Hi.
Planning a trip in June and thought I'd pick the wisdom of the AFF brains-trust.
Basically my plan is to go MEL-SIN, SIN-LHR, LHR-JFK, seperate booking of JFK-EAR or GRI return and then JFK-(LAX)-MEL (and this is all in Y).
I'm keen to fly on my WP status since I'm likely to lose it at the end of this membership year and when AirAustralia killed my BNE-HNL trip in July I decided to drop Hawaii and expand to see some of the UK/Europe with some long service leave rather than annual (I try to get to the USA each year to visit a sibling over there, hence wanting to fly to an obscure place like EAR).
When I put in the multi-city booking above on the Qantas website, it gives me a fare of about $2888 and lists it as "sale". So I'm wondering what (if anything) that is tied to - specifically so I know if it is a reasonable deal or not (it certainly seems cheap compared to an actual RTW booking). Does anyone know if it is tied to MEL-LHR or is it tied to something totally different? Dropping the Singapore stop (I'll only stay there two or three nights since I've only ever transferred through it before) seemed to make no difference to fare.
My second question is whether phoning Qantas or trying a travel agent (I just like to organise trips myself so haven't thus far) would enable me to add the leg JFK-EAR/GRI (or even OMA as a last resort) as part of the fare/booking or if they're as restricted as I am with the website. I can book a normal return flight from MEL to OMA but the multi-city booking spits the dummy if I throw it in there.
The third question I am fairly confident of, but thought I'd just throw in here since I'm already posting. The normal visa-entry rules for getting into the Singapore/UK/Europe (since I'll go to France/Germany etc for about two weeks from LHR, probably on a Trafalgar tour)/USA would apply and be no trouble (beyond doing the ETSA in advance like usual), right? Qantas's visa/medical/travel tool seems to show everything is fine, but it is always nicer to have things confirmed by someone who has done it (though I did a similar course about a dozen years ago except in reverse, I went to the USA first).
Any thoughts or tips would be appreciated. I keep being torn about whether to fly return New York-GRI with AA for status/points or whether to just go New York-EAR-LAX on United to save a bit of time (or even to just forget about New York and go LHR-DEN and go DEN-EAR on Great Lakes Aviation).
I'm very keen to hear advice/ideas/past experiences with similar setups.
Planning a trip in June and thought I'd pick the wisdom of the AFF brains-trust.
Basically my plan is to go MEL-SIN, SIN-LHR, LHR-JFK, seperate booking of JFK-EAR or GRI return and then JFK-(LAX)-MEL (and this is all in Y).
I'm keen to fly on my WP status since I'm likely to lose it at the end of this membership year and when AirAustralia killed my BNE-HNL trip in July I decided to drop Hawaii and expand to see some of the UK/Europe with some long service leave rather than annual (I try to get to the USA each year to visit a sibling over there, hence wanting to fly to an obscure place like EAR).
When I put in the multi-city booking above on the Qantas website, it gives me a fare of about $2888 and lists it as "sale". So I'm wondering what (if anything) that is tied to - specifically so I know if it is a reasonable deal or not (it certainly seems cheap compared to an actual RTW booking). Does anyone know if it is tied to MEL-LHR or is it tied to something totally different? Dropping the Singapore stop (I'll only stay there two or three nights since I've only ever transferred through it before) seemed to make no difference to fare.
My second question is whether phoning Qantas or trying a travel agent (I just like to organise trips myself so haven't thus far) would enable me to add the leg JFK-EAR/GRI (or even OMA as a last resort) as part of the fare/booking or if they're as restricted as I am with the website. I can book a normal return flight from MEL to OMA but the multi-city booking spits the dummy if I throw it in there.
The third question I am fairly confident of, but thought I'd just throw in here since I'm already posting. The normal visa-entry rules for getting into the Singapore/UK/Europe (since I'll go to France/Germany etc for about two weeks from LHR, probably on a Trafalgar tour)/USA would apply and be no trouble (beyond doing the ETSA in advance like usual), right? Qantas's visa/medical/travel tool seems to show everything is fine, but it is always nicer to have things confirmed by someone who has done it (though I did a similar course about a dozen years ago except in reverse, I went to the USA first).
Any thoughts or tips would be appreciated. I keep being torn about whether to fly return New York-GRI with AA for status/points or whether to just go New York-EAR-LAX on United to save a bit of time (or even to just forget about New York and go LHR-DEN and go DEN-EAR on Great Lakes Aviation).
I'm very keen to hear advice/ideas/past experiences with similar setups.