AstroDamo
Member
- Joined
- Jan 9, 2011
- Posts
- 219
Hi guys,
I've been lurking these forums for a long time, 2 years apparently (I just checked can't really believe its been that long) and I've failed to post anything yet. Anyway would like to thank people here for sharing so much information it has really been a great guide and has eventually lead to this round the world trip I'm starting in June.
Mainly this trip was just meant to be during Annual Leave I had an idea of a few places I wanted to go but didn't have any dead set locations other then Vancouver, Toronto and New York. I'd been evaluating options originally booking a LONE4 from NZ then started to think about business trips so started looking at a DCIR26 where through this forum found that cheap fares could be had ex HKG, I laid out a route HKG-NRT-SFO-Surface-SEA-DFWx-JFK-Surface-ORD-DFWx-LAXx-SYD-HKG. Then I learnt a lesson a friend of mine told me he works part time with a travel agency and he could me the fares cheap, so I gave him the itinery he gave it to a lady there she rang me told me she was having difficulty with some timings and would get back to me, never heard back from them. I then tried Qantas they took quite some time to run it through the system I started with the question can you charge it at the HKG price and they stated they were unsure if they had just told me no this would of then saved the next 20 minutes, found the NRT-SFO was the one that was booked out so moved it a day and then they quoted me the EX AUD price and told me they couldn't charge me the AUD price.
I was all set to try ringing Cathay Pacific in HKG when I was searching for DCIR26 in Google and eventually came across a website called wandre.me which is an excellent website for finding out what different fares are available from different countries and in all the different categories I stumbled across the DONE4s and was amazed to see the price difference with ex JNB, knowing JNB is only around $1600 return in economy I decided to give it a go on the oneworld planner and came up with the following: JNB - CPT - LHR - YYC SURFACE SEA - DFW - LGA - YUL SURFACE YYZ - ORD - DFWx - LAXx - SYD - JNB, This encompassed everywhere I wanted to go on the trip and a couple of extra flights that I was planning on buying with the DCIR26.
Then realising I had 3 segments left I decided to add in a trip to PER by going SYD - PER - ADL - SYD then trip to JNB as the LAX - SYD trip was already going to land me at the Platinum level I made the bookings to Per in November (After my year resets) and to JNB in December. This was then finalised and booked online I unfortunately assumed this would be the end of the process however did not realise that payment could just be made online a phone call then needs to be placed to British Airways in South Africa to pay the booking which had now come out to 126,976 ZAR for 2 persons. I contacted the office which answered rather promptly it became a matter of just simply quoting the reference number then he asked me if I wanted to pay telephonically (his words not mine) I said sure why not but also asked him if we could split the payment, he stated that this wouldn't be possible I'm not sure why. After giving over the credit card details surely enough netbank popped up with the transaction and he came back saying that payment had been made the whole process taking 15 minutes. The transaction took about 14 days before it came off pending on my account and an unusual thing happened with it did it split into two separate transactions anyway. So I'm not sure why I couldn't of charged it on two separate credit cards.
Anyway flights were booked I was excited! Now to get to JNB, this was simple case of a return flight I thought I'd spend a week in December in South Africa, however it got me thinking, I remembered that last year when I was thinking about status and travelling to Europe, I was curious how routing via JNB would affect my points and how much more would it cost and I remembered that it was only about $500 more. So sure enough I tried this multi-city booking again and it came to $2,400 Compared to $1750 return at the time I was looking. With Comet ISON possibly being prominent in December in the Northern Hemisphere I went with it and eventually found SYD-PER-JNB-LHR surface HEL-SIN-SYD (I enjoyed Finnairs service last time) for $2300 in Y. Bringing the total trip to around $9,200. About the same as what the DCIR26 was going to cost me with the extra flights I needed to book.
So in Summary I'm already Gold so have worked out by the end of the trip I will retrieve 112,000 points and 1555 points for $9,200 Platinum awaits me at LAX and I'll have 480 status credits 2 months into my new year towards requalification. Also I get a round the world trip in business plus a trip to Europe! Anyway some valuable tricks have been picked up from this forum and I couldn't of done it without you guys so thank you.
