Pete's annual DONE4

[Skyring]

The options to maintain my WP rating are:
1. Several LONE4s
2. One well-planned DONE4

As my wife has pulled out of next month's trip, and her idea of flying is to take the shortest most direct routes to the destination there and back and, well, mine isn't, the DONE4 option makes more and more sense to me.

I did one last year and came up 45 points short of what I needed for WP. While I appreciate that I could do exactly the same trip to retain my status, I'm not keen to just throw away status credits and airmiles, especially if I can maximise them just by something as simple as using one codeshare flight number over another.

Here's what I've come up with. The only fixed part of my travel is the ground leg from Washington to Charleston where I'm driving down with a mate to attend a convention on set dates.

Leg 1: Canberra - Perth - Sydney - Hong Kong (on CX, I'll have a shower in the Wing and continue on) - Tokyo - Singapore. Find a hotel and sleep overnight.

Leg 2: Singapore - London - Dubai - Frankfurt. Hostel bed for two nights, spend the intervening day with friends.

Leg 3: Frankfurt - Cairo - London. Another two night stay.

Leg 4: London - San Francisco - Chicago. Two night stay.

Leg 5: Chicago - Miami - Seattle - Washington. Stay a night and drive down to Charleston for four nights.

Leg 6: Charleston - DFW - JFK - SYD - Canberra.

Points to note: Everything's flexible, except the Washington - Charleston - DFW bit. CHS- DFW is on a little one-class Embraer. The land travel counts as a sector when totting up the 20 overall, six North American limits.

I also want to visit London, Frankfurt and Chicago to see friends, and I really need two nights so as to get a solid day in between.

I want to fly CX as much as possible, because I reckon their Business Class service is superior to any other oneWorld operator's. That means I need to specify QF codeshares so as to get the 100% WP airmile bonus.

I'd be keen to take a few hours in Cairo to see the Pyramids. How much time should I allow from the airport, travel via taxi, take a bit of a peek and then return in time to check in? Do I need a visa?

I want to use the American Airlines First class seats (which are really Business class) and thereby get the points for F while travelling and paying for J. As I recall, this means I should look for two class domestic flights.

Any pointers greatly appreciated.

 

[serfty]

Putting it into milage monkey I note the following:

(CBR-per-SYD-HKg-nrt-sin-Lon-Dxb- Fra-Cai-lon-SFo-ord-Mia-Sea-iad, chs-DFW-JFK-SYD-Cbr)

Error!!! No oneworld service exists NRT-SIN

Error!!! No oneworld service exists DXB-FRA

Error!!! No oneworld service exists FRA-CAI

Rule violated!!!! [SEA-IAD] Max 1 segment(s): North America Transcon (already used by mia-sea)

Also, land/surface segments do not count in your 20 available segments.

 

[tuapekastar]

The options to maintain my WP rating are:
1. Several LONE4s
2. One well-planned DONE4

As my wife has pulled out of next month's trip, and her idea of flying is to take the shortest most direct routes to the destination there and back and, well, mine isn't, the DONE4 option makes more and more sense to me.

I did one last year and came up 45 points short of what I needed for WP. While I appreciate that I could do exactly the same trip to retain my status, I'm not keen to just throw away status credits and airmiles, especially if I can maximise them just by something as simple as using one codeshare flight number over another.

Here's what I've come up with. The only fixed part of my travel is the ground leg from Washington to Charleston where I'm driving down with a mate to attend a convention on set dates.

Leg 1: Canberra - Perth - Sydney - Hong Kong (on CX, I'll have a shower in the Wing and continue on) - Tokyo - Singapore. Find a hotel and sleep overnight.

Leg 2: Singapore - London - Dubai - Frankfurt. Hostel bed for two nights, spend the intervening day with friends.

Leg 3: Frankfurt - Cairo - London. Another two night stay.

Leg 4: London - San Francisco - Chicago. Two night stay.

Leg 5: Chicago - Miami - Seattle - Washington. Stay a night and drive down to Charleston for four nights.

