The online booking tool is out of date with regard to the backtracking rules - don't trust what it says.
What matters for you is what the rules in place when you purchased back in Sept 2016 had to say regarding backtracking. And by that time the restrictions on flights between the Europe Zone and the Middle East Zone had been removed (they were removed in April 2016).
So AA should therefore allow your AMM-FCO flight without any issues.
However, I do not recall anyone on FT reporting success doing this.
(I will be trying to do it with my next DONE, which I start in a few weeks and will want to make the changes after I take the first couple of flights.)
Originally Posted by
cphurley
Just read through a bunch of this thread and the AA issue for Europe / Middle East where itinerary includes South Africa.
I'm in the middle of DONE4 booked BEFORE on BA in Sept 2016 but taken over by AA RTW after first flight (Jan 2017):
JNB-xDOH-NorthAmerica-Asia-HEL-MAD-JNB
And I'm considering a change to:
JNB-xDOH-NorthAmerica-Asia-AMM-FCO-LHR-JNB
The tool won't price a new itinerary like that, with error 2622: Your itinerary cannot include any flow or surface sector between Europe and Middle East.
My read of the old rules is this would be 3.2.2 (Middle East twice but one less than 24 hour) - so no restriction on Europe-Middle East flights?
My read on the NEW rules is that it should simply be allowed without issue.
BUT... I'm ticketed with AA, so who knows. Has anyone actually been able to get AA to allow Europe - Middle East segments with leaving via ME (<24hr) and returning via ME - under old rules 3.2.2 OR under the new rules?