OneWorld RTW Question

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Mal

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Have been looking both here and FT for tips on planning an upcoming RTW (unsure if it will be a LONE4 or a DONE4 at this stage)

Anyways, have set up the route thus far as:

BNE-SYD-HNL-SFO-LAX-LAS-DFW-YVR-JFK-DUB-ZRH-LHR-HEL-DXB-BKK-HKG-NRT-SYD-AYQ-ASP-BNE

I have validated this and it seems legit. Anyone see any issues with it?

I have a wedding to attend in LHR, but everything else is fairly open. I do have the following questions though:

1) Booking/Paying through AA. Obviously the best idea to save on fuel charges. If I call up the Syd office what do I need to know to get the ticketting happening, or should I rock up there and discuss it with them face to face. Do they even have that available? Do I have to turn up to pay via Credit Card or do they have other arrangements? Once I get it ticketted, I assume I have to deal with AA. Is this fairly simple?

2). Does anyone know of good flight planning software. By planning I mean being able to add flights into an organised intuitive list. Have looked at the OneWorld, Qantas and CX software and find them unintuitive. How do others plan their flights?

3) I have used up the 20 sectors in the flights above. I don't really want to go to DFW but couldn't find a better way of getting into Canada (would prefer to fly than drive). Any other ideas of skipping DFW and getting into Canada?

4) I am planning to go March/April next year. Am I leaving things too late to start getting organised?

5) ExpertFlyer will be one of my friends for this. Any gotchas I should be aware of when looking for flights?
 
Not a bad itinerary.

Note that LONEx's are very cost effective ex OZ when compared with most of the rest of the world.

It's a different story with DONEx's, if you plan carefully, starting & finishing yours at BKK (Same general routing) can save you at least $2K on buying/departing Oz.
 
Hi Mal,

Planning something similar to yours, a LONE4, same direction, leaving maybe a few weeks later, and for 3 people, with itineraries diverging a bit in the middle. Not at booking stage yet though hope to be soon. Sorry to say, I can only share some of your questions, rather than answer them, so I'll also be interested in any feedback.

Booking through AA, I am going to have to use the phone as I think they are located in SYD (and I am not). Rather than hang about for ages on the phone till y ear hurts, I am hoping to get an e-mail address and e-mail the requirements, then just use the phone to iron out any problems/discuss suggestions for impovements.

One of my party is going to YVR, and I also couldn't find a OW way there from LAX, except via DFW. I think he is just going to fork out for an AS flight (AA codeshare), or some other alternative flight, rather than lose a day which he would have to do if going via DFW.

I found the oneworld downloadable timetables/itinerary builder, while not brilliant, reasonably good. Perhaps a tad coughbersome, but I just plugged in the from/to cities and date required, selected the flight I wanted from list presented, clicked and it was plugged into the correct spot in the itinerary (which I saved). It struggles handling crossing the dateline though. Haven't seen any other stuff so can't comment there.

My draft itinerary BTW, is:

MEL-AKL-ZQN-AKL-LAX-IAD DCA-LGA JFK-LHR-CAI-LHR-FRA-HEL-BKK-SIN-(PER or BNE)-MEL.

I note your itin also includes Finland, so as is sometimes said in movies: I'll see YOU in HEL! :shock:

Cheers
 
The only contact details I have for AA in Australia is as follows. There was also a "RTW Desk" number posted which was based in the US, but I can't track it down now.

"North Sydney
AA Ticket Sales Center
Mezzanine Floor
141 Walker Street
North Sydney NSW 2060
Phone: 1300 650-747 (Reservations) Monday - Friday:
9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
NO airport ticketing facilities available
"

I don't really want to call up someone and chat this kind of transaction too either. There is too much room for error when that happens. Would rather sit down face to face with my research and discuss.

A return for me to fly to Sydney to work it all out (at least an initial visit) would cost circa $300 plus my time. That would actually be a lot cheaper than the extra cost of bookng through a Qantas agent.

Still weighing up my options.

A DONE4 is still possible, but unlikely. While it would requalify me easily with my routing, I think I'm happy in Economy for this trip. In Economy it should still be around 400 SC, which is not too bad. If I do go down the DONE4 path, then a BKK start is possible.

Anyone with RTW experience in Brisbane any time soon? Would love to meet at the QP or a similar place to pick your brain a little.

(Oh, and probably the best research tool I found was the PDF version of the OneWorld timetable. A really handy resource for this kind of planning).
 
