How would you do this trip? rtw? series of one ways?

[fifo]

Hi, complex situation here. Qantas gold. LTS.

I will finish my contract in end April 2019 in Qatar. I want to spend 2 months in africa, (qatar to africa flight paid for by company). Then return to qatar to collect my diving kit i've left with a friend.

Then, onto europe for a couple of weeks. Then onto usa/canada for a couple of months. Then likely to Aus to return my diving kit home (50kg or so worth). Then off to mongolia/russia for 5-8 weeks.

Any ideas how to optimise this travel would be much appreciated. Status cred earn is a factor as i'm well on my way to my goal of LTG and need to maintain gold to travel with my diving kit.

Considering a finnair RTW and just not use a final segment. Ideas? suggestions?

 

[RooFlyer]

How about taking your Africa trip, then returning to Qatar and then starting a OneWorld Explorer RTW, 4 continent trip (XONE4, where X is the booking class; if in business, a DONE4). You get 16 segments, with 4 in Europe/Middle east, 6 in Nth America, 4 in Asia and, in your case, because you are starting in Qatar (Europe), 4 in Australia/Oceania, plus intercontinental segments.

So, start in Qatar (the ticket would be on QR stock), take your 4 segments in Europe (QR/BA/AY/RJ), onto Nth America, take up to 6 segments there (AA),back to Australia, then onto Asia (JL/CX/MH/S7) and onto Russia (S7). Russia east of the Urals is in Asia Zone, west of the Urals is in Europe; you can't return to Europe after being there at the start, however. At the end, you'll have to end up back in Qatar (Europe, but OK as it is your origin), pick up your dive gear and return to Australia on a separate ticket.

Actually, if you decide to bring your dive gear back last, as suggested, you could bypass Australia and go direct to Asia from Nth America, and it would be a cheaper XDONE3 trip. I think you still get 16 segments.

You may have to buy some separate tickets to get exactly where you want to go, but that depends. Open jaws on the RTW ticket count as a segment.

there is a RTW planner tool here. You can book and pay for a trip directly from there (after much playing around of course - you can store and change before committing), or, as I do, take the itinerary to an Travel Agent, where you can delay paying until closer to the trip.

You'd be unlucky if you don't qualify for QFF Plat with this, especially if you use a bit of imagination with the segments and use QF into and out of Australia.

There are standard costs for 3, 4 or 5 continent versions, plus airport and country taxes, depending on itinerary. A ticket originating in Qatar may be cheaper than those I use originating from Australia

 

[fifo]

Seriously helpful thankyou! I need the dive kit in eu and us Mexico so I'd have to do the done 4. Hopefully I can arrange it so I have a surface gap between ullan batar and Moscow and then do a one way home from Qatar at the end.

 

[RooFlyer]

Ullan Bator to Moscow overland will simply count as an (intercontinental) sector (Asia-Europe). I think you can return to Europe and do more segments there, Europe/Middle East being your 'originating' continent. .

There are lots of ways to slice and dice what you want to do. There are many here much more expert on XONEXs than me, such as @JohnM who might chip in and comment on this.

 

[ozbeachbabe]

Hi, complex situation here. Qantas gold. LTS.

I will finish my contract in end April 2019 in Qatar. I want to spend 2 months in africa, (qatar to africa flight paid for by company). Then return to qatar to collect my diving kit i've left with a friend.

Then, onto europe for a couple of weeks. Then onto usa/canada for a couple of months. Then likely to Aus to return my diving kit home (50kg or so worth). Then off to mongolia/russia for 5-8 weeks.

Any ideas how to optimise this travel would be much appreciated. Status cred earn is a factor as i'm well on my way to my goal of LTG and need to maintain gold to travel with my diving kit.

Considering a finnair RTW and just not use a final segment. Ideas? suggestions?

So where exactly in Africa do you go to from DOH and will you be flying back from that same African city to DOH when you collect your diving gear?

What cities in Europe, USA and Australia do you plan to visit and is the class of travel J or Y?

After returning to Oz you're eventually heading back to DOH after visiting MOW and ULN? Is work paying for you to fly DOH back to Oz or do you have to pay for it?

 

[JohnM]

If SCs are important and you want to see a lot of places, a reasonably well-crafted DONE4 will yield around 1600 SC - so WP in one go (subject also to taking four QF flights in the year).

 

[Himeno]

Are you starting in DOH or Africa? (Is this company paid Africa ticket one way or return to DOH?)
If you start in DOH, you can end anywhere in the Middle East, but this can limit the stop overs you're allowed in Europe (Europe and Middle East are considered the same region). If you start in Africa, you can end anywhere else in Africa (North Africa is counted as Middle East).
You could start in say Nairobi or Addis Ababa, fly through DOH on the way to Europe and end the trip in Johannesburg and get a seperate JNB-SYD ticket home.

