Best place to begin a DONE4

[Skyring]

Would you not book a return date so that when the DONE4 ends in JNB you can head back to Aus? ie. CBR-JNB-DONE4-pause in Aus-JNB (end of DONE) - another DONE end in JNB - use return part of fare.

And if you "burn" it it doesnt matter....

Well, I'm now retired, and I plan one of these things each year, possibly two if I travel with my wife. She doesn't put up with the sort of harum-scarum bouncing off the walls go the long way round sort of flying that gets me WP in one trip. So I'll very likely always have an onwards D flight from JNB up my sleeve. A JNB-CBR ticket in Y is not something I'm going to use if I can help it.

 

[Alanslegal]

Any oneworld carrier can 'plate' or 'ticket' any xONEx irrespective of the carrier that operates or markets the first segment.

The online booking tool generally uses the Marketing carrier of the first segment to discern this.

My xONEx's have had the first segments operated and marketed by either CX or QF - they have ALL been plated on AA ticket 'stock' (001-...).

Say my first sector is SYD-LAX would I be able to book online an AAxx_ flight (operated on QF) and it will ticket to AA stock? and naturally avoid the hefty QF ++ ++ ++ ++ and more ++ (yes being cheeky at emphasising the taxes etc).

 

[sweens]

I have a Travel Agent in Pretoria who completes my DONE 4 booking ex JNB each year...I normally forward her a base plan from the OW booking tool.

She books it through the local AA office in CPT and I pay her with AM EX...she charges around $200 AUD for the service which makes the whole process much easier. Also booking with AA saves a bundle of taxes.

 

[Aussie_flyer]

what, nobody is starting in Khartoum?

 

[medhead]

It appears that if you use the RTW planner booking tool online then you are locked into paying with the carrier for your first international flight.

The trick must be to plan with the tool then ring AA in Dallas to actually make the booking then pay AA in SA. I will do that next time. However still worth noting that just using the online tool and then having BA tickets it is still an amazingly cheap fare.

What I found a few years ago, was that the online booking tool would ticket according to the flight code of the first flight. In my experiments if I selected the AA codeshare on QF flights then AA would be the ticketing carrier.

Of course, this could have changed.

Say my first sector is SYD-LAX would I be able to book online an AAxx_ flight (operated on QF) and it will ticket to AA stock? and naturally avoid the hefty QF ++ ++ ++ ++ and more ++ (yes being cheeky at emphasising the taxes etc).

As per above that is what I've seen in the past. No recent experience.

 

[pmk]

I have a Travel Agent in Pretoria who completes my DONE 4 booking ex JNB each year...I normally forward her a base plan from the OW booking tool.

She books it through the local AA office in CPT and I pay her with AM EX...she charges around $200 AUD for the service which makes the whole process much easier. Also booking with AA saves a bundle of taxes.

Will be interested to know if this process still works for you. My phone call and email to AA in SA said they were no longer doing *ONE bookings as I had previously done last year hence my comments above and desire to find most efficient and economic way. My DONE4 booking from JNB that I made this weekend was very efficient, cheap but not as cheap it seems as ringing AA in Dallas to book then phoning AA in SA to pay.

 

[serfty]

Say my first sector is SYD-LAX would I be able to book online an AAxx_ flight (operated on QF) and it will ticket to AA stock? and naturally avoid the hefty QF ++ ++ ++ ++ and more ++ (yes being cheeky at emphasising the taxes etc).

In the early days of the tool you could indeed have AA as the marketing carrier of the first segment ex Oz (/SWP)and it would be 001- plated.

This was blocked after a while.

what, nobody is starting in Khartoum?

About 4 months ago the ex KRT prices doubled/tripled.

Before the increase a DONE4 had SDG14,700 (USD3,330)as the base fare, it is now SDG44,123 (USD9,995) - see here on FT:

Originally Posted by pandaperth
Been a bit obsessive about the ex-KRT prices lately, and just did my regular check of the DONE4 price using KVS

I inadvertently left the airline as QF (from some earlier query)

Gulp: DONE4 showing as SDG44,123 (up from SDG14,700)

Checked all eleven OW airlines

QF, S7 and CX showing SDG44,123
All the others showing SDG14,700 still

 

[medhead]

Hell 14000 would be outta control.

