I thought the OP wanted a Donex so does it matter if there is no first,

Also no first nrt-del or nrt-cgk, first would pretty much be limited to intercon's,

best value is to by a business fare and if you have some lonely miles on Qantas or BA use them to upgrade those segments with miles

LOL, ELO, I totally get what you mean. I'm in the second half of my own RTW, and still have problems getting my mind around it. You just have to play around with it a lot. I'm going to give you an example I tried on the oneworld planner and the great circle mapper. I haven't figured out how to make it appear as a link like some of the posters above have done. It comes out to a little over 51K. You really have to start in jhb to make it work, and you have a DONE5--no Europe. IF you can get the flights. You'd have 4 very short segments, so you have to decide if rambling round Australia worth sacrificing some accrual.

jnb-syd-per-asp-syd-akl-hkg-del-hkg-jfk-yvr-dfw-scl-ipc-scl-gig-jnb

Anyway, one thing I learned the hard way: book all your flights once you decide on a route. I didn't do that, and when JL quit flying NRT-DPS, I had to re-ticket with a change fee. Once you book, you're covered and they will fix you up. You can always change the dates later. If you're looking a year out, though, you are pretty much stuck, but book as soon as you can. I hope you'll continue to post as you work on this. As you have seen, there are some real geniuses here when it comes to wringing miles out of a trip.

How are you going to get from GIG to JNB?

Well, there ya go. The oneworld planner let me route that (couldn't see if JNB was green or not since it was covered up as the starting point). It made a nice line direct gig-jnb, but you are correct in your skepticism; when I went back to choose flights, it sure is not direct. So, ELO is going to have to spring for a 6 continent fare.

:confused:Jalways (JO) flies NRT-DPS, you could have flown them?

Plug the itinerary into great circle mapper and display it
then copy its url
and insert it as a link in your post (using the 'insert link' button)
jnb-syd-per-asp-syd-akl-hkg-del-hkg-jfk-yvr-dfw-scl-ipc-scl-gig-jnb
easy peasy:D

Your itinerary has to take you either Eastbound or Westbound around the world
Starting in SA and heading North to Europe means that you can then head either East or West from Europe

If you head West (to the Americas)
Then you can come back to Africa either from SWP (SYD-JNB), or from Asia (HKG-JNB) or from Europe (LHR-xxx, where xxx is an airport in one of the allowed countries listed in rule 4(e) such as DAR; you will have to transit London - no stopover)

If you head East from Europe, then you have to return to Africa from LHR, using the rule 4(e) exception - again only to one of the listed countries and only transitting London
This is because there are no One World direct flights from the Americas to Africa

BUT, if it's maximising miles you're after then:
HKG-LHR-DAR is significantly more miles than HKG-JNB
SYD-LHR-DAR is significantly more miles than SYD-JNB
and say
LAX-LHR-DAR is just a lot of miles:)

Just been looking at DONE6 fares on the OW site

ex Sth Africa - ZAR64,000 which at today's exchange rate is ~USD8,910
ex Tanzanaia - USD9,100

So ex-Tanzania is not significantly more than ex-Sth Africa
and then the itinerary could start DAR-xLHR-LAX (say) - that's 10,000 miles straight away (and if the DAR-LHR leg is on the AA codeshare - you can complete the platinum challenge in those two flights)

Masochists could take it further and start DAR-xLHR-xLAX-SCL:eek:

IF the fares are still good then
IF I still want to requalify for EXP all on leisure travel for another year
IF I can get the time off (it'll be unpaid :()
IF lifetime platinum is still attainable
THEN I'm going to do one of the DONE6's you presented in Jan/Feb 2012

That gives you about 15 months to figure out a 200K route :D

I like a challenge, but that might be beyond me:(