There used to be one on MH, but I can't find it anymore either. It was a 737 flight too, so not really a premium business class experience. So agree on hsmal's itinerary they need to do the stopover in KUL and buy their own tickets to BKI. Even that's a long domestic flight, they are still typically dirt cheap within Malaysia, especially if you can handle Firefly or Air Asia, but even MH doesn't charge offensive prices for domestic business if that's what you want. I personally wouldn't buy MH domestic economy over Firefly (owned by MH) unless the price is nearly the same and you get status benefits since most MH economy fares won't credit to anywhere except Enrich. I had LGK-KUL not too long ago and MH economy was $22 one way, so that was a no-brainer, but for a large differential Firefly is perfectly fine.

Thank you both very much. On further investigation it seems that there are only occasional direct flights about two days in the month for the next couple of months. Then they vanish. Back to the drawing board as we cannot make a side trip without putting in a stopover rather than a transfer at KUL, which in our case we have not got!

What's preventing you from having the stopover at KUL vs. BKI? MH flies DPS-KUL and both MH and JL fly KUL-NRT, within an hour of each other actually. I'd actually strongly prefer the A350 on MH vs. 767 on JL but I have to take JL on that route because the difference in earnings in AAdvantage.

Is the issue because you'd be wasting a segment? I don't think that's a big deal if you are otherwise getting what you want on the itinerary. I have no problem with a 14 or 15 segment DONEx when there's no longer a practical use for the 'wasted' segments. If you want the segment that badly you could do LHR-HKG-KUL-DPS.

Just found something interesting, I got the idea from the Premium Fares thread where they were discussing the various ex-Egypt fares after the currency drop. Someone mentioned there are some very old OW RTW fares still flied from secondary Egyptian cities. None of them are relevant because no OW airline flies to any of them.... except one, which was not mentioned in that thread.. Alexandria. The generic city code ALY still has a fare filed, but not the actual airport code HBE. Only QR flies there, so I can't test it in the OW tool This could potentially open up a few more opportunities for those who didn't book in time but wish they did.

I don't know if it works because of the ALY vs. HBE IATA code, first segment must be QR, and it's not daily. RJ is supposedly going back after June 4th but it's not on the schedule yet.

Very tempting to keep this quiet until RJ puts the HBE schedule on the board and see if it works in the OW tool or not, but with it being in the Premium Fares thread, I think I'm not the only person who knows that QR flies there currently and it'll either work or not and likely get pulled if it does.

The ALY idea does not seem to work. Only AA has a cheap fare filed for ALY (and an expensive one from HEB), and even when trying to price it and forcing an AA fare, the expensive one is used.

Where did you attempt to price this?

Sabre

That's too bad but thanks for giving it a try. Too bad RJ doesn't start new routes to Hurghada or Marsa Alam. :(

Yes it was the segment. In fact we managed to kill BKI for this trip and use another segment in North America where we were a bit short. (And we might be desperate for tier points next year...)

Thanks to everyone for their help. This is the final version....NRT-HNL-SFO-xDFW-SJO-xCLT-YYZ-JFK-LHR-HEL-LPA-CMN-LHR-xHKG-DPS-KUL-NRT

Fair enough, seems like you came up with one you are happy with now. But no reason to nix BKI if that's where you really want to go. I wouldn't spend more than a full day in Kuala Lumpur myself (but I've been there a number of times). I hated Penang (God awful traffic and serious lack of Grab drivers), loved Langkawi and haven't been to Kota Kinabalu yet. LGK can be $100 each way in domestic business, BKI closer to $200 each way, so they're both worth it, especially if scrounging for a few more TPs. Trip.com often discounts MH business class, but I'm not sure if it's only international or not.

BTW, you might save yourself on UK APD by subbing out the LHR stopovers with DUB or somewhere else cheap and easy to get to, like BRU. I can't remember where else in Europe CX flies to, but LON has high APD on premium fares, especially long haul, and CDG isn't much friendlier. Not sure if AMS, Spain, Germany, or Italy would make sense in the end or not, you'd have to test them. I personally just find the UK APD offensive and do as much as I can to avoid it. We're flying into LHR on my next trip and out of DUB for that exact reason, but that's not a RTW where we are considering segment count. ABZ-DUB was $100 each on Loganair (BA code), far less than the UK APD on premium. Besides it was an easy way to visit Glendalough which I missed the last time I was in Ireland.

Booking/Ticketing advice sought
 

I'm trying to book this: PDX-ORD-LHR-NBO-LHR-MAD-DOH-BKK-TYO-HNL-PDX
Initial flight and transatlantic segment are on AA and the HNL-PDX segment could be AA or codeshare on AS. The LHR-NBO-LHR-MAD-DOH segments are all on BA/IB. I'm also trying to accumulate enough tier points and flights to get to gold on BA (I have 385 TP currently).

The oneworld tool was accepting it all the way through entering passenger information. The LHR-NBO-LHR segments were direct on BA and there were no complaints about exceeding allowable number of arrivals/departures between the middle east/africa (I know the tool has some kind of bug here). A few hours later I went back to the tool to adjust a date and the BA flights to/from NBO disappeared and it only offered me a connection via DOH which triggered the middle east/africa issue. I moved dates around and still couldn't see the BA flights. Of course expertflyer shows full D availability and oddly doesn't show the DOH connections.

#1. Assuming the tool works again tomorrow, I could change the initial flight and transatlantic segment to BA. If I go to book, will it go to BA or will it default to QF even though there are no QF flights? I want to avoid ticketing through QF.

#2. Was the tool mistaken in allowing the LHR-NBO-LHR in the first place and I don't fully grasp the africa/europe restrictions?

#3. Do I have enough flights on AA metal to be able to call the AA RTW desk and skip the tool? Or should I try through BA since at the moment, most of the flights are with BA/IB?

Thanks for any advice!

defualt to QF

Call A

I don’t see how you exceeds eu departure/arrival

Hi and welcome to FT!

I think you can easily get AA to ticket the trip with ORD-LHR being on AA metal.

The first thing that struck me, however, was starting and ending in the USA. You don't say if you plan to fly in economy or business class, but if business class, starting in Canada will save you a LOT of money. The base fare for a DONE4 starting in the US is $11,071 while the base starting in Canada is US$7946, a difference of US$3125 or 28%. In economy the difference is $1474, or 27%. A $60 train ride from Portland to Vancouver could well save you thousands of dollars. You could end in Portland if you want (the rules allow ending in the US if starting in Canada) so the revised itinerary would be YVR-PDX-ORD-LHR-NBO-LHR-MAD-DOH-BKK-TYO-HNL-PDX. Don't forget you're only allowed two stopovers in the continent of origin, so you'd need to choose where those would be.

I actually called AA and built a RTW from HBE. Base fare was 333314 EGP, so over $7000 USD.

Certainly seems like they could just fly YVR-ORD and avoid the PDX stop if they were planning on leaving from PDX. (Or YVR-LHR on BA for that matter.)