Originally Posted by moral_low_ground

A few questions/sanity check/suggestions ?

Am planning a nice long RTW and have the following itinerary planned.

OSL-LHR-JNB-DOH-PER-MEL-ZQN-AKL-JFK-CLT-JAX-ORD-BZN-DFW-MIA-LHR-OSL

So this will be 16 segments on a DONE4 with PER-MEL being a surface segment and ZQN-AKL also being surface

Questions as follows:

1) Assume the Itinerary is valid ? - I have 6 North America segments after landing in JFK and exiting in MIA so I think that is fine

2) JNB-DOH-PER is, I assume, 2 segments even though I am just in transit in DOH - I think I read somewhere that JNB-PER via SYD might only be one ?

3) When flying JNB - PER as per above, I will transit DOH so that will be "re-visiting" the Europe/Middle East zone - I assume this is ok (or otherwise I will need to book JNB-SYD-PER which would work but not be ideal as JNB-SYD does not fly every day. I don’t want to fly JNB-PER on CX as this would make it a DONE5 and even though QF are re-introducing a non-stop JNB-PER it again doesn’t fly on the day I need and has no D class at the moment - FYI - JNB - PER is my only time sensitive segment - most everything else I don’t care about and can move a week or weeks either way

4) What is the best way to book this - as BA is the first segment should I just ring them ? I did contact Trailfinders and they can do it no problem but they want 250 GBP to make any changes to the ticket after issue - and as this will start next Jan (2026) and be for a whole year I am going to have to put some dummy dates to begin with and book them as/when the booking window opens

5) Any other thoughts ? I will probably book on my BA Amex to maximise the avios return - any better ways of booking?