Using AA code for OSL-xLHR-JFK would make your YQ/YR total a bit lower. My calculation is 1302.51USD if you ticketed on 08SEP. Please always provide the marketing carrier booked, not the operating carrier, for RTW YQ/YR calculations, as the operating carrier does not matter.

To answer your question, while AA RTW desk may insist that the first overwater flight be on AA code, this is not a ticketing requirement by itself. AA technically has the capability to issue the ticket, but whether AA is willing to is another story. The first sector certainly does not need to be on AA code, as in many cases an AA code would not be available. For travel agents, having the first inter-TC (TPAC, TATL, or Europe/ME/Africa to Asia/Oceania) on a particular carrier would default the plating carrier to be that carrier, but this can be overridden with the desired plating carrier's approval.

I will be booking my first RTW next year. As a BA Gold member I would get more Avios using the BA code (if there is one) rather than the operating carrier, but would incur higher charges. Would the increase in charges outweigh the value of the earned Avios? I assume that Avios will continue to be earned using the current method based on distance travelled rather than spend for RTW?

I don't think we can really say until BA announces their changes in full. It may be the case that they earn based on distance for some airlines and not others depending on whether they're under the IAG umbrella or part of the TATL JV.

As I calculated above, specifically for a start using OSL-xLHR-JFK based on the current rate, the difference between using AA code vs. BA code is 1320.85-1302.51=18.34USD, when plated on AA. The BA charge being slightly higher.

I want to get a ticket issued by CX, but I have not been able to get as far as BNELHR. I tried a couple of times with their WhatsApp chat and I asked them to book what I want and send it to the oneworld desk, but they insist that they are unable to book other airlines at all. Apparently I just don't know the magic words to get this done. Maybe it will work if I call. The oneworld site does not even show the flights that I want.

Yeah, I'm incredibly frustrated with the OneWorld site. The only way it'll give me the CX flights I want is to put CX as my preferred airline in the top right. Then when I do that it won't offer me a JL flight MNL-TYO at the tail end, it will only offer CX with a connection via HKG (and 41 varieties of that) but not a single JL flight. If I remove that airline preference it gives me the JL flight MNL-TYO but then can't find my CX flights AKL-HKG-LAX... I'm at 17 segments the way the OW site wants to configure it... :mad: Really didn't want to call because I know CX takes a while to get it done on the phone and I think I've got a forced broken married segment that the OW site is allowing but has D0 as a married segment.

Just as an update, CX does not want to do the booking on the phone either, at least not at the US phone number.

Just finished mine with CX. I made a couple of concessions to get it to work online, I only lose about 8,000 miles but I also saved $6-700 so it's a win I guess.

A couple of good data points for others booking in the future, this would only affect ex-Japan since YQ/YR is relatively low originating from here. There's always a lot of discussion using AA codes vs QF codes with QF's very high fees on TPAC. On the OW site it doesn't give you codeshare options, so I initially had AA43 AKL-DFW. Before paying (the OW site does look like you'll pay directly there, but they actually end up just giving you a PNR and you have to call for a payment link from CX), I got in touch with CX and checked the price difference to use the QF 4396 code. QF was only 2,000 JPY more (about $15) so I changed it, don't want to risk AAdvantage shafting me trying to credit by revenue method (even though if the AA code credits as distance it's 25% more miles. :mad: ) I really wish AAdvantage would give a definitive answer on that.

WhatsApp for CX seems more competent than the phone, but that's only a sample size of 1 so far. The phone agent couldn't do the change to the QF code, said it gave her an error and didn't know how to contact the OneWorld team. WhatsApp agent made the change in 30 seconds and issued a new payment link right away with the very slight price increase.

Overall happy with the ticket I booked but took a lot of fiddling around with the site to get it to work. Also got the very last D availability ex-Japan to AKL on CX for that week I want to leave. :) (married segment issue, otherwise plenty to HKG or even married segments to SYD). A couple of frustrating points I encountered, it'd only give me this CX flight ex-Japan if I select CX as my preferred airline otherwise it insists I have to use QF to SYD, BNE, or MEL to get to AKL, but that also means my very final leg, MNL-TYO, it won't offer any JL flights, only CX wasting a segment that I could have used somewhere else. I could have remedied that on the phone, but didn't really feel like trying, it's a few hours in the Pier at HKG I guess, not the end of the world. It also errors out with EBB-CAI, for some reason it doesn't see the QR flights, I had to enter those separately but it didn't give me the "waitlist" error that it usually does when you break married segments. I suppose the married segment was available just the OW site can't handle those city pairs directly. It had no problems with EBB-AUH on QR however, so was a bit odd since that's the same region. Unfortunately though the UL deal ex-AUH only has 6 months validity and I needed 7, so have to do the RJ one ex-CAI instead since that's a 12 month validity. Again there, I end up saving a bit of money / miles going that route but despise CAI airport so much I'd rather do UL.

