Good reference point, thanks for posting it. Definitely not getting any break on the YQ / YR there are you?

Assume you know this already, but I'm pretty sure Kenya is exactly the same base price as Tanzania, though would require QR if going from MBA which you need a travel agent for. I almost wonder if QR MBA-DOH-MNL would save you a chunk of fees? You're the first one posting anything about WY, so not sure how their fees are in comparison and unfortunately you can't get a comprehensive breakdown in the OW tool.

QR did fly MBA-DOH, but that stopped during the covid shutdown, and never restarted

I agree, he is very clear. His trip is not for vacation, but for getting Emerald oneworld status. And, IIRC, his strategy assumes achieving top tier from no status for X GBP...What I found fascinating is the 180 in planning needed to optimize the points/miles/avios currency for AY compared with similar goal of achieving status and a stash of award miles with AA. The carriers used to reach the respective goals are totally different. I don't feel so bad (and, admittedly it was but a twinge anyway) for wanting status with AA but avoiding to the maximum extent possible flying a segment with an AA flight number. AA makes up for the loss of AA frequent flyers who are booking JL, QR, and AY with the Finnair flyers (and presumably others) who are targeting AA and the 3 other carriers Matt mentions.

I have been reading much of this thread, but to be honest, not every single post. Is QR the best carrier to get a DONE4 plated on in terms of saving on taxes/surcharges?

Based on current opinion,yes.. although I don't know if other airlines would be similarly beneficial..such as AS. Would need a travel agent to test that out.

Yeah, I agree. Unfortunately the travel agent I have a decent amount of a voucher with has never done one of these before. So I am going to have to do much of the legwork on this on my own as possible, and then just parse things out for them.

Deleted

Has anyone ever done a ticket issued by Royal Air Maroc (by calling them and giving them the flights you want) ?
I called to ask if they would do such a thing, and they said yes, but I wanted to get some confirmation that they actually would before investing a lot of time into my research.

I have been trying to put together an ex-OSL DONE4 with the help of a travel agent and we're coming up with a pricing error that neither of us can figure out. First I thought it might be the South Africa rule, but we tried subbing HRE in place of JNB and no luck.

OSL-xDOH-NRT-BLR-NRT-SIN-HND-JFK-xLAX-ANC-xDFW-xDOH-JNB-xDOH-CMN-DOH-OSL

It's pricing only if I drop JNB or CMN on that itinerary, or alternately it's accepting CMN-xLHR-OSL on the tail end. Why isn't it allowing me to go back via DOH? Is it something about the distinction between Europe and the Middle East inside that region?

Similarly in the online tool I could price out almost the same itinerary, but had to go OSL-xHEL-NRT at the start since the tool won't allow QR on the first segment. It happily prices that including the CMN-DOH-OSL on the end.
(so that one that's pricing in the tool is OSL-xHEL-NRT-BLR-NRT-SIN-HND-JFK-xLAX-ANC-xDFW-xDOH-JNB-xDOH-CMN-DOH-OSL)

Well I don't know what you and your agent are doing wrong, or what I'm doing right, but I got the following itinerary to price up in the tool:
All in cost NOK74,438

The tool offered some strange choices, so I had to be careful that I got just what I wanted.
I will send you (dvs7310) a PM with more detail

Ah sorry, indeed that one is pricing ok, I was using it to try to troubleshoot. The one I want is the top one, OSL-xDOH-NRT... etc. I can't test that in the tool because the QR segment.

I'm going to try it later just to test with LHR-xAMM-BKK or LHR-xMCT-BKK and adjust things in Asia just to see what error I get since that replicates what I actually am trying to do.

Europe point of origin, transit Middle East to Asia. Continue Asia and North America journey, North America to Africa via DOH (middle east), then back to Europe (Morocco or would be satisfied with Portugal), and intra Europe via the middle east.

We think it's something with the many DOH transits and one stopover. But I have seen other people's itineraries that had DOH on all of their intra Europe. But they probably didn't have Africa on it.

That's the mystery, why is it requiring me to have a connection in Europe (but not the middle east) on either the first or last leg, but not not allowing both in the middle east?

