAL flights
bom-hkg and possible jfk-yvr so 4 out of 16 is not bad

Now re QF51 I noticed this flight starts in BNE so who knows what qantas will do with it by the time I travel as they are always fiddling with Indian flights syd direct via melbourne now via bne

QF51 BNE-BOM via SIN is the longest flight between SWP and ASIA and would get 160 status credits on QFF. Seems to be the only one in this Zone
I guess if I wanted to Add SWP as a continent that would be a good flight for earning points and status credits

Are there any longer that I missed I know akl-hkg is 5688 but not quite zone 7

I was considering adding SWP for a trip home but I dont see it as great value when I could just use points to get there from Asia if I wanted

Sorry, I missed this one. Wasn't showing in the OW map and I lost track as QF changes their India strategy every few weeks.

You have lots of BA/AA/QF flights, I just wanted to point out that this is a potential disadvantage.

And I think you have discovered the longest flight between SWP and Asia. The only disadvantage this flight has is that from BOM you do not have access to the Asian flights >3600 miles which all originate from NRT.

Adding SWP to your trip will cost about AU$1000 more (plus fees) so not too bad considering that QF will charge you a $300 in fees for an award booking on some routes.

What about the carribbean
 

I played around with an itn going from Europe-South America-SWP-ASIA and it came out around 1000 dollars aud more than a three continent including taxes

Longer routes in Asia? I guess the only two i know of are nrt-del and nrt-cgk just over 3600 I have been nrt-del and soon will go nrt-cgk, but I kind of wanted to go some different places I guess. Its very interesting trying to decide.

For NA I was considering maybe the Caribbean but not sure where is good and what flights are good value for status credits etc any suggest greatly appreciated ?

i guess though I find SWP a waste of a continent I say this before experiencing AA domestic in US, but the Qantas flights in Business domestic are pretty average compared to what you can get international in Asia, and really I dont mind sitting in economy for a flight from syd-per as business is not brilliant. I guess SWP would be better value if Air pacific was in oneworld and you could get out to fiji.

Europe is good value because the middle east can be included, asia because of the long routes, South America in my opinion is good value if you get premium business on Lan as you can get some good flight lengths

It sure is interesting comparing continents and fares and just trying to work out good value routes on good equipment.

Those are the only routes over 3600 miles. But there are other long onces just shy of 3600 like NRT-DPS.

Caribbean always books into Business Class. Reliably, there are long flights from SJU like SJU-LAX at 3300 miles but this counts as a trans continental flight. AFAIK nothing over 3600 miles. Occasionally there are some one stop, single flight number services from other islands as well which then are over 2400 miles and make good SC opportunities even so they are in business.
A lot of services are not return flights but either just to an island or from an island so you need to search in both directions. An example for this would be ANU-LAS (AA1906) at just under 3600 miles and not counting as a trans con.

QF Domestic J is much better than AA (unless you compare a QF 734 to an AA 767). Acutally, QF has one of the best domestic business products anywhere especially when you are on an intentional config A330.
And I'd rather sit in QF J than JL or CX J in their regional configuration which is not great for long flights like HKG-BOM.