Leg 6: Charleston - DFW - JFK - SYD - Canberra.

Points to note: Everything's flexible, except the Washington - Charleston - DFW bit. CHS- DFW is on a little one-class Embraer. The land travel counts as a sector when totting up the 20 overall, six North American limits.

I also want to visit London, Frankfurt and Chicago to see friends, and I really need two nights so as to get a solid day in between.

I want to fly CX as much as possible, because I reckon their Business Class service is superior to any other oneWorld operator's. That means I need to specify QF codeshares so as to get the 100% WP airmile bonus.

I'd be keen to take a few hours in Cairo to see the Pyramids. How much time should I allow from the airport, travel via taxi, take a bit of a peek and then return in time to check in? Do I need a visa?

I want to use the American Airlines First class seats (which are really Business class) and thereby get the points for F while travelling and paying for J. As I recall, this means I should look for two class domestic flights.

Any pointers greatly appreciated.

Hi skyring

I plugged this into Mileage monkey, and it said no NRT-SIN service (I assume that will change on 1 Apr when JL joins OW, but not sure how you go booking one before then).

So I dropped SIN and tried again and it said no DXB-FRA service. So either Mil Monk is out of date or your routing might need to change. And that's as far as I got for the moment.

Also, I didn't think any ground travel counted towards the 20 sector limit on xONEx fares but I may be wrong on that.

Edit: I see Serfty snuck in there ahead of me!!

 

[serfty]

Another tip is not to stopover in LON (or Great Britain for that matter); if departing to a non EU destination in a Premium cabin it costs an additional GBP80 :shock:

You can book a separate one way DXB-CAI ticket on Gulf Air for AUD326.

So get to FRA from LON ; then head of to the US by transiting through LON, thereby avoiding the £80 fine.

So go -NRT-HKG-SIN-LON-DXB,(side fare),CAI-LON-FRA, FRA-LON-SFO-

... CHS- DFW is on a little one-class Embraer. ...

If you wish to fly on one of these, you can do a LGA-BOS-LGA turnaround in about 3 hours. This costs ~USD120 all up on a Sat/Sun on a N0AWKZN fare.

Actually Charleston is tough on AA for a DONE4; only three flights in/out a day at the monument and all to/from DFW.

Perhaps skip SFO and do -LAX-ORD,ORD-MIA-IAD,CHS-DFW-SEA-JFK-

Do those, the following itinerary becomes available:

CBR-PER-SYD-HKG-NRT-HKG-SIN,

SIN-LON-DXB,

CAI-LON-FRA,

FRA-LON-LAX-ORD,

ORD-MIA-IAD,

CHS-DFW-SEA-JFK-SYD-CBR

Properly booked, that will get you 1990 SC's.

 

[Kiwi Flyer]

Some possible tweaks.

Do turnaround at MCT instead of DXB for some extra SCs (MCT is a further zone away from LHR than DXB).

Replace CAI with IST since cannot do 2 long distance intra-european round trips from UK (IST isnt on the list), which then requires LON-FRA on separate ticket. OR just do LHR-FRA and accept the loss of SCs (offset by MCT gain).

From Seattle to Washington go via DFW to avoid the 2nd transcontinental.

DFW-IAD is just under 1200 miles. DFW-BWI is over 1200 miles.

SEA-DFW-BWI means need to drop a NA segment. I guess you want to fly in to JFK for easy connection, thus try RDU-JFK (RDU closest AA airport that serves JFK) with land transport CHS to RDU.

Then back in Australia do SYD-CNS-SYD for 2 more easy 1200+ mile sectors with the remaining 2 flights.

Result is cbr-per-syd-hkg-nrt-sin-lhr-mct-lhr-(ist or fra)-lhr-sfo-ord-mia-sea-dfw-bwi//rdu-jfk-syd-cns-syd. On DONE4 and assuming FRA option + RDU-JFK 1 class, SC earning

80+80+120+80+100+160+120+120+40+40+140+120+120+150+120+120+10+240+80+80 = 2120

 

[Dave Noble]

I'd be keen to take a few hours in Cairo to see the Pyramids. How much time should I allow from the airport, travel via taxi, take a bit of a peek and then return in time to check in? Do I need a visa?

