RTW AAward planning

[simongr]

OK - I know the partial answer to this and agin some of this is just thinking out loud.

We are now reaching T-330 until mrssimongr gets to enjoy the fruits of my labour - a RTW trip in J (sadly not enough points for F - this time ). I want to go SYD-NYC-LHR-Cyprus-SYD

Plotting this on mileagemonkey it comes out at 24,412 flying into PFO and 24,392 for PFO - so that should be a OW150 award - being 300K miles.

The first date of travel will be around 10-13 July 2008 and we want to spend a week in each place - obvbiously we have some flexibility.

Now the question is - as I need to secure flights out of SYD ASAP as we want to be in J and we must travel together I am assuming that the best approach is to book this in three stages - 330 days out from each preferred date of travel. Is this possible? DO I ust call teh EXP desk three times? How do I ensure that they stick to the originally requested routing for cacluation of the miles required? I am pretty sure that direct flights to the US have already all gone on QF (there is F availability on the Wednesday - and there is J availability on Thu 10 Jul which can't be booked until Wednesday so I am sure that those seats will go be Wednesday) so I am going to have to go via HKG or NRT I think.

How do I request that they try alternate routings whilst maintaining the original routing for points calc?

Also looking at the route home - I know that they will only use direct routing for points so even if we have to do my usual (he he usual) LCA-LHR-HKG-SYD rotuing the points cost will be the same - but will think about that routing or do I need to be ready to check that for them?

It is all a bit daunting - "blowing' all these hard earned points

 

[tscharke]

all i can say is "may the force be with you young jedi"

i know the hassles that i have recently gone through with some simple routes..............however, you do like to push the enevelope there mr simongr

 

[Dave Noble]

There is no problems getting the mileage correctly calculated since they will automatically calculate it based on stopover points.

Dave

 

[simongr]

Ahh - it seems obvious when you think about it - which I obviously didn't

 

[Keith009]

And also they have a very different definition of stopover:
"AA oneworld award rules"

Stopovers

• One stopover is allowed per valid city. There is no limit to the number of stopovers.
• Stopover not permitted at the origination or destination city.
• Stopover is defined as more than four hours for domestic flights, and six hours for international flights.
• If there are no scheduled flights within this timeframe, regardless of availability, you must take the next scheduled flight but may not exceed 24 hours. If the connection exceeds 24 hours, it will be considered a stopover.

Just thought I should point that out in case you're thinking of any whirlwind 23 hour and 55 mins tours.

 

[simongr]

I have been advised that unnecessary and difficult trips are not required on this itinerary

 

[alect]

I believe you book the segments, keeping the itinerary on hold until all segments are booked (may the force be with you). Only once you are ready to ticket, does the mileage calculcation, selection of award type and cost occur.