Edit: Forgot to include the price for a data point: DONE5 including CX, QF code on AA, AA, and QR. Total 1,020,000 JPY which hit my credit card at about $6800 thanks to the absolutely awful JPY exchange rate at the moment. I wouldn't be surprised to see these eventually get repriced unless the BOJ pulls their head out of the sand and fixes the yen, so enjoy it while it's still this attractive. If you're booking this with CX, on their payment site it offers to let you pay in your most convenient currency... don't do it, it's just another dynamic conversion scam, it quoted me $7100 which is quite a markup.

Good to hear that you succeeded.
So your YQ, YR and taxes etc (above the Base price) was only 124,800 JPY (US$835.54, as I used forex today). That's the lowest I've seen or heard of! Great job. What other airlines do you fly other CX, AA, RJ and QR? No BA or AY? Just curious because of the low YQ+YR+taxes.

Less actually, breakdown of mine below. But even if I used QF HND-SYD-AKL and JL MNL-HND it's quite similar, that version draws only 74,930 in YR / YQ, taxes would be slightly lower without the HKG transits so prices at 1,036,310. So while Japan may have a slightly higher base price, you don't have the wild swings in YQ / YR that you see on OSL and CAI itineraries. I can even put BA in there some places and it doesn't change significantly.

My itinerary is NRT CX HKG CX AKL QF DFW AA SAL AA DFW QR DOH QR NBO (Surface to EBB) QR DOH QR CAI QR DOH QR DUB QR DOH QR MNL CX HKG CX. (The RJ I mentioned in my earlier post is nested in at CAI, it's the well known ex-CAI RJ deal in the Premium forum. I'll go back to CAI and continue the itinerary next summer) I can use BA CAI-LHR-DUB and it doesn't change it much. When I try SAL-NBO it breaks and won't price with BA or IB, if I broke it it in DFW maybe it would work, I didn't try but why would I fly BA over QR QSuites, :D There's another option DUB-MNL on BA to LHR then CX, that adds 30,000 JPY, but I'm still very happy with QR on that route.

Looking at my eticket now:
Base: 895200 JPY
Total Taxes and Airport Fees alone: 74,130 JPY which is quite a chunk but I have 2 transits in HKG which are extremely high.
YR: 50,490 JPY, no YQ at all.

Last year I had a QF issued DONE5 and was somewhat similar:
Base: 895,200
Taxes and Airport fees: 86,000
YR 25,050, no YQ
Total: 1,006,250 but QF comped some of the airport fees during an involuntary change adjustment, that's when I added CX flights via HKG that show on the eticket, but I actually paid 991,280 JPY on that one at the start.

[MENTION=122860]dvs7310[/MENTION],

Thank you for the added details!

I'm trying to book a DGLOB34 at the moment and am pulling hair out over the definition of a stopover BA's fares team seem to be using.

The itinerary is OSL-HEL-LHR // LHR-DOH-SIN // SIN-SYD-ZQN // AKL-SYD-HNL // HNL-LAX-JFK-LHR // LHR-HEL-OSL where // indicates a stopover over 24h.

I have 14 segments including overland in New Zealand. I have 30,633 miles according to GC Mapper. I know the fare rules permit 2 stopovers in your starting zone, TC2 in this case, and the LHR stopovers account for this. Transfers in Helsinki are under 24h.

BA are saying that a 3h transfer in DOH counts as a stopover, so breaks the 2 stopovers in your starting zone rule, so are blocking this booking and insisting on a direct LHR-SIN routing. This has a net cost of 120 BA tier points, which is frustrating, and will likely mean flying a BA 777 instead of QSuite, as I'm assuming they won't allow QF2 on the QF A380, which is also frustrating.

Does anyone have experience of this? The HEL transfers have longer layovers than the DOH one, so I'm very lost.

Remarkably, I've been told by BA they use the OneWorld website to validate routings for RTW fares, which may be the issue. I suspect the solution is to book with QF or AA, but on previous RTW bookings the BA Newcastle team were superb and as a UK-based BAEC member I have a preference for booking with BA.

Looking to book a DONE5 with the following route: CAI-SHA-DEL-KUL-BKK-AKL-SYD-LAX-MEX-SAO-DOH-CAI.

The first leg (CAI-SHA) is routed as CAI-AMM-DOH-SHA through the oneworld site. Called into the Qantas RTW desk to see if CAI-DOH-SHA is bookable due to CAI-DOH having domestic A class availability on the date requested. Agent said they use the oneworld site to view availability so no luck there.

Anyone have experience booking something similar?

The OneWorld site won't book the first leg on QR, that's why it's pushing you to AMM for your first segment. Travel agents can book the first segment on QR however and believe AA can too.

BTW, what do you mean the Qantas RTW desk? I don't believe they have one anymore and from past experience their call centers are generally pretty useless for these tickets.

Hm good to know. Saw someone previously say that AA wasn't booking ex-CAI tickets anymore, but will try calling their desk. As for Qantas, I called in and asked for their RTW desk. Got transferred to someone who helped with the itinerary, but guess it could've been a regular agent.