Originally Posted by
wandering_fred
JNB-SYD flights on QF are permitted. (It crosses the Indian Ocean)
So there should be nothing incorrect about JNB-SYD-HKG-LAX-JFK-LHR-JNB.
Equally JNB-HKG-SYD-LAX-JFK-LHR-JNB should also work.
We have done JNB-HKG-SYD-LAX-LHR-JNB, but I thought we couldn't do JNB-SYD-NRT-DFW-LHR-JNB. My recollection when we tried is that it ran afoul of:
(a) Travel must be via the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and only one crossing of each ocean is permitted.
(b) Travel must be in a continuous forward direction between TC1 - TC2 - TC3.
I think it was the online tool that rejected it. I thought it was the (a) clause but maybe it was the (b) clause. Either way, now I think the rejection was itself an error, since as
wandering_fred and
Mwenenzi point out, JNB-SYD doesn't cross the Pacific, and since both routes are the same TC2-TC3-TC1.
I wish I'd realized this before booking our 2013 and 2014 RTWs! (The 2013 is flown, and if we changed the 2014 we'd have to pay the extra $1k fare increase.) Maybe we'll do this for 2015. Especially with the AA 777-300 flight HKG-DFW.