dragonman said:
I am curious about this. How do you know it is $500 (or any price higher)? I am having no success checking out a DONE4 (or a DONE5 which is what I want). What would the procedure be - book via USA over the phone and turn up at NRT and pay for it? - given that AA do not seem to accept Australian addressed visa cards.
I accept you know this - it seems hard for a noob like myself to get hold of the info. Can you post the actual price as for a DONE4 through AA?
thanks
Fresh off expertflyer.com:
DONE4 exNRT base fare via any oneworld carrier - US$6107
DONE5 - US$7005
Surcharges vary wildly - and the reason AA is prefered is because their fuel fines are minimal compared to BA, QF and CX. No idea about JL.
Even if AA America accepts Australian credit cards, you have to pay through AA NRT to get the Japanese fare. Otherwise the fare will be the greater of that of the country of purchase vs the country of origin.
For ONE exNRT issued by AA:
Call up the AA RTW desk in the US and set up ur desired itinerary, at +18002473247. If you itinerary involves any CX segments you will need to ticket it within 14 days - the joy of doing exNRT means you can avoid CX segments altogether since there is a myriad of oneworld carriers at NRT unlike CMB. You will need to indicate that you're purchasing the itinerary in NRT so that this gets noted when the itinerary gets sent to the rates desk for pricing. Any extension of the ticketing deadline is generally done by the actual office you're purchasing from, in this case AA NRT, though extensions by the AA RTW desk has not been unheard of if you've built up a rapport over time with certain AAgents. If you do have CX segments the AA oneworld liaisons will generally try to extend the CX ticketing time limit for you to bring it in line with the AA limit but this is not always the case.
Otherwise the standard AA limit is 21 days (some people have got longer time limits). You will then need to call up AA Tokyo at +81345502111 to discuss payment. They speak really good English so no worries on that front. They'd also set up an itinerary for you if you haven't already contacted the RTW desk - they'd fax you a sheet of paper for you to write down ur desired itinerary and they'd book everything for you. This is of course a much slower process than dealing with the RTW desk urself.
If your itinerary involves 16 segments or less you will get an eticket. Credit card payment can be taken over the phone, "unless we experience any problems." Alternatively you can always turn up at the
AA counter in NRT and the whole issuing process for an eticket will be over in 20 mins.
If ur itinerary is more than 16 segments, you'd have to get a handwritten paper ticket. The guy I dealt with mentioned that payment can be accepted over the phone, and that my ticket would be sitting at their NRT counter waiting to be picked up whenever I arrive at NRT. Fortunately I have a long ticketing deadline so I don't have to deal with ticketing yet.
OTOH at least one person on FT has experienced problems paying over the phone for a paper ticket itinerary and was told to turn up at their counter in NRT to pay in person and wait 3 hrs :shock: while the ticket gets written out. But in his case it meant that the ticketing deadline got extended (they also managed to extend the CX deadline) until the day he's anticipated to show up at NRT.
Whatever you do make sure you have evidence of onward travel from Japan if you're using a one way ticket to get there, otherwise your airline is likely to refuse to check you in and you could be turned away if the immigration people decide to check for such evidence. Valid ticket numbers work - whether eticket or paper ticket. Or you could get a fully refundable ticket to SEL or something - whatever works.
I do have to admit that my experience does not extend much more beyond the reservation process and having spoken to both the AA RTW desk and AA NRT as I do not have to issue my ticket till later due to a previous tkt deadline set by AA CMB which does not perform advanced ticketing. And if what the AAgent at NRT told me is true, it sounds like AA NRT does not do advanced ticketing either as you only need to pay "whenever you're ready."
For more information you might want to search the oneworld forum over at flyertalk.
Hope that helps.
edited to add - ok looks like i took too long to reply and Dave has once again beaten me to it.
Oh, I managed to miss some of the best people, I'm so sorry. 
