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Hello!
I wanted to share some sort of another thing, again, with you: not a Trip Report but a Booking Report.
Foreplay
To be honest, I felt a little homesick. I've been living in Melbourne for some time in my early childhood and I haven't been there for some time now. I also have not set foot on an SQ aircraft for about four or five years and being on SQTalk, I felt a strong urge to fly SQ again. Another strong argument for flying down-under was to try flying the A380.
So I made my research and found out that a trip to Australia would cost me about 1500 Euros (Melbourne only and no A380). KeithMEL suggested that I might should look into Star Alliance RTW fares and that's what I did. Another SQTalk meet in NY was coming up and I wanted to meet jhm and phaleesy for a long time now, so it was very convenient for me to combine these trips.
I looked into the fares and I decided that I want to take the *RTW Special. 26K miles for a base fare of EUR 2099 in Y seemed like a real bargain and I was planning to do a bigger RTW once I get my Bachelor's degree in February 09 or so. So this special fare came in handy to support me in my plans to probably have 2 RTWS.
So I talked to KeithMEL and did my research and decided to book with United Airlines, as they don't add as much fuel tax as other carriers like Austrian, Lufthansa or Swiss do.
It was finally time to play around a bit with the Star Alliance RTW tool and the first route I came up with was:
VIE-ZRH-SIN-SYD-MEL-LAX-JFK-FRA-VIE
After some more playing around, I found out that flying to AKL from MEL was within the miles and I always wanted to fly Air New Zealand anyway. I prefer NZ to UA any time, though I have never been on NZ it was always clear to me that I want to fly them asap. So my routing was:
VIE-ZRH-SIN-SYD-MEL-AKL-LAX-JFK-FRA-VIE
After some time, I rechecked that route and it seems like *A made adjustments to the milage counts, so I suddenly found my trip to be slightly over 26k. So I settled for MXP. I definitely wanted to try out the 77W.
The booking
So I called up UA Frankfurt to check if my booking was valid. The first hiccough was, when the UA agent told me that the MXP flight was already cramped and I could not get that flight. I simulaneously talked to KeithMEL on MSN where he told me to ask about going thru DME. It worked and the rest of the route cleared. Well, at least most of it ... when I asked about SYD-MEL flights, she said I could take EK. I asked her if she was certain because EK isn't even in Star Alliance. She put me on hold and apologized for her mistake. It seems like this was actually her first RTW booking, or at least her first RTW Special booking as she booked me into the booking class M instead of H. So after my first of many calls, i had this route:
VIE-DME-SIN-SYD-MEL-AKL-LAX-JFK-FRA-VIE
But as the lady screwed up on the booking class routing I had to call again and let them sort out this problem. I also wanted to book myself to Pacific Premium Economy on the AKL-LAX leg on NZ as this was, at least according to *A rules, possible for a surcharge of about 300 US$. The new agent noted this and my first legit routing went through ticketing.
On the next day I was clearly surprised when I called, that the trip was only 2260 EUR. I checked again and she took out the E class on NZ. I told her to re-add it because I assumed she may have made a mistake. She told me that upgrading is not possible, though *A rules clearly say so.
I tried with about for different UA FRA agents but they all came to the same conclusion. So I called UA USA where a lady answered and told me that this is not possible. As I told her to speak to her supervisor, because he might have more info, she mumbled something and laid up on me!
This never ever happened to me in my entire life before that an official sales representative laid up on me.
Consequently I was pretty pissed and decided to try booking with NZ. The NZ lady I told about the E+ incident, told me that UA clearly violates the rules here but there is nothing she could do as she cannot access my booking. As this lady was very nice and forthcoming, I decided to book with NZ and abandon my UA itinerary. I cancelled my trip on UA late in the evening and the NZ office already shut down.
So KeithMEL was kind enough to help me out and booked it over the phone directly in NZ. The booking went smoothly but they weren't able to tax the price in EUR, so they sent the reservation to NZ LON, whom I called the next day. They found my booking and forwarded it to the nice NZ lady in BRU who told me it might be better for me to book on LH or OS (first segment should get the booking!) and that the fuel surcharges were not that low on NZ as well.
Haha ... so I went back to United to re-book from scratch and leave out the E+. At least I had my A380 and quite a few SQ flights.
Meanwhile I also spoke to SQFlyergirl about my trip and I decided to make a short hop to KUL, as it was clearly within my milage limit to go for a cup of coffee or so.
The booking went through as planned:
VIE-DME-SIN-KUL-SIN-SYD-MEL-AKL-LAX-JFK-FRA-VIE.
