The agent was in error. Any flight you book on that carries an AA flight no. earns points and miles exactly the same as if it was operated by AA.

As you found with the TK flights, though, sometimes the miles and points come at a hefty premium. But sometimes not, so it's useful to check aa.com before booking a partner-numbered flight somewhere else.

Thanks. I think that I'll have to give up on the EQP/EQM for that flight. It doesn't seem worth it for me. (It's $750 vs. $1350 or so, so $600 more.)

But I've not booked anything yet. I should think about it more.

IIRC you posted on the airlines board that you might be attending a wedding in Australia after the first of the year.

Is the Istanbul trip in addition to, or in lieu of that trip?

Reason being, either way you ought to consider booking on an AA flight no. and go for the Platinum challenge before you take off. If you're in a one-point fare classification (look at aa.com again) you'd earn enough points to make Plat on the RT, then you'd get bonus miles for all AA flights and Oneworld flights from that point on. If you don't requalify for Plat next year, you only fall to Gold for the following year.

Also you might look at round-the-world routings. If you buy an economy RTW ticket in Britain, the 4-continent Oneworld Explorer price ex-UK is around £1400 (US$2600) that would let you go London-Istanbul-USA, 6 flights in N. America, then Oz (4 flights within that region) then Asia (4 more) then back to Europe, over the space of a year. Lots of miles can be earned in the course of that too, maybe enough to requalify as Plat.

Look at the "Global Alliances" boards at Flyertalk.com for details on RTWs.

Thanks Gradyloo, I'm taking a look at FlyerTalk. I'm really clueless about how the RTW flights work.

I'm set to go to Australia in Jan 2007 -- have already blocked off two weeks. My initial reaction was to claim FF miles for that trip if I can. I still haven't done it yet because I've not decided where I want to go yet.

It seems like if I buy a RTW flight I can get a lot of "extra" flights, but I don't know I can set my schedule for one year in advance. But I guess I can leave some of them open.

I didn't realize that I only fall to Gold if I don't requalify for Platinum. That's useful to know -- thanks!

I must admit that I'm getting a headache from the FF threads, but one stupid question.

If I choose to fly to Buenos Aires instead (EZE, Australia, Taipei), I'd have been on four continents. However does this count as RTW? It doesn't seem like I'd have crossed both the Altantic and Pacific? I can see crossing either (Taipei to NYC via Europe -- Altantic, or Taipei to NYC via west coast -- Pacific).

It seems like RTW must involve one Atlantic and one Pacific crossing?

Maybe I'm geographically challenged.

The great thing about RTWs is that they are very liberal with changes of itinerary. You have to have the ticket re-issued if you change destinations or the order of flights, which costs US$125 per re-issue, so it's best to save up as many changes as you can and only have it re-issued once. They also allow you to have open-dated segments (in fact, all but the first one or two) so if you don't know when you're going to XYZ, leave it open and add a date when you're certain. No charge for date changes, or flight changes if it involves the same city pairs, even switching carriers if two or more serve the same route, e.g. Hong Kong - London (Cathay or British.)

Yes, you must cross both the Atlantic and Pacific, once each, same direction (E-W or W-E.) If the plane's wheels touch a continent then it counts.

So yes, you could go to Istanbul, Buenos Aires <i>and</i> Australia on a RTW ticket, for example if you bought the ticket in London (en route to Istanbul, then IST is your first stop) a possible <b>5</b> continent route could go like this (excuse airport codes) LHR-IST-MAD (can't connect through origin city)-JFK-LAX-ORD-MIA-JFK, then to Oz via Buenos Aires and Chile JFK-EZE-SCL-SYD, then back to Europe and maybe - Israel? via Asia SYD-HKG-BKK-HEL-MAD-TLV-LHR. Or there are literally thousands of other routing permutations. You can stop over at any point, set up open-jaws (fly into Sydney, out of Brisbane) etc. easily. There are a zillion rules, of course, but they are very addictive and very powerful products for people with the travel bug.

I actually was thinking of flying JFK to IST to Tel Aviv and back over Thanksgiving. When I told my friend in Tel Aviv that I might stop by for 24h, he was a bit incredulous. :-)

I guess my problem is that it seems like this whole thing is not workable if my schedule is limited. Basically it seems like I must plan a few trips simulaneously -- and look ahead. If I buy the ticket from the UK, I'll need to buy the transatlantic leg separately.