EDIT: I've done a bit of testing on this now, and it seems it's definitely something with the Europe / Middle East distinction. I can still get it to price when I shift the Asia portion, it seems fine if I go directly Europe to Asia (example LHR-BKK instead of LHR-MCT-BKK) but it won't price if I'm transiting the middle east (leaving the final segments the same JNB-DOH-CMN-DOH-starting point), which I thought and many other people here thought that's treated as the same zone. I've not violating stopover limits in the continent of origin, and I'm not violating segment limits. So this is really a new one I've never seen on this forum yet.

I'm wondering if I'm going to have to change this to an Asian point of origin. I can't do ex-TYO because I need 2x long stopovers in TYO. But I'm also not sure I can get nearly the same mileage earned from any of the lower priced POO's in Asia....

Hi again dvs7310
I've been playing around with this too.
And I've got the following itinerary to price up OK
So at the start, it has

• Europe via the Middle East to Asia, and

At the end it has:

• North America to Africa via the Middle East, followed by
• Africa to Europe (CMN) via the Middle East, followed by
• Europe to Middle East (CMN-DOH), followed by
• Middle East to Europe (DOH-ARN)

I think something else is going on the itineraries you've been trying.
Like you I tried itineraries starting in London, but they gave error messages about returning the country of origin when trying to fly DFW-JNB (trying to route me via LHR)
Another problem I had was caused by the tool making suggestions that resulted in the itinerary having more than 16 segments (for example into NRT, out from HND). Even after I fixed them all, on the final segment the tool said I had more than 16 segments (in that faint, hard to spot, orange-coloured text)
The trick I found that worked was to save the complete itinerary, log out of the tool, close its web browser window, and then reopen it.

dvs7310 - I'll send you a PM

I put down a route for a friend of mine which comes to a DONE5:

Carrier Flight
Number Departing Arriving Booking
Code Meals City Date & Time City Time
QATAR AIRWAYS 180 OSL Oslo okt 10, 2025
08:50 AM DOH Doha okt 10, 2025
04:20 PM D N/A
QATAR AIRWAYS 838 DOH Doha okt 10, 2025
07:25 PM BKK Bangkok okt 11, 2025
06:15 AM D N/A
CATHAY PACIFIC AIRWAYS 740 HAN Hanoi nov 23, 2025
11:05 AM HKG Hong Kong nov 23, 2025
02:00 PM D N/A
CATHAY PACIFIC AIRWAYS 155 HKG Hong Kong nov 24, 2025
11:50 PM BNE Brisbane nov 25, 2025
10:30 AM D N/A
QANTAS AIRWAYS 197 BNE Brisbane nov 26, 2025
10:00 PM APW Apia nov 27, 2025
05:55 AM D N/A
FIJI AIRWAYS 254 APW Apia nov 30, 2025
04:00 PM NAN Nadi nov 30, 2025
05:00 PM D N/A
FIJI AIRWAYS 411 NAN Nadi dec 03, 2025
09:30 AM AKL Auckland dec 03, 2025
01:40 PM D N/A
QANTAS AIRWAYS 182 AKL Auckland dec 30, 2025
10:25 AM SYD Sydney dec 30, 2025
11:55 AM D N/A
QANTAS AIRWAYS 27 SYD Sydney feb 05, 2026
12:20 PM SCL Santiago feb 05, 2026
10:55 AM D N/A
AMERICAN AIRLINES 936 GIG Rio De Janeiro mrt 09, 2026
10:30 PM DFW Dallas/ Fort Worth mrt 10, 2026
07:15 AM D Dinner
Breakfast
AMERICAN AIRLINES 115 DFW Dallas/ Fort Worth mrt 10, 2026
09:15 AM HNL Honolulu mrt 10, 2026
12:50 PM D Lunch
Snack
AMERICAN AIRLINES OPERATED BY BRITISH AIRWAYS 6907 SEA Seattle apr 22, 2026
08:20 PM LHR London apr 23, 2026
01:40 PM D Meal
AMERICAN AIRLINES OPERATED BY BRITISH AIRWAYS 7254 LHR London apr 23, 2026
04:05 PM OSL Oslo apr 23, 2026
07:15 PM D Meal

Base fare is euro is 5625, but it hits me with a whopping 2078 euro in taxes next to 321 euro in carrier imposed fees.

Anyone that's has an idea what airline or stop is triggering these costs so that I can see if there is a workaround?

I'm guessing the QF long haul

Is there any way to find out? I had a QF long haul this year (JFK-AKL-SYD) but got only 1000 euro total on a DONE4.