yes the mad addition is just to get the carrier requirement, though coming back on iberia's new biz class and stopping over for a couple of days in madrid isn't a terrible thought. but great tip on lan i had no idea they even flew that route.
i'm looking at availability on kvs tool but nothing showing up but on some of the more obscure carriers i'm not sure qantas website picks it up. do you know if it's accurate? this would be perfect as then we could definitely take ba's club world from yyz to london.
bda is a great suggestion too but we probably would not mind too much the lhr/lgw transfer. we have plenty of time in fact a whole day, and we used to live in that part of the world so could quite easily take the time to drop by some old friends for a cup of tea
really good suggestions though, thank you