Any oneworld member can issue a ticket for a oneworld product. It does not matter where you start or which carrier is used most/first. Just some carriers like you to have certain types of sectors for them to issue it - for example, AA wants at least 1 of the "over water" (intercontinental) sectors to be on AA flights.

 

[fifo]

Starting in DOH. Company pays one way DOH to Africa. Hadn't considered starting it in joburg. Was planning on using an award qr flight to nix out my qr points. But I guess if it helps I could start there.

Can you just not take the last flight of an rtw with no issues

 

[JohnM]

Can you just not take the last flight of an rtw with no issues

I've never done that, but I can't see why it would be a problem. You'd just be a no-show for that stand-alone flight.

 

[fifo]

Not sure on y or j. I usually like premium econ. Not sure you can book rtw with that.

Work pays for doh to Africa initially, that's it. Not returning to work in doh, returning to oz.

Eu, Frankfurt, Budapest, sardina. Australia, just Sydney to drop off kit and get visas for Russia and Mongolia. 2 weeks in syd, oh and see family

 

[fifo]

I've never done that, but I can't see why it would be a problem. You'd just be a no-show for that stand-alone flight.

John, how do you book your donexs? Yourself or agent?
The the planner isn't what id call useful. Having trouble putting in surface sectors to start with.

 

[fifo]

Oh and jack all availability in Canada.
Having been planning it this year as a test itinerary

 

[fifo]

Doh to Nairobi - paid by work
Bus to cape town on trip.
Cape town or joburg to doh - need decent layover to collect kit.
Doh > Budapest > olb (sardinia) > fra (may hit up Madrid too for a weekend) > Toronto > Calgary > Miami > Cancun and or Belize > syd > ulaan bataar > Moscow (by train) > potentially Moldova and Minsk to finish off eastern eu > Sydney.

 

[RooFlyer]

I'm going to Sardinia in 2 months .

The Xone4 may not be the best solution, given your itinerary. Sardinia will require Alitalia from Rome, except Iberia I think run seasonal services from either Madrid or Barcelona.

Toronto to Calgary (my former second home ) will require a AA service via, say ORD. Internal Europe one OneWorld will also require going via the UK or Helsinki, or Madrid.

The planner works for surface sectors, just put in the from to destinations and specify 'surface'.

I book mine via a Travel Agent - they can book, then defer payment much longer than doing it via the planner.

if you do the RTW, you'll be up for a number of separate tickets, which may still be economical, but maybe a cheaper Finnair RTW (as you first said) with more separate tickets will end up being the way to go.

 

[JohnM]

Not sure on y or j. I usually like premium econ. Not sure you can book rtw with that.

You can on sectors where PE is offered. In the planning tool for a LONEx, any time a sector offering PE is selected, a box pops up with a link and cost to 'upgrade' that sector to PE.

I've never done it, as all my 15 xONEx's have been either D or AONEx.

 

[JohnM]

John, how do you book your donexs? Yourself or agent?
The the planner isn't what id call useful. Having trouble putting in surface sectors to start with.

I find the planner quite good to use and I don't think surface sectors are an issue. Again, I've never used a surface sector - it bites into the total 16 sectors for no return .

I can't recall when the online tool came into being, but initially (15 years ago), I planned my itinerary and then booked it with Qantas Travel until that went extinct. The advantage with that, apart from a good agent that got to know my modus operandi well ) was that I could book way ahead (D & A availability can be limited) and then pay about 30 days, IIRC, ahead.

Recently I've used the tool to plan and book (full payment is immediate), although a DONE4 booked last year for mid-2018 got priced by the tool but it threw up some unexplained glitches when I went to pay. Phoned QF and booked it , with no phone-booking fee. My planned itinerary puzzled the QF agent for a while because he could see the flight and D availability but the system prevented booking until the next day. It turned out that QR would not allow transit under some circumstances (I was flying in from LOTFAP and using DOH as a hub to go to and from Moscow and then up to LHR) and I had to overnight in DOH. A minor PITA as I think DOH is a dump, but better to fly connect on QR from DME to LHR (including my first A350 ride) than direct on BA . I have all the time in the world .

There was an incidental saving of about $2K when the itinerary priced as a DONE3 because I'm returning to Australia from LHR on the upcoming direct QF flight. The work experience kids hadn't programmed that into the tool, which clearly still works on the old 'deemed to transit Asia' that always meant it was not possible to do a xONE3 from Australia.