I've been lurking these forums for a long time, 2 years apparently (I just checked can't really believe its been that long) and I've failed to post anything yet. Anyway would like to thank people here for sharing so much information it has really been a great guide and has eventually lead to this round the world trip I'm starting in June.
Mainly this trip was just meant to be during Annual Leave I had an idea of a few places I wanted to go but didn't have any dead set locations other then Vancouver, Toronto and New York. I'd been evaluating options originally booking a LONE4 from NZ then started to think about business trips so started looking at a DCIR26 where through this forum found that cheap fares could be had ex HKG, I laid out a route HKG-NRT-SFO-Surface-SEA-DFWx-JFK-Surface-ORD-DFWx-LAXx-SYD-HKG. Then I learnt a lesson a friend of mine told me he works part time with a travel agency and he could me the fares cheap, so I gave him the itinery he gave it to a lady there she rang me told me she was having difficulty with some timings and would get back to me, never heard back from them. I then tried Qantas they took quite some time to run it through the system I started with the question can you charge it at the HKG price and they stated they were unsure if they had just told me no this would of then saved the next 20 minutes, found the NRT-SFO was the one that was booked out so moved it a day and then they quoted me the EX AUD price and told me they couldn't charge me the AUD price.
I was all set to try ringing Cathay Pacific in HKG when I was searching for DCIR26 in Google and eventually came across a website called wandre.me which is an excellent website for finding out what different fares are available from different countries and in all the different categories I stumbled across the DONE4s and was amazed to see the price difference with ex JNB, knowing JNB is only around $1600 return in economy I decided to give it a go on the oneworld planner and came up with the following: JNB - CPT - LHR - YYC SURFACE SEA - DFW - LGA - YUL SURFACE YYZ - ORD - DFWx - LAXx - SYD - JNB, This encompassed everywhere I wanted to go on the trip and a couple of extra flights that I was planning on buying with the DCIR26.
Then realising I had 3 segments left I decided to add in a trip to PER by going SYD - PER - ADL - SYD then trip to JNB as the LAX - SYD trip was already going to land me at the Platinum level I made the bookings to Per in November (After my year resets) and to JNB in December. This was then finalised and booked online I unfortunately assumed this would be the end of the process however did not realise that payment could just be made online a phone call then needs to be placed to British Airways in South Africa to pay the booking which had now come out to 126,976 ZAR for 2 persons. I contacted the office which answered rather promptly it became a matter of just simply quoting the reference number then he asked me if I wanted to pay telephonically (his words not mine) I said sure why not but also asked him if we could split the payment, he stated that this wouldn't be possible I'm not sure why. After giving over the credit card details surely enough netbank popped up with the transaction and he came back saying that payment had been made the whole process taking 15 minutes. The transaction took about 14 days before it came off pending on my account and an unusual thing happened with it did it split into two separate transactions anyway. So I'm not sure why I couldn't of charged it on two separate credit cards.
Anyway flights were booked I was excited! Now to get to JNB, this was simple case of a return flight I thought I'd spend a week in December in South Africa, however it got me thinking, I remembered that last year when I was thinking about status and travelling to Europe, I was curious how routing via JNB would affect my points and how much more would it cost and I remembered that it was only about $500 more. So sure enough I tried this multi-city booking again and it came to $2,400 Compared to $1750 return at the time I was looking. With Comet ISON possibly being prominent in December in the Northern Hemisphere I went with it and eventually found SYD-PER-JNB-LHR surface HEL-SIN-SYD (I enjoyed Finnairs service last time) for $2300 in Y. Bringing the total trip to around $9,200. About the same as what the DCIR26 was going to cost me with the extra flights I needed to book.
So in Summary I'm already Gold so have worked out by the end of the trip I will retrieve 112,000 points and 1555 points for $9,200 Platinum awaits me at LAX and I'll have 480 status credits 2 months into my new year towards requalification. Also I get a round the world trip in business plus a trip to Europe! Anyway some valuable tricks have been picked up from this forum and I couldn't of done it without you guys so thank you.