Originally Posted by
number_6
This is a gray area of the rules and a matter of luck as to how the issuing airline interprets it. Years ago I tried to do this and at that time the routing was refused; the intra-Asia segment uses up the continent. Which would defeat your purpose. I doubt you can get an answer to this ahead of time, it is entirely up to the rate desk at the time of ticket issue (and also at the time of any re-issue, fwiw). Definitely a high-risk routing.
This has been tested again and again as allowed, and the archive contains not one but several posts attesting to it, so I would not exactly call it a gray area. Yes, there might be uninformed agents who throw a NO as a first reaction, but there is no doubt that the ruless allow for it, and real tickets have been issued with two, and even three, transfers.
Edit: come to think of it I now remember one case of BA being somewhat negative on this issue, so I retract a little and now agree with the "gray" description. In my experience, however, AA and QF are pretty good; the others I know only what I read here.