Ah yes, Helsinki Handshake works ex-South Africa as well. Thanks for sharing. This is the flipside of the magic trip through hell that I posted above, for whatever reason, combine a BA coded AY transatlantic flight followed by an AY intra EU flight and you can get a nice CIF reduction. It is hard to get ITA to show these (sometimes OTAs pick them up easier) but when ITA does show it, if you do "copy JSON" and then paste that into ChatGPT you can get it to explain that the via HEL component is only bringing $55 CIF to the table. There are not a ton of exNorthAmerica segments where this works, so it is good to know it works in the reverse.

BTW- if you don't limit yourself to OW, the *A fares can work out to $1950 in some markets. I think if you want OW, you can mix AY on the outbound (AY 5944 AY 1332 AY1) and EI on the "return" (EI68 EI432) and do JNB-LHR-HEL-LAX-DUB-MIL you can knock off even more. ITA wont work (at last for me), but a good OTA aggregator should find somewhere to issue these (I have found Momondo does well at finding these more obscure codeshare combis). I got it down to $1885 with that AY and EI magic. I think I would call this "Channel-specific validation tolerance" (a nice euphemism for explaining that some OTAs will more readily plate anyone of many carriers on the outbound a different one on the "return") and that leads to "asymmetric carrier governance across pricing units" (a euphemism for saying that the two separate one way PUs probably are meant to attract two CIFs, but they are not). The net-net is that OTAs may well be better at finding and building these than ITA, and an OTA aggregator like Momondo may be the best tool.

Is CPT-SFO-EU a possibility with the outbound in August? Want some expert advice before I go diving deep in a fruitless rabbit hole.

It'll cost you. The base fares, look at the base fares and you will see that JNB-SFO and SFO-EU are higher. (JNB-LAX is a pretty reasonable BF). CPT-SFO is even higher. Will be cheaper to just position from/to LAX and JNB. I think your proposed routing will be $3k minimum given the base fares.

I think about the lowest you can go is via LAX...Passenger 1: Adult $1,835.63
Airfare $1,511.00
Taxes & Fees $324.63

I have my own GDS and I can issue fares but I can't seem to be able to replicate this fare. Is it an I fare? Do you mind if I PM you to get more details, please? I would love to do this in specially since I can combine it with a GUF and can get 3 segments in first.

Thanks. LAX and JNB seems to be the way to go. Which endpoint in EU? DUB?

For whatever reason, the OTA businessclass.com seems to be one of the better ones in terms of the "permissibility" of its validation logic and checks. What I mean by flexibility, is that it seems to have a list of all valid codeshares, and it just seems to be asking "is there an IB or AY coded flight on this segment?" and "do the flight restrictions in the fare rules allow that codeshare to be used in the underlying pricing unit?" and "do the sales restrictions in the fare allow me to plate the ticket on this carrier?". Many other tools, including I believe even ITA, tend to have some other level of check, so for instance they are unlikely to plate on a carrier due only to the use of longhaul codeshares, especially if the codeshare carrier doesnt have its own fare on the route in question. So if you look, AY and IB dont file fares for JNB-LAX, but BA fares do allow ticketing on AY/IB stock if other requirements are met. Businessclass.com seems to have been written to the max in terms of permissibility. But if you want AA or BA codes for upgrade purposes, the $2k to $2.1k seems like a good deal still and you can book those everywhere.

Reminder, Travelport still has some useful information Plating Carrier Logic and even some stuff about the S1 records (YQ-YR) now that ATPCO has taken then document down

Many thanks. Have a straight shot at $2125 for some sample dates.

For some reason I want to say they don't auto-ticket, but instead have to manually ticket. Maybe that's old and they do auto-ticket now, but showing a fare and getting tickets are two separate things. Would love to be proven wrong.

I cannot say whether it is auto or manual ticketing, I can say my ticket numbers eventually show up. I have not ticketed this specific one, but plenty of others using the general approach of getting plated on a "non-owner of the underlying fare" for lack of a better way to describe it, those have all been emailed relatively quickly and worked fine for travel. And for all the complaints about dodgy OTAs, I have been fine so far, as we tend to fly as ticketed.

OTA = online travel agency
CIF = carrier imposed fee
PU= ?

Pricing Unit, I think.

yes and largely synonymous i believe with �fare component�. But PU is the acronym used since some of the literature i read and i think is more precise?

oops, guess not: A pricing unit is a logical grouping of one or more fare components that together form a priced journey construct.

Why do you expect problem with crediting given the AS simplified crediting structure? Should you not get 150% as booked via a third party?

EI isn't in oneworld, so you can only earn on EI metal with a flight number range of 0001–3999. That means most codeshares will not earn, even if the operating carrier is an oneworld carrier.

Alaska has somewhat improved their transparency, I recall having to go to each partner page and look up flight ranges that were specified as valid. Now there is this Atmos Rewards™ eligible flight ranges - Alaska Airlines

Many of the bookings we are talking about here include overwater flights that are codeshares and at least some do not appear to be in the ranges of those where AS will give credit -- thankfully BA6001 which I have booked does ;-) When we booked the EI plated AY fares last year, there were lots of options but they all included sticking in a mix of AY coded but other OW partner operated flight. So something like an AY coded BA flight on LHR-LAX, which was sold as AY5459. That is NOT on the Alaska chart now (and it wasn't then) and they initially declined credit. It was a cheap enough trip (and a really fun one!) so I did not additionally push back. Eventually we made a second appeal and credit was received. But I wouldn't rely on that for EI operated flights, we essentially pointed out that these were all OW partners and as passengers we did not care who put their flight number on it, we could see the name of the partner (BA) on the side of the plane. Surprisingly, it would work for some EI operated flights, the IB coded EI fligtht from YTO-DUB that I had posted was IB6054, and what do you know, that is within the ranges that AS now provides (IB 0001–9999). Actually, to my reading of it, that is every single IB marketed flight out there, so the concern wont really apply with IB codes. But AS is really stingy with AY, and has only now added the more extensive listing of BA codes.