My DONE4 (oneworld RTW) booking experience

[marki]

Not a paid advertisement!

I have just booked a DONE4 ex-HND using @madrooster's travel agency. It is a great option at the moment as due to the low value of the JPY, my ticket cost me sub-A$9K, which is incredible as you really can't get a return fare to LHR or LAX for that, let alone RTW. I've also got a side trip to DRW as part of it after I get back to Australia.

I just had to make a CR booking to HND one way to start the trip, and I've got the return to HND flights next year which all going well will be where I start my next DONE4. At those prices, going via Japan is completely worth it. (Ex SYD, DONE4 is about A$16K).

And sure, you can still get a great fare booking yourself via the web (and trust me, I haven't used a travel agent since 2008), but I can say going through an agent like MR is definitely worth it - without going into specifics of what he can do.

For those interested here is my trip:
View attachment 398640

Fairly vanilla, an open jaw in Europe (ZHR-CDG), LHR, JFK/LAS then home. Stand alone trip to DRW (using the loophole that BNE/DRW doesn't count as transcon, but SYD/DRW does).

So good

 

[Quickstatus]

@skylabsea
thanks for an informative thread
How far ahead of first sector did you start constructing the Done4?

 

[skylabsea]

@skylabsea
thanks for an informative thread
How far ahead of first sector did you start constructing the Done4?

I started messing around with routes in March 2023, booked the ticket Sep 2023, first sector was March 2024. So took me about a year!

 

[I love to travel]

The thing I am a bit confused about if you start it Japan and your first stop is in Australia, can you then do the other Asia continent flights to get yourself to Europe. So is NRT -BNE (2 month stopover) - SIN - LHR then onto US and home via QF ok? Or if you go from NRT - BNE, your only option this is to go to the US then Europe and finish up in Japan with no more Asia flights?

 

[serfty]

The thing I am a bit confused about if you start it Japan and your first stop is in Australia, can you then do the other Asia continent flights to get yourself to Europe. So is NRT -BNE (2 month stopover) - SIN - LHR then onto US and home via QF ok? Or if you go from NRT - BNE, your only option this is to go to the US then Europe and finish up in Japan with no more Asia flights?

It used to be you could transit Asia once already left, however the rules have chamged and there may be more flexibility.

Attached are the current rules ...

Please review them, especially section 4.

 

[oz_boater]

The thing I am a bit confused about if you start it Japan and your first stop is in Australia, can you then do the other Asia continent flights to get yourself to Europe. So is NRT -BNE (2 month stopover) - SIN - LHR then onto US and home via QF ok? Or if you go from NRT - BNE, your only option this is to go to the US then Europe and finish up in Japan with no more Asia flights?

Asia and SWP (oz) is TC3 so are considered "1 block" for moving round the world

1. Only one intercontinental departure and one intercontinental arrival permitted in each continent except as follows: Two permitted in North America.
2. Two permitted in Asia.
3. Two permitted in Europe/Middle East for travel to/from/via Africa.

So it looks like you can start in Asia (Japan), go to Oz, then back to Asia, then the 2 others and back Asia

Note though that you can only have 2 'stopovers' in your starting continent (Asia)

From the rules it looks like you can do NRT -> BNE -> SIN (1st Asia arrival) -> LHR -> US -> OZ -> NRT (2nd Asia Arrival)

You will not be able to stop in BNE a 2nd time though - transit is OK but 2 stopovers in the same city is apparently hard to ticket.