Booking through AA Sydney is quite possible by phone. The only hassle of dealing with AA Australia is that you will need to fax them a copy of the credit card since the purchase is > $1000

Give them the routing and they can pass it to Dublin for pricing. If you want to speak to the ATW desk ( who I can recommend for dealing with these tickets ) then they can be contacted on +1 800 247 3247

I will be in Brisbane next month if you want to discuss or happy if you want to give me a call; drop me a PM and I'll give you my number

Dave
 
Mal & tuapekastar, I went and visited the AA SYD office (the contact details are correct, Mal) when I was ticketing my upcoming trip. When I was there, I even rang Dave Noble for some assistance.

If you're going to make a trip there, speak with Kirsty (receptionist). She's a 5 year + "veteran" of their Res system, but would rather have client interface rather than sitting in the back-room onthe phone. She was very efficient in arranging the 3 separate tickets that we needed for our Itinerary.

I'd also take Dave up on his offer. I just introduced another FT'er ozmerish to Dave last week in BNE and they thrashed out a DONE4 (ek-BKK) in a couple of hours. ozmerish was gobsmacked that somebody could know that much about flying. It later transpired that Dave has been able to find a F award (one-way?) to BKK (a great positioning flight) in addition to helping ozmerish go from a basic AA member to Plat by 31 Dec 05, then renewing Plat for 2006 by the end of the DONE4 (in Jan). To top it off, ozmerish has been beavering away Amex points, sufficient that when he transfers the first tranche of 1 million points, he'll reach Lifetime Gold (and get 4 VIP's), then Lifetime Plat when he does the second 1M tranche (yes, he really has that many :shock: ) and get another 4 VIP's.

By doing it this way, he gets AA Plat benefits of 4 x 500 mileage upgrades (after the Challenge), then probably another handful of "stickers" by the time he's finished the DONE4 (as you get 4 per 10K flown miles). To top it off, he'll get 8 VIP's when he gets ExPlat.

All in the space of 2 month from an AA base member to a real somebody in the AA program, not too shabby. That's Dave Noble perfectly using the AA system to it's maximum advantage. Without's Dave knowledge, ozmerish might have just been an AA Plat (and later AA ExPlat if he makes 100K miles in 2006).
 
Dave.
Would be great to discuss when you're in Bris. Send me a PM closer to when you're here and we'll arrange something.

Lindsay.
Sounds like AA in SYD know their stuff. Will have to investigate flying down to see them once I get my basic routing sorted out and have an idea of what flights I want.


Thanks guys.
 
Mal, I know Dave Noble is in BNE on weekend of 14/15 Jan. He wants to catch up with me and I'm pleading jetlag (arrive Sat 8am after flying YLW/SEA/LAX/AKL/BNE).

Oh, my mistake, it's Kristy, not Kirsty. I've also had good service from Sandra and Therese. Rita was a bit surly (bad day perhaps).
 
My thanks also for your replies Lindsay, Dave and Mal. Once I have a "final draft" of mine and my companions' preferred itins I'm sure I'll be back with further questions re progressing with the booking part of it.
 
Actually, I think Dave Noble is in MEL today, courtesy of OzJet. Pity you couldn't have caught up. But fear nor, he's there regularly.
 
I am in Mel today and tomorrow and do have some free time tomorrow until about 1pm

Ozjet got me down here again in comfort; do prefer their breakfast to their lunch

Dave
 
Well there's nothing like seizing the moment!

Dave, if you're happy to impart some of your knowledge to me, and if it's convenient to you, then I'm happy to come to wherever you nominate sometime tomorrow morning. Planning is advanced enough to make this worthwhile.

Let me know (via PM or whatever).

Thanks
 
Dave Noble was generous enough to give me some time and expertise over a coffee yesterday and certainly gave me a few things to think about (I'll be revisiting a number of aspects of my trip). And yes, his off-the-top-of-the-head knowledge, and capacity for useful tips was quite remarkable. So Mal, well worth making the time. Oh, and I can see what you meant about the pdf OW timetable. It's very useful for easily working out which airports have direct flights to which others.

Cheers
 
The pdf timetable also comes in handy with tight connections or turn arounds. Helps to identify which ones are the same aircraft vs different aircraft which can make a world of difference.
 
tuapekastar, now you understand why I have christened Dave Noble with 9 *'s (due his encyclopaediac knowledge of flying related matters and the benefits we have gained from it) over the almost 3 years I have known him. I now use his travel agency and instead of paying commission, he gets free beers and meals from me...
 
