RTW Mixed Classes?
 

Did some searching but couldn't find anything on this. Does anyone have any experience with getting RTW tickets with different fare classes? Here's the story:

I have an employee based in HKG. She has to fly HKG-ORD (for a conference where everyone from our HKG office has to fly Y). From ORD, she and I will go to MUC and PVG (with her going back to HKG from PVG and me going on to MEX then ORD). We're allowed to travel in C (with the exception of the HKG-ORD section because of the directive), so it seems like the least expensive way is to book a RTW. Can I book her a ticket with the first segment in Y and the rest in C? Thanks.

You can't buy a RTW that is partially based on a business-class fare and partially based on an economy-class fare.

However, you can of course buy a business-class RTW and choose to sit in Y. Or, you can buy a business-class RTW in which the trans-Pacific portion is BKK-JFK (TG), SIN-EWR (SQ), or HKG-YYZ (AC). On these flights, there is a surcharge to sit in business class, but no surcharge to sit in economy. On the TG flight, the seat woulkd be in premium economy, which is an enormous improvement over any regular economy (incl E+).

Easiest would be to voluntarily downgrade the first segment (or chose a flight that has no D booking class availability. But why do this? Presumably the HKG-ORD has to be in Y due to reimbursement rules or employer's rules about class of travel for certain purposes. A RTW by its very nature can't easily be split out into this much fare for this leg and this much for the rest. RTWs generally save money over the alternative of series of one-ways or round trips, so could the rules be loosened to allow business class HKG-ORD?

Another, more expensive, option is to buy an economy round the world, and upgrade as many of the legs (other than HKG-ORD) as you can using miles/vouchers. This is probably very expensive and depends on upgrade availability (as well as having sufficient miles/vouchers).

To expand on Kiwi-Flyer's thoughts, you could also book a Y RTW and once you have travelled the HKG-ORD portion upgrade it to a C RTW for the rest of the trip. The drawback is the entire trip is recalculated as a C from origin, so that's an expensive option as well.

Thanks for the responses. I figured as much.

To clarify, since there is some question as to "why" I would want to do this. With my company, we can travel C for International trips. The first leg of my employee's trip (HKG-ORD); however, is for a departmental meeting (which is held in a different part of the world every year). For this meeting, if we have to fly, we fly Y to keep the costs of the meeting down. This is a slightly different situation where the most economical thing to do is to book the C RTW, since there is additional travel afterward. Unfortunately, you can't put 1 person in C and the rest of the office in Y, especially if the person in C is the most junior of the bunch.

The problem, as I understand it, is the conflict between (1)following corporate policy (sit in Y for one specific flight) and (2)trying to be a good corporate citizen (spending the least amount of money while following travel policies).

In my experience, the people who need to approve expense reports -- the mid-level and senior managers and the people in accounting/finance departments -- are going to have no familiarity or understanding of RTW ticket benefits. They want to know that policies have been followed, and if so, then all is ok.

So, as long as you can turn in a ticket receipt (not BP, but ticket receipt) that shows economy class HKG-ORD and business class for other international segments, you would be OK. AlB's suggestion (buy a Y RTW, then upgrade to a C RTW) would be the easiest for the people traveling, though it could be problematic if tickets have to be purchased/written by your corporate travel group.

If in doubt, simplify! Perhaps a simple Y HKG-ORD return for your colleague, followed by a C HKG-MUC-PVG-HKG. You do the same (with the different destination).........and this might even end up cheaper (depending on the fare class you can get in econ).