 

[Himeno]

John, how do you book your donexs? Yourself or agent?
The the planner isn't what id call useful. Having trouble putting in surface sectors to start with.

The online tool came about around 2009. I booked my first few RTWs direct with Qantas via Qantas Travel until they closed that (they were good, if I wanted a QF flight and the needed fare class was closed, they'd take my QFF card into a back room, call someone and minutes later I had a seat). Since then, I've used a travel agent through one means or another (including remotely with travel agents in Tokyo or Canada, but rule changes have meant doing that for my trips is no longer needed) I used the online tool a couple of times, but it has problems. The tool has been changed 3 times since it was first launched and is very buggy (each release seems to get worse). It is fine for building a basic trip, but anything more complex then 4 or 5 stops in major cities and it tends to get broken.
I only remember having used the online tool twice. For my last LONE4, where I used an AA codeshare on CBR-SYD (so AA would issue the ticket with cheaper surcharges then QF) and connected to QF11 and a QF coded AS flight to PDX (which the fare rules didn't and still don't allow), and my first DONE3 ex Tokyo where QF Tokyo had to call QF Sydney when my card kept come back denied (per day transaction limit) and I had to coordinate with the bank and QF Tokyo via QF SYD for the charge to happen during the period that the bank would temporarily increase the limit - during Golden Week, when most offices in Japan are closed.

The oneworld timetable is a better way to see what flights (sectors/times/carriers) are available and then use something like expertflyer to check availability before sending it to an agent. Otherwise you can call the AA or BA RTW desks.

You can book an LONEx and upgrade on a per sector basis to premium economy on flights where it exists for a USD surcharge. Surcharges per sector range from $250 to $1450 depending on length of sector. Most sectors are 950 for the upgrade. The 12+ hour flights to/from Australia/NZ are 1450.

As noted, internal EU flights are hard on oneworld with the oneworld hubs in MAD, LHR and HEL. Since you're looking at spending some time in Europe, you could get a EuroRail pass and use that instead of using the 4 flight sectors bouncing through MAD/LHR/HEL when you'll need those sectors to get to/from the middle east.

Can you use QR points to book on QF64?

The main issues I'm seeing are:

(e) Only one intercontinental departure and one intercontinental arrival permitted in each continent except as follows:

3. Two permitted in Europe/Middle East for travel to/from/via Africa.
If travel is to/from Europe in both directions, itinerary may not include Mauritius/South Africa.

Which shouldn't, in theory, be an issue since you'd be looking at going through the Middle East region of EU/ME, not the Europe region.
and the Asia-EU/ME open jaw with additional stops in Europe after having visited Europe at the start. A way around that would be to get an extra flight back to the eastern side of the Urals, so the xONEx ticket sees the stopover as an open jaw within Asia. But the issue there would be finding somewhere in Eastern Russia or one of the 'Stans' that is easy to get to from DME, that also has flights on S7, QR or RJ to DOH or AMM.

 

[Himeno]

There was an incidental saving of about $2K when the itinerary priced as a DONE3 because I'm returning to Australia from LHR on the upcoming direct QF flight. The work experience kids hadn't programmed that into the tool, which clearly still works on the old 'deemed to transit Asia' that always meant it was not possible to do a xONE3 from Australia.

The "AU/NZ - EU/ME transit Asia" rule won't be going away when the PER-LHR flight starts. Every QR AU flight and the QF LHR flights for the last 5 years have all not touched Asia (as defined by the oneworld fare rules), yet the rule still remains.
MEL-PER-LHR and SYD-SIN-LHR will both be deemed to "touch Asia".
The only way to get a xONE3 and touch the southern hemisphere is to use QF63/64, the LAN/QF flights between SYD/MEL/AKL and SCL and the LAN flight to South Africa.

 

[RooFlyer]

The "AU/NZ - EU/ME transit Asia" rule won't be going away when the PER-LHR flight starts. Every QR AU flight and the QF LHR flights for the last 5 years have all not touched Asia (as defined by the oneworld fare rules), yet the rule still remains.
MEL-PER-LHR and SYD-SIN-LHR will both be deemed to "touch Asia".

Not so sure about that. See last para on JohnM's post above.

 

[Himeno]

Not so sure about that. See last para on JohnM's post above.

You think that a new route that hasn't been added to the booking tool correctly, thus adding another bug into an already bug ridden booking tool, means they are about to change the rules?
For the past 5 years, there has been 1 oneworld flight between Europe/Middle East and South West Pacific that has transited via Asia, while there was 4, now 7, that bypass Asia and non stop to Europe/Middle East and the "transit Asia" rule hasn't changed.
They aren't about to change it now when it becomes 2 via SIN and 6 non stop to DOH or LHR.