Hi all, firsttimer here, but long-term traveller!

Firstly I wanted to thank those who have posted in this thread to date- its so useful and much appreciated!

I'm based in London and I'm still trying to get my head around the rules around the DONE4 stopover rules if I start in ARN. In particular the 4 segents within europe that I believe is within the rules, but the booking tool isnt playing ball and I'm wondering what I've misunderstood..?

My current routing is: ARN-MADx-BOG-surface-BAQ-MIA-LAX-HND-BKK-CMB-BOM-LHR then LHR-NBO-LHRx-ARN

Q1: The online booking tool is not allowing me to book LGW-RAK-LGW In between BOM and NBO, and the round the world desk have given me the explation of 'backtracking' even though its still within Europe/North Africa. But I thought it was possible to take up to 4 intra continental sectors, and I havent taken one? They have proposed just using a one way LGW-RAK and leaving the return out.

Q2: My second question is why I'm not allowed to officially stop at LHR on my last return flight from NBO. I'd prefer to be able to do this so I dont have luggage issues, plus it would be nice to use my final LHR ARN at a later date for my next DONE4!

Q3: My final question asks for your experience with stopping over on a transfer flight. I can 'downgrade' the fare to a DGLOB34 and save myself $900, but this would involve losing the idea of RAK altogether, and turning BKK-CMB-BKK into a through transfer BKK-CMBx-BKK to sneak under the 34000 mileage mark. Do people have any experience of trying to change this once the journey has departed? If I date changed one of those sectors, would the systems flag up the extra mileage?

Many thanks in advance for your kind help!

Best wishes