But that begs the question, does a surface segment count as a flight segment? I know that it counts as a segment, but does it count against the x free flight segments allocated to a continent?

In case it helps anyone: adding DOH-CAI as the last leg in my ex-CAI DONE4 instead of finishing in DOH dropped my YQ but ~600AUD. The (il)logic of YQ is truly bizarre.

As someone mentioned upthread, these fares will vanish any time, so it makes sense to book now, the cancellation fee is not outrageous with such low base fares.

Back in 2013 I had four flight segments, two surface segments and two stopovers in my continent of origin (Europe/Middle East, where a max of four flight segments is allowed).
There has been no relevant change in the rules between 2013 and now.
Ticket was issued by AA.

FYI: KRT-xAMM-JFK...HKG-DME,LED-TXL,BUD-xLHR-DXB

And in a similar vein
- switching from BA to RJ for LHR-AMM would add ~400AUD to the ticket price
- PER-xHKG-PNH is ~250AUD more expensive than PER-xKUL-PNH

Flying MEL-KUL-DOH on QF/MH as opposed to MEL-DOH on QR for the final leg of an RTW I was pricing out dropped the price by about $1000 AUD and got me all the way down to 5317 AUD, which is the lowest I've been able to price out so far.

Seems the OneWorld site is now broken. Hopefully it's temporary, I was in the middle of making an ex-CAI booking earlier and it started getting REALLY slow when you get the OneWorld symbol with the airplane circling it while it validates flights. Now I can't even get off the cities page anymore.

I have one in "queue" with QF now but noticed mistakes on it after I booked as I was in a hurry. QF said they can't make changes on it while it's in queue, either had to cancel or wait until it tickets. (I know it won't ticket because I intentionally made a mistake in my credit card since I knew I wanted changes, but it's apparently not like CX where you can still make the changes before ticketing). Was going to just cancel that one in queue and make a new one but now the OW seems to not be working at all, tried different browsers, different PCs, different IP addresses, same issue. Quite frustrating when this ex-CAI may go away, at least for now the fare is still there.

There is a chance that they will call you if you cc rejected, and ask for alternative cards

Yes, I'm anticipating that, but I actually want to re-work it quite a bit and can come up with an acceptable itinerary if the OW site was actually working correctly.

TBH I love the way that the OW site does with CX issued tickets and requires you to get a payment link from them regardless, because it allows time to fine tune what the OW site can't do. (like change to codeshares, etc.)

Dealing with QF on these fares is never fun to start with, and considering that I have absolutely zero QF flights on this itinerary, they aren't going to be very keen to ticket it from a blind phone call starting from scratch. It is interesting how OW has delegated so many of these tickets now (not only ex-CAI) to QF, which is literally the worst OW airline to deal with on them.

Put another reservation using DGLOB34 ex-CAI through OW website (4395AUD fare+taxes) which seems to be working now. Tickets issued, but had to retrieve them from MH website, confirmation email only listed the PNR, and tax breakdown as well as total.

I'm six segments into my current DONE5 and trying to date change the last two segments JNB-DOH-CAI to a different day...same flights even...I've now called 8 times and spent 5+ hours on hold while they "try to manually reprice" it. They always promise to call back and never do...

My DONE4 was ticketed 2 hours ago and I'm already experiencing nightmares with Qantas agents. I'm trying to change a couple of flights by 1 day (same ticketed points, same flight numbers even) and the agent is adamant that there is a $125 or $150 change fee for this, even though the rules are very clear that there isn't a fee or repricing if changing dates (other than changing the first segment, which would trigger a reprice, in any case prices haven't changed).

Thankfully I booked dates that I can live with...

Does anyone know if *ONE*'s can be cancelled without penalty within 24 hours of booking? The inability in practice to make any changes due to Qantas incompetence is making me too worried to keep it.

Nope. Qantas doesn�t have the 24 hour policy. My first set of changes pre departure wasn�t bad, but post departure is proving a nightmare. Quote from today:

"I am going to need to call you back. I understand your frustration with the previous agents saying they would call back and never calling, but you have my word. I cannot tie up the line for the several hours this might take. I will be hanging up if you do not agree to a call back."

Oh dear. I'll HUCA and hope for the best. Good luck!

an agent in Fiji and Australia confirmed they had 24 cancel. Warning - DO NOT BUY online Qantas issue tickets but don't allow simple date change without "refaring" the system does not let them to do a simple date change. The have no dedicated RTW alliance desk and it's a toss up if you want to change. They also cannot "find" those fares in order to do a date change if your end point in different country (exmpl out of CAI, in to DOH)