 

[Skyring]

There's an AONE4 out of the Seychelles listed for $3K. If oneworld actually flew there, the main airport would be a human pyramid of frequent flyers one kilometre high queuing for the single checkin desk.

 

[Aussie_flyer]

I priced a done4 from krt for usd2700 plus tax last night. Maybe look again

 

[serfty]

Was that using the oneworld online booking tool?

 

[Aussie_flyer]

Was that using the oneworld online booking tool?

Yeah. but i had a look in Sabre and found those prices doing a fare quote. AB and JL were the airlines. I think I priced it with Air Berlin as the transatlantic carrier.

 

[serfty]

Yeah. but i had a look in Sabre and found those prices doing a fare quote. AB and JL were the airlines. I think I priced it with Air Berlin as the transatlantic carrier.

I'll revisit it - looking at the thread I linked to it seems the airlines removed their fares rather than simply changing them.

 

[sweens]

Will be interested to know if this process still works for you. My phone call and email to AA in SA said they were no longer doing *ONE bookings as I had previously done last year hence my comments above and desire to find most efficient and economic way. My DONE4 booking from JNB that I made this weekend was very efficient, cheap but not as cheap it seems as ringing AA in Dallas to book then phoning AA in SA to pay.

I will check with my T/A this week and see if AA in CPT will still doing *ONE bookings through local T/A's....the last one I did was in June2012.

 

[Paddy55]

I'm in the middle of a DONE4 now - it's parked in MCO and I use JASAs to go LAX-SYD-LAX - very effective for me as I span two qualifying years to get to WP both years.

I looked at starting from NZ but end up with a more expensive fare from SYD mainly because I was travelling with Mrs Paddy and Junior Paddy who were also on JASAs from MEL-LAX, and the logistics just didn't work out. Some of the saving was offset by a day's less earning (I'm a contractor) and the cost of a night in AKL. I'd have been some hundreds of dollars ahead.

However, the start in Sth Africa looks absolutely worth it - that's serious money to be saved! :mrgreen:
Might even convince Mrs Paddy to join me on a DONE4.... hmmm may be in the too hard basket :shock:

 

[medhead]

I priced a done4 from krt for usd2700 plus tax last night. Maybe look again

I had a bit of a mess around with this. What screwed me was RJ being the only option out of there, meaning AMM. Looking to set something up for a conference, which mean VIE making the europe/ME sector count a hard limit. Will keep mucking around with it.

 

[Skyring]

I had a bit of a mess around with this. What screwed me was RJ being the only option out of there, meaning AMM. Looking to set something up for a conference, which mean VIE making the europe/ME sector count a hard limit. Will keep mucking around with it.

Fair suck of the surgeon! For that price, buy a couple of extra legs, and you can still ride around the world grinning like a Cheshire cat.

 

[medhead]

Fair suck of the surgeon! For that price, buy a couple of extra legs, and you can still ride around the world grinning like a Cheshire cat.

Indeed, but I thought the most prudent course with such a fare would be to minimise human interaction to minimise the risk of human intervention.

 

[sweens]

Will be interested to know if this process still works for you. My phone call and email to AA in SA said they were no longer doing *ONE bookings as I had previously done last year hence my comments above and desire to find most efficient and economic way. My DONE4 booking from JNB that I made this weekend was very efficient, cheap but not as cheap it seems as ringing AA in Dallas to book then phoning AA in SA to pay.

Just heard back from my ZA T/A and she states The AA office in CapeTown is no longer a Sales Office but merely a Reservations office. So it looks like if I want to be ticketed by AA I need to ring AA in Dallas and then pay AA in CPT.

The issue is that as AA are so much cheaper on the taxes that it is still worth doing this.

 

[Danger]

The online booking tool seems to be functioning okay at the moment. Over the last couple of weeks I've priced a few xONEx itineraries ex-South Africa and they've all been very good.