I was happy and content to finally have a finished itinerary when KeithMEL came to me and told me about recent problems with the UA flight from SYD to MEL. I clearly violate Australian traffic rights boarding this flight and recently, the number of passengers denied boarding increased. I did not want this to happen, so after some 2-3 days of thinking this through, checking back with agents etc. I came up with this:
VIE-DME-SIN-KUL-SIN-SYD-interlined sector to MEL-AKL-LAX-JFK-FRA-VIE
and the SYD-MEL flights paid on QF. I know this might not be the best solution but this is the first time in ages I'm somehow able to fly as much as I want and in order to maximize miles, I ditched the interlining sector and planned my last routing:
Final ittinerary
03/08 --- VIE-DME --- OS0601 --- 32S --- 10:45 --- 15:30
03/08 --- DME-SIN --- SQ0061 --- 77W --- 21:15 --- 11:30 (+1)
04/08 --- SIN-KUL --- SQ0112 --- 772 --- 15:10 --- 16:05
05/08 --- KUL-SIN --- SQ0109 --- 772 --- 14:30 --- 15:25
07/08 --- SIN-SYD --- SQ0221 --- 380 --- 20:35 --- 05:55 (+1)
08/08 --- SYD-MEL --- QF0074 --- 744 --- 07:15 --- 08:45
14/08 --- MEL-SYD --- QF0402 --- 738 --- 07:45 --- 09:05
14/08 --- SYD-AKL --- NZ0704 --- 32S --- 11:30 --- 16:30
17/08 --- AKL-LAX --- NZ0002 --- 744 --- 21:30 --- 14:30
20/08 --- LAX-JFK --- UA0022 --- 752 --- 08:29 --- 16:59
25/08 --- JFK-FRA --- SQ0025 --- 744 --- 21:05 --- 11:15 (+1)
26/08 --- FRA-AMS --- LH4676 --- 73S --- 12:50 --- 14:00
26/08 --- AMS-CPH --- SK1550 --- M80 --- 17:15 --- 18:35
26/08 --- CPH-VIE --- OS0306 --- 737 --- 20:10 --- 21:50
I am looking forward to meeting everyone I meet on my journey... SQFlyergirl in KL, KeithMEL and taipeiflyer in MEL and phaleesy & jhm in NY. I hope I did not forget to mention anybody but if you want to meet up in SIN, LAX, or wherever I might be ... just tell me
I will definitely keep you folks posted!
xoxo
I wanted to share some sort of another thing, again, with you: not a Trip Report but a Booking Report.
Foreplay
To be honest, I felt a little homesick. I've been living in Melbourne for some time in my early childhood and I haven't been there for some time now. I also have not set foot on an SQ aircraft for about four or five years and being on SQTalk, I felt a strong urge to fly SQ again. Another strong argument for flying down-under was to try flying the A380.
So I made my research and found out that a trip to Australia would cost me about 1500 Euros (Melbourne only and no A380). KeithMEL suggested that I might should look into Star Alliance RTW fares and that's what I did. Another SQTalk meet in NY was coming up and I wanted to meet jhm and phaleesy for a long time now, so it was very convenient for me to combine these trips.
I looked into the fares and I decided that I want to take the *RTW Special. 26K miles for a base fare of EUR 2099 in Y seemed like a real bargain and I was planning to do a bigger RTW once I get my Bachelor's degree in February 09 or so. So this special fare came in handy to support me in my plans to probably have 2 RTWS.
So I talked to KeithMEL and did my research and decided to book with United Airlines, as they don't add as much fuel tax as other carriers like Austrian, Lufthansa or Swiss do.
It was finally time to play around a bit with the Star Alliance RTW tool and the first route I came up with was:
VIE-ZRH-SIN-SYD-MEL-LAX-JFK-FRA-VIE
After some more playing around, I found out that flying to AKL from MEL was within the miles and I always wanted to fly Air New Zealand anyway. I prefer NZ to UA any time, though I have never been on NZ it was always clear to me that I want to fly them asap. So my routing was:
VIE-ZRH-SIN-SYD-MEL-AKL-LAX-JFK-FRA-VIE
After some time, I rechecked that route and it seems like *A made adjustments to the milage counts, so I suddenly found my trip to be slightly over 26k. So I settled for MXP. I definitely wanted to try out the 77W.