Also, I've only two weeks to attend the wedding in Australia, see Buenos Aires, and spend some time in Asia. So how can I utilize the intermediate stops? I'd have to travel to those continents again next year? Otherwise it seems like the stopovers will just go to waste?

I want to think that I'm not so stupid, but I must admit that the FT threads I've read are giving me a headache. :-)

Also I'm a little surprised by the pricing. If I take a look at oneworld.com (or something like that), it looks like there's a CirclePacific option that includes Australia &amp; S. America (but originates in the US). When I did a web search for the price, it's supposedly more than $5000. I don't understand why S. America is so expensive to visit.

Anyway I've a lot of questions, as you can see.

No I understand your problem, it's a normal one when you have limited time and big travel plans.

The RTWs are priced differently depending on country of origin. For coach RTWs the UK is among the cheapest, Canada/US among the most expensive. For business class RTWs it's places like Sri Lanka or South Africa, which are expensive and hard to get to for most customers.

Ex UK, the price for a 4-continent RTW in coach is around US$2600; a 5-continent coach RTW is around $3200.

If the price of individual trips is less than that, fine. If the total is more, then even if you don't make the most of stopover allowances, you're still ahead (that's how I see it anyway.)

One other thing - if you broke the trip in Europe after Turkey/Israel, bought a cheap midwinter RT from Europe to home, then used the return portion of the RT when it's time to go to Oz, you could pick up the RTW where you left it, go to Oz quickly, and get home via the Pacific with all the N. American (and S. American if you want them) tickets intact, good for a lot of travel for most of a year. End by flying back to Europe next fall/winter, and get another cheap one-way flight home. No Asia stops to speak of, but plenty of time to use the Americas options.

Thanks. It's just not easy to work this out. I'm attempting to go to Istanbul over Thanksgiving. I'll just have a few days, so a layover in London doesn't seem ideal.

But let me just make sure I understand this:

<b>Thanksgiving</b>

Buy r/t ticket to LHR.

Use Istanbul and Tel Aviv segments of RTW.

Use LHR to JFK of r/t ticket.

<b>January</b>

Fly to LHR (part 2 of r/t ticket).
LHR to Australia
Australia to JFK (Pacific crossing)

<b>To be determined<b>

Trips within America

<b>To be determined<b>

JFK to LHR (for Atlantic crossing to complete RTW)
Buy one-way for LHR to JFK.

I think I can understand the logic of this now that you've sketched it out for me (thanks) -- but I still don't think that I can plan all these trips up to one year in advance. But anyway, I've the weekend to think about how best to do all this.

</b></b></b></b>

Oops, sorry about the boldface. I forgot to close one of the bold tags.

You've basically got it, except one of the rules is that you can't transit through the city where you started - just return there at the end. So if you started in London you'd need to return from IST or TLV to another OW city, namely Madrid (only other one with nonstop service to both IST and TLV.) You could hop up to London on your own dime for the RT back to NYC, or just fly out of Madrid on a RT ticket bought ex-Spain.

When you return to Europe you could catch a Qantas flight to Sydney from Frankfurt, or to Hong Kong from Rome or Paris, connecting to Sydney there, or (a couple extra hours but interesting route) Madrid &gt; Johannesburg &gt; Sydney, in which Africa, and not Asia, would be your 4th continent (Europe, Africa or Asia, Southwest Pacic, N. America.) You just couldn't fly to Oz via London.

Thanks very much Gardyloo. I'll see what I can do. I think that I'll try to see what FF awards are available first. But I'm sure that this will be useful in the future.

Gardyloo or anyone: Looking for some advice here.

I actually just booked a ticket to Istanbul with a Paris stopover. I realized that I've about 15000 MQM in Delta, and this will put me over 25000 MQM.

Ticket was $860.

Now I'm having second thoughts. Maybe I should go for the Plat challenge on AA. The ticket, I think, is $1030. There's no Paris stopover and I'll be going to IST for two days.

Since I booked my ticket on Orbitz I think I have a one-day courtesy cancel.

