Returning direct from Beijing to London might well do it - as mentioned above it depends if the agent/fares person wants to see it as LON-NAN and return or LON-TFU and return. From what the agents have told you, it does sound like they're considering it LON-TFU with an indirect routing via NAN. No idea if there's an official definition on that though. Back in 2019 we did AMS-MAD-LAX-NRT;KIX-HKG-AMS [stopovers in LAX and Japan] - when I phoned up to add the LAX-NRT as it was released the agent in the Indian call centre tried to reject it it as "not a sensible routing" or something like that. The UK agents had no issue with it the next day though, and fortunately the F seats were still there. I think the "there and back again" "rule" is more recent than that though, so it doesn't help you much here because AFAIK RTW itineraries were acceptable back then.

I know it's all the rage on here to go to any length to avoid APD, but given that that's less than £200 I wouldn't see it as worth the effort on an award booking if you're actually based in London. Personally I doubt I'd start this kind of ticket without an overnight in the ex-EU departure point, so with hotel and LON-DUB flight cost you've spent that £200 anyway... Different calculation if surcharges are completely different from the ex-EU though.

The rules of the Exec club state, among other rules, that -

15.12. Rewards for travel will only be issued to and from destinations served by British Airways and/or Airline Partners designated at the time the ticket is issued and also at the time the ticket is used. The most direct routing must be taken.
15.13. Rewards are based on round trip travel between origin and destination using the most direct route possible. Rewards may be for more than one flight sector. On no more than one occasion per Reward may a flight sector commence at a different point from the end of the preceding flight sector. It is possible to combine flights on British Airways and Service Partner airlines to make a round trip journey of up to a maximum of 8 sectors.

The team making the booking should be aware of this and reject any requests which fall outside it, but if not the "safety net" is the Fares dept to reject it. As above, some "creative" routes have slipped through however for the OP's example it was stopping in 3 separate places so couldn't be considered the most direct route between origin and destination, which is why we rejected the request to add a fare.

I hope that helps clarify it somewhat for you.

best wishes

I appreciate the reply, but I'm honestly not sure it's actually clarifying the de facto situation - at least to me...!

On the "most direct routing" language: this is pretty clearly not as strong as the language would suggest. To take just one example, PER-LHR [or vv] would likely become almost unticketable on Avios, because the existence of the direct QF flight would rule out PER-DOH-LHR since it's 40 miles and one connection longer*. Even the Avios search tool doesn't seem to enforce this rule - I'm pretty sure it'll show PER-DOH-LHR at the very least. Thus if - as it appears - there is some "wiggle room" in the rule it comes back to a bit of YMMV from the agents involved. In the case of the OP's original itinerary [and assuming a destination of NAN] then the only leg where they aren't making some "progress in the right direction" would seem to me to be LHR-DUB.

For the point about the "stopping in three separate places" - this would seem to be a simple question of whether stopovers are allowed or not...? Assuming they are allowed, then since stopovers are clearly defined they could presumably be limited in terms of numbers. Maybe those rules live somewhere else though, but the rules you quote don't do so. Obviously it would be a big change in how we understand and use these tickets if stopovers were not allowed - but for the moment I'll just assume that the remain permitted and thus aren't explicitly OP's problem.

Which seems to leave the definition of "destination". Now admittedly it sounds like OP wants a few days in NAN and two months in TFU, so calling TFU the destination - and thus not permitting a routing to TFU via NAN - is not unreasonable. However, this again seems rather YMMV. What if OP was spending 7 days in NAN and 8 in TFU? Indeed, I'm hardly alone on this forum in having had itineraries with 1-2 weeks at the fare break [or indeed about 35 minutes in one case] but with stopovers of several months, so it's hardly clear-cut.

Again: I do appreciate the contribution and it's helpful to know where the 8 segment and 1 open-jaw limits come from. Unfortunately I think the situation around "most direct routing" and "destination" remain as murky as ever.

*For the sake of the argument I'm assuming QF aren't releasing a huge amount of reward space on this route - at least in premium cabins - though I could be wrong there.

[deleted]-------

Would like to seek your experience in changing award redemption for my booking.

My multi carrier award was issued last month involving QF, AA, IB and QR with 5 flights.

It has recently come to my attention that the last sector by QR (originally economy) has business availability if I change to a later flight on the same route.

