Suggestion 1:Suggestion 2:ps What have you got against Syndey?

Unfortunately, buying more miles is not an option since I purchased American's maximum allowed in 1 year.

Perhaps I shouldn't have worded my statement as firmly about Sydney.. throughout this trip I am more interested in seeing the smaller towns/communities rather than staying around touristy areas, which tend to be in big cities. This is for several reasons, one of which is the costs are generally less outside of the main cities. From the few people I've talked to about this trip who know me well, they've suggested Perth or even Darwin, spending more time in the "outback" and wilderness. That being said, I'm traveling around the world to get a taste of each country, so I decided to add either Sydney or Melbourne.

Thanks for your input!!

I'm planning a 2-week trip to Australia for next year. I wanted to call ahead as soon as the flights were loaded, but if I did so my 5-day hold would expire before I was finished adding all of the segments.

As an EXP, I can ticket segments as part of a one-way all partner without worrying about change fees or cancellation fees if I changed the award to a OW mileage-based award. However, if this requires the cancellation of the award first, I've heard that QF often doesn't offer those segments again.

Do I just have to hope that the phone agents will allow me to extend the hold multiple times? If so, how successful are people in getting holds extended?

Thanks for the help!

A pure hold extension request is rarely granted. Most of the time, a hold extension is actually a new booking and depends on award availability (not counting the seats you are holding).

Is it possible then to book all segments as an all-partner award (at a much higher mileage cost) and then "convert" the award to a OW award when all of the segments have been added?

I don't know if AA would allow you to convert a series of already ticketed one-way, all-partner awards to a single mileage based, oneworld award without checking award availability (as of the time of conversion). I personally doubt it, but it's worth calling AA to ask.

I have had the experience before of being told that I can't convert an All Partner Award into a Oneworld Award and needed to cancel the reservations first and hope that the inventory returned to award space.

Although its not guaranteed I have on several occasions canceled a QF award that I had on hold and have seen the award inventory reinstate immediately on the QF booking engine. If you are booking almost a year in advance it is unlikely that in the 2-3 weeks between booking your outbound and booking your inbound that the general flight inventory will have changed so much that QF's algorithm for making an award seat available will not put the seat you cancel back into award inventory. If you were canceling a seat 3 months out that you had booked 6 months previously then the inventory would have changed significantly and it would be unlikely that that seat would reinstate into award inventory.

ok, I guess I'll have to try to cancel and immediately rebook then.

thank you very much for the help! also, thank you to Austinrunner for keeping this info up to date!

One other option you have is to book dummy return flights that are within your booking window. Date and time changes are allowed and free, so you could change the return to the dates you want (assuming availability) when they become available for booking. A drawback to this process is that routing changes are not allowed, so you are locked into the routing you pick for the dummy return flights and must hope award availability opens up for that routing for the dates you actually want.

I booked a 3 week OW award trip to Australia for 2 in J last August for travel this July. Because I wanted to preserve my flexibility, I waited to book until my return flights were within the 5 day hold window. I was able to find availability on almost every flight I wanted, given that I had flexibility. Waiting to make the booking only cost me one flight that I really wanted, but I was able to substitute another, only somewhat less desirable flight, when the time for booking arrived.

Another drawback is that dummy bookings are inconsiderate to other travelers because the bookings eat up available award seats.

If I were to book a one-stop flight that carried the same flight number throughout, would the miles traveled be calculated for the entire distance including the stop, or would it simply calculate the distance between the two end points?

If your ticket does not list the intermediate stop then it would be the distance between the origin and destination. For example, If you booked QF32 LHR-SYD it would cost 10573 miles but if you took a stopover in SIN and then continued on QF32 it would cost the ~actual 10672 miles flown.

Hi all - still thinking about my Oneworld itinerary so I can go see my daughter twice in Seoul and so stopover in ORD to see other daughter while enroute. Here's what I would really like to do - comments would be appreciated. It is 14 segments right now - so still allows 2 segments for making any required connections.

DCA-ORD(desired stopover)-HNL-NRT/HND-GMP/ICN-Seattle/Vancouver-JFK-Shanghai-GMP/ICN-BKK-SIN-PER(not important)-AKL-SFO-IAD

Also, lots of talk on the site about different classes of service - so looked it up. So J class is Business and Y is economy. It appears that booking in J class does not require significantly more miles. So if J is not available and you book in Y, can you call back periodically and will they change you to J for no costs if seats become available?

Thanks - Joyce

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.601 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

Joyce, I think you are going to run out of segments. A few of your city pairs do not have direct flights on oneworld carriers. You can check each city pair here, and then post a revised itinerary for a critique:

http://www.travelsked.com/itdpda/pda...p?custcode=ONW

DCA-ORD(desired stopover)-HNL-NRT/HND-GMP/ICN-HKK-Vancouver- JFK-HKK -Shanghai-FUK- ICN-NRT-BKK-SIN-SYD-AKL-lax-IAD

Yep - you are right - 19 segments - too many! Let's try it again.

DCA-ORD(desired stopover)-HNL-NRT/HND-GMP/ICN-HKK-JFK-HKK -Shanghai-FUK/NRT/HND- ICN-NRT-BKK-SYD-AKL-lax-IAD

I am now really cross-eyed - am I down to 16 segments? Did I eliminate a segment and leave myself stuck somewhere? Looks I need to go thru NRT/HND three times unless I can get the one flight thru FUK from Shanghai to Seoul. If I go thru Tokyo three times, is it allowable if one time I do a stopover??

Oh my gosh - I just looked up FUK - is this the location of the fukushima nuclear plant - where they are having all the radiation issues right now? Don't know if I will be going there in a year.