I'm trying to book a RTW itinerary starting in PNH and I'm assuming I have to end in PNH. I've been trying to get BA to price something out for me but they keep rejecting it without an actual reason. I believe I've followed every possible rule and I know it's a YMMV situation but I'd love to get someones opinion on how I can fix this.

Also I do want to point out that my itinerary has 30 day stopovers in pretty much every country because I run a digital company and my location doesn't matter. I'd appreciate any advice I can get, I'm just in a time crunch to get this booked because I need to be in Saudi before March 9th.

Can't attach images so going to list it out manually.

February 10 PNH SGN Business
February 10 SGN DOH Business
April 16 DOH DUB Business
May 5 DUB BCN Business
May 22 BCN CMN Business
June 11 CMN MIA Business
June 30 MIA LAX Economy
July 15 LAX HND Business
August 20 HND SGN Business
Sept 20 SGN PNH Business

Cash ticket? OW *ONE* ? https://www.oneworld.com/world-travel
The airline of the first flight usually tickets. At times people get other airlines to ticket. My first look is you have no BA flights
PNH SGN is by QR. From what I have read on FT QR Qatar do not issue OW RTW (*ONE* *GLOB*), but Qantas QF issue for them. (needs confirmation)
PNH-SGN is a very short flight (132 miles). Poor value in OW RTW tickets. Or is PNH-DOH 1 flight number on the day/aircraft? . So counts as 1 segment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phnom_...tional_Airport
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tan_So...tional_Airport

A map from the Great Circle Mapper - Great Circle Mapper

I prefer my colour scheme to Mwenenzi's )

Firstly, your proposed itinerary is a valid 3-continent Oneworld Explorer (in business class that is a DONE3).
Some salient points:

• As far as I can tell, there is no Oneworld flight DUB-BCN, so that will take two flights, probably via LON (resulting there being four flights in Europe/Middle East which is the maximum allowed - DOH-DUB-LON-BCN-CMN)
• All the other flights appear to be OK
• You are allowed a maximum of two stopovers in your continent of origin (Asia), and you appear to be OK there with your first visit to SGN being a transit and your two allowed stopovers being at the end - HND and SGN
• The general rule is you must end in the same country from where started. There are a few exceptions, but Cambodia is not one of them
• At most you have two BA flights, and short haul ones at that (DUB-LON-BCN) so I expect that is why BA is not interested in ticketing for you (but it would good if they told you that!)
• QF does not ticket for QR (in the online tool itineraries that begin with RJ are ticketed by QF, but itineraries that begin with QR cannot be ticketed in the tool)
• So you could use a travel agent to ticket or, if you use AA to fly LAX-HND then you could ticket with the AA RTW desk
• You are using only 11 of the allowed 16 segments so you could have extra stopovers in North America (Carribean and/or Central America perhaps) - you are allowed up to six flight segments in Nth America
• Japan is a significantly less expensive starting point than Cambodia (go figure!). ex-PNH base fare is USD9748, ex-HND is JPY656300 = USD4431)

I am planning my 2024/2025 RTW - beginning from Cairo, first flight is CAI-LHR on BA.
Using the online tool I have managed to get an itinerary that *almost* works for me.
And I took that itinerary right through to ticketing.
And the ticket would be issued by Qantas!??
And priced in AUD?? (It's correct base fare in EGP converted to AUD)

I knew QF was ticketing for ex-CAI itineraries that start with RJ, but why isn't BA doing its own ticketing I wonder.

Didn't BA stop ticketing ex-CAI sometime last year? That could be why the tool is kicking it over to QF, but yes if it's showing AUD then it's almost certainly going to get ticketed by QF.

Funny now that 6 months have passed I have nearly forgotten how horrible QF was to deal with on changes. CX on the other hand has been quite good on the very few modifications I've made so far, but I only deal with their WhatsApp team, the phone center seems useless just like QF. The downside is that I credit to AA and my AA segments on CX stock credited as Fare instead of Distance. On my QF ticket it was all Distance.

Do you have or could you have any CX long haul segments to ticket with them? (Since AA also appears to be off the table ex-CAI for non-AA elites)

EF is not showing any OW rtw fares filed for ex-CAI for AA and BA.

Question: if I book a DONE4 ex-Japan fare going west and visiting Europe and N. America, once I come back to Asia, am I allowed to visit South Pacific and return to Asia to finish the itinerary?

Yes. The relevant rule is:So your first departure will be Asia to Europe, and your first arrival will be North America to Asia.
And your second departure will be Asia to Oceania and your second arrival will be Oceania to Asia.

But note also this rule:So you cannot travel via Japan between Nth America and Oceania.

Good point. I suppose I could also go N. America-Oceania-Asia (keeping in mind 2 stopover limit in continent of origin).

Having to scratch the visit to Australia I had on my RTW. Getting mixed information after an almost two-hour call with the AA desk.

I've flown CAI-DOH(connection)-FRA-MAD-MEX-JFK-LAX-ANC-DFW and still have left (as part of the original ticket) DFW-HND-SIN-HKG-ICN-SYD-PER-LHR-DOH.

I'm looking to switch to DFW-JFK-HND-SIN-TYO(connection)-HKG-HEL(connection)-DOH-DXB...and the agent was pretty incredulous that it would be possible. I think I'm within the rules and in fact, I'm downgrading from a DONE4 to a DONE3.

He did raise a point I'm not sure about, though. Said DOH-DXB (flight 16) would exceed my four-segment limit in Europe/ME? Is that correct?

And if so, would ending the RTW with HEL-DOH or HEL-DXB take care of that issue?

Your revised itinerary has:

• five flight segments in Europe/Middle East (CAI-DOH-FRA-MAD and HEL-DOH-DXB)
• maximum allowed is four
• three stopovers in the continent of origin (FRA and MAD at the beginning, and DOH at the end)
• maximum allowed is two

Your suggestion (ending HEL-DOH or HEL-DXB) will take care of both issues.

Sadly, you get no refund for the downgrade from 4 to 3 continents, and I think you still have to pay the $125 change fee

Pulling the trigger today on:

CAI-LHR-BER (if AA tickets can I get CAI-DOH-BER?)
BER-HEL
HEL-LAX-SEA-DCA (if I use the AA codeshare on HEL-LAX will AA ticket this? is that a better bet?)
DCA-MIA-SCL
SCL-SYD
SYD-AYQ-SYD
SYD-NLK-SYD
SYD-JNB
JNB-DOH-CAI

16 segments, DONE5, prices out on the tool and moves towards ticketing. Question is: obv I'd rather have CAI-DOH-BER but that won't ticket on the tool...what are my options here? Several segments are D1 so I need to ticket quickly which is why I'm leaning towards sucking up BA. Anything I might be missing?

edited to clarify

Just curious but what's the main reason why nobody is ticketing with JL reservations? Difficulty getting through the phone line? Agent knowledge?

One reason is JL has a ticket service fee on top of any other fees the ticket normally has. I want to say it's about $40. I think another reason is that their overseas phone lines are notoriously difficult to reach and their number in Japan is not toll-free (free dial). If you're actually in Tokyo and can go in person to the Yurakucho service center then it would be ok, but knowing how much time these tickets can take to issue and adjust later, you could rack up quite a charge to call the Tokyo number to get good agents. (Last time I called the US number it was a call center in the Philippines and more in depth knowledge was limited)

Thanks for this. I�m running out of time for a departure in two weeks. Glad to know JL isn�t really and option and four different AA agents shot me down in the last 48 hrs despite having the AY codeshare from HEL-LAX (AA flight number) in the itinerary.

guess I�m about to learn just how horrid trying to ticket via the tool w QF is