The booking
So I called up UA Frankfurt to check if my booking was valid. The first hiccough was, when the UA agent told me that the MXP flight was already cramped and I could not get that flight. I simulaneously talked to KeithMEL on MSN where he told me to ask about going thru DME. It worked and the rest of the route cleared. Well, at least most of it ... when I asked about SYD-MEL flights, she said I could take EK. I asked her if she was certain because EK isn't even in Star Alliance. She put me on hold and apologized for her mistake. It seems like this was actually her first RTW booking, or at least her first RTW Special booking as she booked me into the booking class M instead of H. So after my first of many calls, i had this route:
VIE-DME-SIN-SYD-MEL-AKL-LAX-JFK-FRA-VIE
But as the lady screwed up on the booking class routing I had to call again and let them sort out this problem. I also wanted to book myself to Pacific Premium Economy on the AKL-LAX leg on NZ as this was, at least according to *A rules, possible for a surcharge of about 300 US$. The new agent noted this and my first legit routing went through ticketing.
On the next day I was clearly surprised when I called, that the trip was only 2260 EUR. I checked again and she took out the E class on NZ. I told her to re-add it because I assumed she may have made a mistake. She told me that upgrading is not possible, though *A rules clearly say so.
I tried with about for different UA FRA agents but they all came to the same conclusion. So I called UA USA where a lady answered and told me that this is not possible. As I told her to speak to her supervisor, because he might have more info, she mumbled something and laid up on me!
This never ever happened to me in my entire life before that an official sales representative laid up on me.Consequently I was pretty pissed and decided to try booking with NZ. The NZ lady I told about the E+ incident, told me that UA clearly violates the rules here but there is nothing she could do as she cannot access my booking. As this lady was very nice and forthcoming, I decided to book with NZ and abandon my UA itinerary. I cancelled my trip on UA late in the evening and the NZ office already shut down.
So KeithMEL was kind enough to help me out and booked it over the phone directly in NZ. The booking went smoothly but they weren't able to tax the price in EUR, so they sent the reservation to NZ LON, whom I called the next day. They found my booking and forwarded it to the nice NZ lady in BRU who told me it might be better for me to book on LH or OS (first segment should get the booking!) and that the fuel surcharges were not that low on NZ as well.
Haha ... so I went back to United to re-book from scratch and leave out the E+. At least I had my A380 and quite a few SQ flights.
Meanwhile I also spoke to SQFlyergirl about my trip and I decided to make a short hop to KUL, as it was clearly within my milage limit to go for a cup of coffee or so.
The booking went through as planned:
VIE-DME-SIN-KUL-SIN-SYD-MEL-AKL-LAX-JFK-FRA-VIE.
I was happy and content to finally have a finished itinerary when KeithMEL came to me and told me about recent problems with the UA flight from SYD to MEL. I clearly violate Australian traffic rights boarding this flight and recently, the number of passengers denied boarding increased. I did not want this to happen, so after some 2-3 days of thinking this through, checking back with agents etc. I came up with this:
VIE-DME-SIN-KUL-SIN-SYD-interlined sector to MEL-AKL-LAX-JFK-FRA-VIE
and the SYD-MEL flights paid on QF. I know this might not be the best solution but this is the first time in ages I'm somehow able to fly as much as I want and in order to maximize miles, I ditched the interlining sector and planned my last routing:
Final ittinerary
03/08 --- VIE-DME --- OS0601 --- 32S --- 10:45 --- 15:30
03/08 --- DME-SIN --- SQ0061 --- 77W --- 21:15 --- 11:30 (+1)
04/08 --- SIN-KUL --- SQ0112 --- 772 --- 15:10 --- 16:05
05/08 --- KUL-SIN --- SQ0109 --- 772 --- 14:30 --- 15:25
07/08 --- SIN-SYD --- SQ0221 --- 380 --- 20:35 --- 05:55 (+1)
08/08 --- SYD-MEL --- QF0074 --- 744 --- 07:15 --- 08:45
14/08 --- MEL-SYD --- QF0402 --- 738 --- 07:45 --- 09:05
14/08 --- SYD-AKL --- NZ0704 --- 32S --- 11:30 --- 16:30
17/08 --- AKL-LAX --- NZ0002 --- 744 --- 21:30 --- 14:30
20/08 --- LAX-JFK --- UA0022 --- 752 --- 08:29 --- 16:59
25/08 --- JFK-FRA --- SQ0025 --- 744 --- 21:05 --- 11:15 (+1)
26/08 --- FRA-AMS --- LH4676 --- 73S --- 12:50 --- 14:00
26/08 --- AMS-CPH --- SK1550 --- M80 --- 17:15 --- 18:35
26/08 --- CPH-VIE --- OS0306 --- 737 --- 20:10 --- 21:50
I am looking forward to meeting everyone I meet on my journey... SQFlyergirl in KL, KeithMEL and taipeiflyer in MEL and phaleesy & jhm in NY. I hope I did not forget to mention anybody but if you want to meet up in SIN, LAX, or wherever I might be ... just tell me
I will definitely keep you folks posted!
xoxo
Home is where your heart is.
I certainly don't see enough of the last two in my home city! 
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