Originally Posted by Unterwegs
I did a similar routing thru Asia about a year back - if nothing has changed this should be ok.
Also because of the limited possibilities to go to Africa i was able to do Europe-CPT-xLHR-USA (no stop in Europe). Not sure any more what the issuing airline was, but if memory serves right it was Lan Chile.
I think your transit through Europe from South Africa was an example of an agent not knowing the rules, in your favor. I would have loved to have done the same thing last summer, but everyone pointed out that the rules forbid it, so I didn't try.