Should I go for the Plat challenge?

I understand that I'll get more bonus miles. I'm not sure what I'm doing for the trip in January yet. I'm more interested in upgrade options for my long flights -- like on Qantas and Singapore. If making Plat on AA makes this easier, I'm interested in trying for it.

Making silver medallion on Delta will be useful for China Airlines -- if I decide to go the Taipei route.

Thoughts and suggestions?

Thanks!

Having status with one airline in general gives you diddly with other airlines. However it does usually entitle you to use airport lounges when you're flying on a partner's flight someplace, but as for upgrades, no.

You only earn qualifying points on AA if you fly on AA-numbered flights (operated by anyone, but only if AA-numbered) or on Oneworld partners plus Alaska AL. Even then, not all flights on OW partners earn full (or sometimes any) qualifying points, so if you're interested in the challenge you need to be sure what the point yield will be from your itinerary. Details on aa.com.

Remember one of the benefits of Plat status on AA is double mileage, so if you can arrange it to qualify, you should then figure what the &quot;effective&quot; cost per earned mile would be - you may pay more now for qualifying flights, but later earn enough miles so that when you factor in free flights or upgrades, the &quot;effective&quot; cost of the differential comes out in your favor. Simple math.

I've a lot of questions. Just a simple one first.

If I qualify for Plat on AA, am I still subject to restrictions on earning miles in partner airlines (i.e. can only earn miles in class blah?). Or are there no such restrictions and I get 100% bonus for all classes?

Thanks.

If you're looking at the flight JFK-IST: that flight is operated by Turkish Airlines. I do not think that flight will earn you any EQP. It does give you regular miles.

To answer your other Q, if you qualify for PLT, you're still subject to the same rules on partner airlines as anybody else.

I can book the AA operated version on Orbitz for $1030. (Or at least I think I can.) Gardyloo says that as long as it's a codeshare and I book the AA flight then it's fine.

So you're saying that if I get Plat, if a class of service doesn't accrue miles or EQM/EQM, then I don't get it either even as Plat, correct?

Another question:

Let's say I fly 4 flights in one itinerary. On the 2nd flight, I qualify for Plat. Or Gold. Or whatever.

I believe that I get the 100% bonus on flights 2, 3, 4, etc (i.e. I get the bonus on the qualifying flight itself). Is that correct?

Or must I wait until the mileage goes through for this entire itinerary and I start getting the bonus on 5, 6, 7, etc.?

Thanks!

&lt;So you're saying that if I get Plat, if a class of service doesn't accrue miles or EQM/EQM, then I don't get it either even as Plat, correct?&gt;

Yes, AFAIK.

&lt;Let's say I fly 4 flights in one itinerary. On the 2nd flight, I qualify for Plat. Or Gold. Or whatever.

I believe that I get the 100% bonus on flights 2, 3, 4, etc (i.e. I get the bonus on the qualifying flight itself). Is that correct?&gt;

Yes, that's correct.

Thanks, yk. I think that I'm leaning towards sticking with Delta for now, as much as I hate Air France.

Since I've not made the decision on the routing for January, I probably shouldn't let that influence my decision. Basically I'm forgoing less than 15000 miles on AA -- about the price difference between the Delta and AA options (price difference about $170).

So it's slightly more than $1 per mile.

I got to the 15000 miles calculation as follows. JFK to IST r/t is about 10000 miles, but I only get the 5000 bonus on the return.

If I fly to IST on AA, I get bonus miles on all subsequent flights. However if my itinerary in January uses AA and its partners, I'll sign up for the Plat challenge then.

In that scenario, I'll qualify with the bonus on flight 2, but I'll lose the bonus on flight 1.

The net will be less than 15000 miles.

Obviously if I've committed fallacious reasoning, please me know straight away!

Thanks!

To clarify my thinking above, in January, if I fly to Asia and Sydney with an AA option, I most likely will break the journey in Heathrow. Flight 1 will be JFK to LHR. Flight 2 will be LHR to SIN (or longer to SYD). In any case, I should qualify for Plat on Flight 2.

Of course it all depends on class of service and choice of airlines, but then this goes back to the first question I asked. Plat is irrelevant anyway.