You need a visa, however it can be easily purchased on arrival in USD or GBP

On a DONE, you need to either fly LHR-CAI or MAD-CAI . I would recommend LHR-CAI since it is either a 777 or 747 (depending on the time of year) and so has Club World rather than IB having a shorthaul European business cabin. You cannot just spend a short time there

The BA flight arrives into CAI at around 2300 ( IB from BCN arrives at around midnight , so no benefit there )
The BA flight to LHR departs at around 08:45
The IB flight to BCN departs at around 00:25 ( arriving at 04:45)

In order to see the pyramids and the sphinx you need to allow a day

You could fly out on BA, stay overnight and then take the midnight flight to BCN or , better imo, stay 2 nights and fly out on BA

Dave

 

[Skyring]

Thanks for the above. I downloaded the oneWorld Timetable which has a Global Explorer planner, and in the rules it says: "You may fly up to 20 flight and land segments in total on your trip."

The only oneWorld way in or out of Charleston, as I discovered last year, is the little Embraer, so I want that to be the only non-business leg of my trip (apart from staying in hostels and on sofa-beds, that is.)

Nor do I want to take any other flights. If it's not one of those on the ticket, I won't take it.

Singapore because I can get an airside bed - I figure I'll need one by that stage, but adding another Asian leg to get there is no problem.

Cairo I can skip, I guess.

Anyway. Must dash. My shift begins in fiffteen minutes, and it will be full of parliamentary staffers wanting to get a flight out of Canberra, wondering why their driver is smiling broadly.

 

[Keith009]

Another tip is not to stopover in LON (or Great Britain for that matter); if departing to a non EU destination in a Premium cabin it costs an additional GBP80 :shock:

:shock::shock: !!!

And the definition of stopover here is >24 hrs? Or is it a connection that's not on the same day that sees me overnighting landside?

 

[Dave Noble]

:shock::shock: !!!

And the definition of stopover here is >24 hrs? Or is it a connection that's not on the same day that sees me overnighting landside?

<24 hours will not be a stopover and so not incur the APD

Dave

 

[serfty]

:shock::shock: !!!

And the definition of stopover here is >24 hrs? Or is it a connection that's not on the same day that sees me overnighting land side?

For the purposes of a DONE4 it's <24H, however, the UK have their own subtle redefinition (pp38) which may sometimes apply (but not in this case):

EXEMPTIONS:
...

Transit passengers transferring to an international flight within 24 hours.

Transit passengers transferring between flights when the connecting time to a UK
domestic flight does not exceed 6 hours or when a flight arrives at or after 1700 one
day and a connecting UK domestic flight departs by 1000 the following morning.

Transit passengers who do not deplane. ...

 

[Dave Noble]

For the purposes of a DONE4 it's <24H, however, the UK have their own subtle redefinition (pp38) which may sometimes apply (but not in this case):

Ah true... connecting domestically can have an effect, however the APD for domestic flights is a lot more reasonable and not really too much of an issue (imo) to consider in DONE planning since it is only GBP20 ( compared to the GBP80 longhaul )

Dave

 

[tuapekastar]

Thanks for the above. I downloaded the oneWorld Timetable which has a Global Explorer planner, and in the rules it says: "You may fly up to 20 flight and land segments in total on your trip."

I think that's the Global Explorer fare you're referring to which is mileage based (eg. DGLOB34 (?) for a max 34,000 mile trip), where land segments are counted in the total, whereas you were specifying a Oneworld Explorer (DONE4, continent based) which I think has has no restrictions on land segments.

 

[moa999]

Without knowing your dates, was mentioned on FT that AA has loaded some MIA-ANC flights (via DFW) from May-Sep this year, which is a very good two-class route