Hello,


I have read through the forums and I still don't fully understand the complex rules laid out by OW.

I'm based in London and would like to take advantage of the EX JNB AONEX fare. The online tools reports I have returned to the point of origin. Is there a solution other than a route via Hong Kong? After New York I would like to stop over fro a couple of months in London.

Joburg - Chennai - Singapore - Sydney - Los Angeles - New York - London - Cape Town - Joburg

help..

If I understand your question correctly then, among other things, you are going to need to:

1) fly BA from LHR to JNB or CPT. However, you cannot fly LHR to JNB to get to CPT as you cannot connect through your origin city.

and

2) fly CX from JNB to HKG or QF from JNB to SYD (because you cannot connect in Europe/LHR twice in this situation)

Welcome to FT!

Here's a valid route for your trip. You'll have to fly outbound via HKG; it's Oneworld's only South Africa - Asia route.

Note that first class may not be available on JNB-HKG as CX doesn't always offer it on that route, so that would limit your segments with "true" first class to only a few of your total. Your trip would be through 5 continents, i.e. an AONE5.

Note this only uses 10 of a maximum of 16 allowed segments, so you could - should you choose - use it for more extensive travel in Australia, North America and/or Europe.

Welcome to FT andyandy21

The "complex rules" are available - here

You haven't listed the itinerary that the online tool gave you, but I suspect that for JNB-MAA it routed you via LHR, right?
And in that case, you have used up your allowed entry/exit to Europe!
(except for a special exemption if you are returning to certain Africa countries - Sth Africa is not one of them - see Rule 2(e)3

So to defer Europe until later in the itinerary, you need to leave Sth Africa and head for either Asia (HKG) or Sth West Pacific (SYD)
Note that the QF service JNB-SYD does not have first class
and as Gardyloo pointed out, CX does not always have first class on its JNB-HKG service

Again as Gardyloo pointed out, you have unused segments
So perhaps a couple of side-trips from London while you're there - say LHR-MCT-LHR and LHR-FCO-LHR or perhaps one longer trip - LHR-DME-IKT-DME-LHR might be nice
Note that there are restrictions on intra-Europe flights - see Rule 2(h)

Finally, because you're starting in Africa, you must end in Africa - anywhere in Africa, there is no requirement to return to Sth Africa - see Rule 2(c)

CX F service JNB/HKG (in both directions, of course) is usually during northern hemisphere winter. I don't have the exact dates but they can be determined easily.

You guys are genius. Thanks you.

I was spending more time planning how to get to each destination comfortably, rather than focusing on what I actually needed to do in each country.

Bar JNB, I Travel this route back to back twice a year EX UK in D class. Are there any other countries in Europe with better fares than LHR?

Do you mean you travel this route twice a year?Currently, the cheapest place to start a DONE4 is Egypt
Base price is EGP40900 (approx GBP3870), compared to ex-UK GBP5988

Egypt is counted as part of the continent defined in the ticket rules as "Europe-Middle East". Note that you are allowed only two stopovers in your continent of origin (see the rules in the link I provided in my earlier post)

If you continually do the itinerary, then you somehow get yourself to Cairo the first time, and from then on you just keep ending one DONE4 there and immediately start the next DONE4

One more thing, if you can avoid ticketing with BA - it has hefty fuel surcharges. (and if you ticket with AA, it collects BA's fuel surcharges for any BA segments on the itinerary)