A few comments on the routing:

1. HEL-DXB is only operated by AY twice a week (Fridays and Sunday) and has terrible timing. The Friday flight arrives at 3:30am, and the Sunday flight arrives at 5:05am (not so bad, but a red-eye on an all-Y 757). And these flights are only available during the northern winter, finishing on 26th March. Not sure when you are planning to travel.

2. The only OneWorld option to YVR from USA West Coast will be the new 3-times weekly QF 73 SFO-YVR. The only other options are AA via ORD or DFW, or CX via JFK. If you have OneWorld Emerald status, then I would recommend using ORD rather than DFW as the AA Flagship Lounge at ORD is much nicer than the DFW lounges. But there is only one daily AA flight ORD-YVR and it leaves in the morning, making connections difficult. So if needing to get to YVR from LAS, the best option is likely to be DFW.
 
tuapekastar said:
Oh, and I can see what you meant about the pdf OW timetable. It's very useful for easily working out which airports have direct flights to which others.
I downloaded the Oneworld Timetable and the pdf version from the oneworld website the other night.

If we are talking about the same pdf timetable I didn't think that it highlights direct flights at all.

One example is DEN-BOS. BOS is listed as a destination from DEN in the pdf timetable but when I go to the itinerary builder (oneworld timetable) there is no direct flight only via ORD, DFW, RDU or LGA/JFK. Even with the itinerary builder some days may have a direct flight but this is not mentioned anywhere where I could see. Then again I could also be reading it wrong.

Anyway I had some fun on the weekend and I managed to draw up a RTW schedule which I would find interesting but could only get 470 SC's in economy (1880 SC's in business, still well short of serfty's 2300 SC's). SYD-PER-NRT-JFK-SEA-DFW-YUL-DFW-BWI-MIA-MAD-CPH-MAD-ATH-LHR-SIN-HKG-BKK-HKG-NRT-SYD. The emphasis was to maximize SC's and try to avoid AA, BA and CX as much as possible due to their reduction on points in discount economy.
 
Mal said:
2). Does anyone know of good flight planning software. By planning I mean being able to add flights into an organised intuitive list. Have looked at the OneWorld, Qantas and CX software and find them unintuitive. How do others plan their flights?
I use a program called TwoPeaks Trip Tracker. I mainly use on my PocketPC, but there is a PC client for it as well and they synch between the two when you synch the PPC.

It handles flights, accommodation, car rental etc and slots all the details into your calander as well.
 
JohnK said:
tuapekastar said:
Oh, and I can see what you meant about the pdf OW timetable. It's very useful for easily working out which airports have direct flights to which others.
I downloaded the Oneworld Timetable and the pdf version from the oneworld website the other night.

If we are talking about the same pdf timetable I didn't think that it highlights direct flights at all.

One example is DEN-BOS. BOS is listed as a destination from DEN in the pdf timetable but when I go to the itinerary builder (oneworld timetable) there is no direct flight only via ORD, DFW, RDU or LGA/JFK. Even with the itinerary builder some days may have a direct flight but this is not mentioned anywhere where I could see. Then again I could also be reading it wrong.

You can get a clue from the elapsed time not corresponding well to the distance, admittedly may be hard to tell on some sectors. Another way is based on flight numbers - still a bit time consuming in some cases, especially for us-based airlines with their habit of single flight numbers for multiple sectors on many, many routes.
 
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JohnK said:
Anyway I had some fun on the weekend and I managed to draw up a RTW schedule which I would find interesting but could only get 470 SC's in economy (1880 SC's in business, still well short of serfty's 2300 SC's). SYD-PER-NRT-JFK-SEA-DFW-YUL-DFW-BWI-MIA-MAD-CPH-MAD-ATH-LHR-SIN-HKG-BKK-HKG-NRT-SYD. The emphasis was to maximize SC's and try to avoid AA, BA and CX as much as possible due to their reduction on points in discount economy.

serfty's routing should also maximise the SC's in economy, or close to maximum. The selection of some north-american 2-class flights to get first class and the SCs for first will distort slightly but not by much.

Note that the routes to maximise SCs is different to the route to maximise earning - because SC earning is not dependent on airline but point earning is (differing minimum points and elite bonuses).
 
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