I called the hotline and the first operator said change of reward flights operated by QR is not allowed because QR does not allow keeping the existing seat while holding another flight (because BA needs to hold the seat first and wait for a few days to calculate the tax).

The second operator was willing to help, and said that the business class seat on an alternate QR flight was reserved pending tax calculation. However I waited for 3 days without update, and I noted that seats availability on ba.com remains the same (i.e. no seat was held)

I called again and the third operator replied that some partners just do not allow BA to hold seats for longer than designated period, and it’s likely that QR released the seat on the alternate flight. He suggested issuing another new set of multi carrier award redemption, and cancel the first redemption afterwards. However this is not possible because QF does not have any availability shown on BA.com

I really want to fly on QR business instead of economy. Any experience/suggestions on how to work with BA on this?

The only recommendation I have is to try call BAEC local offices in APAC countries where call volume is lower at times, and their fares team may be able to quote you something sooner than 3 days. You may need to stay very late for this however.
In any case, if the agent said the segment is added pending quotation, double check in MMB to confirm if the new segment pops up and advise the agent if it is not there.

I’m in the US so the time difference made it difficult to call at APAC office times. But just wondering if all quotes will go to the same “fare team” or individual locations.

I also wanna know if the alternate flight would also be added to the MMB in my case (i.e. changing the flight date of a particular segment)? That is two “duplicate” flights on different dates?

It’s actually quite simple - if you don’t care what the tax difference will be - ie, if $250/300 more in taxes isn’t going to bother you, then call them up. Tell them the changes you want to be made and they’ll send the ticket off for reissuing with the QR segment in business instead of economy.

If you don’t hear in 24 hours. Call back.

and if you don’t hear after another 24 hours, call back and chase again.

I wouldn’t worry about this whole ‘they can’t hold one seat whilst reserving another for you’ - if you don’t want the economy seat, who cares if they release it in order to get you into business?

it’s all fine and doable - sounds like they’re making a mountain out of a molehill for you.

ba.com actually shows the tax difference between QR econ & business $35 clearly. I quoted to them but they said such a multi carrier redemption is “not that simple”. Also they can’t just keep your credit card details and charge you whatever amount they calculate. New tickets can only be issued AFTER their fare team had the new tax amount.

Yes that’s correct. I’ve done a few of these tickets with many many changes, in my experience you’ll get charged the £35 admin fee for making a change and the tax difference, but the taxes quoted often seem to be 15-20% more than you’d expect - who knows what calculations they’re using behind the scenes…

anyway, it sounds like worst case scenario you’d expect about a £65-80 GBP difference if using that logic.

If that’s ok with you, get them to go ahead and start the reissuing process. And if you don’t hear, chase them. Unfortunately not all agents are that familiar with these tickets. I’ve had to talk a few through them and the processes etc.

As far as I know, US/UK line has the UK-based fare team, then each regional center should have a separate fares team in operation. However, not sure if the residency of your BA account would affect where does the quotation be sent to. Sometimes I get a quote from the center I call to, sometimes the fare was sent back to my home center for calculation.
In my previous cases, any changes in the booking pending tax calculation should have it shown in the MMB, change of dates/location etc will all be reflected. It could look like a mess, but on your BA app (when it's working) you should be able to differentiate by whether those segments carry the flight ticket number

Generally the tax is based on ITA matrix calculation (which should be close enough to what you will be quoted). Therefore, in some cases (e.g. QR) where cash YQ is much more expensive than simple Avios YQ, you could be charged a much higher YQ instead. Other charges should be more or less the same but expect some minor differences.

thanks. But I still cannot get any agent that would help me to hold a seat on the alternate flight and advise me the tax difference without the seat being released again …. The delay in the tax calculation is too long

This doesn't seem right.
If the seat is available and you will book it regardless of the calculated tax (knowing that it will come within some sensible bound) then they should be able to lock in the seat (not hold it) and defer the payment. If the time to do the calculation takes longer than their authorisation on your credit card, then they can ask you to confirm your detals later and take payment then. This does mean you have to be available over the time frame as if they can't get payment your whole booking may get cancelled. But it is ridiculous to be in a position where you can't make a change to a multi-partner award because the repricing takes longer than the hold on a seat.
BA refund helper Was very helpfull upthread in sorting out what the rules are on an initial booking. I wonder if they can also clarify the situation on changes?

which would make planning sooooo much easier. why is it like this? why can't they just publish the rules?