What you seem to be missing is that there are sub-types of "D" fares (and "A") that you can't see.

Just showing "D" availability does not tell you if it is available to book on an RTW.

Some airlines (such as AA) have different types of 'A' and 'C' inventory, cash and upgrade, but what has been a topic here in recent years is a fairly new issue of point of commencement/origination and maybe type of fare restrictions. It's the same 'A' or 'D' or 'L' inventory but the amount available can be restricted based on where the first flight in the record originates or (possibly) the type of fare. It's more similar to married segment availability than to upgrade vs revenue inventory. It's true that inside the GDS there isn't just the single-letter inventory that we can see using EF or whatever; and this might be the mechanism that us used for implementation, but that's merely a point of interest.

Is this discrepancy between what EF and AA/JL show as D inventory relatated to 'cheap' RTW fares? I wonder if other lower cost originations, such as Hungary/India/S.Korea, have this issue? And it seems to be primarily on JL rather than the other OW airlines.

It would be interesting to try booking these flights in a non-RTW itinerary originating in OSL and the other origins you mention.

I am running into it with QF as well as JL flights..

I first dabbled with our DONE4 almost 9 months ago as the 350 day booking window opened up. Our departure is about 7 weeks away now and I thought I'd share the DONE4 routing and how the single trip will achieve gold status.

The trip should earn us 21,000 TPs and about 100,000 Avios each. Ticketed by QR and points to BAC club, with nufnuf's expert hand, we managed to code share a fair bit into 50% earners. Fare inc taxes £6,300 each.

I used an Amex companion ticket (Y due to holding only blue BA Amex) to get to/from OSL and that cost 26,000 Avios for two tickets (c £130 each at 1p/Avios).

SECTOR # | DEP-DES | METAL/CODESHARE | TP RATE

01 OSL-LHR BA/BA (FARE BASED)
02 LHR-HND JL/JL (50%)
03 HND-SIN JL/JL (50%)
04 SIN-NRT JL/JL (50%)
05 NRT-MEL JL/JL (50%)
06 MEL-CHC QF/QF (25%)

07 CHC-NAN (SURFACE/OTHERS)

08 NAN-LAX FJ/FJ (25%)
09 LAX-JFK AA/AY (50%)
10 JFK-DFW AA/QR (50%)
11 DFW-LAX AA/AY (50%)
12 LAX-LIR AS/AS (25%)
13 LIR-LAX AS/AS (25%)
14 LAX-LHR BA/AY (50%)
15 LHR-DOH QR/QR (50%)
16 DOH-OSL QR/QR (50%)

[QUOTE=spherehopper;37676941]Ticketed by QR and points to BAC club, with nufnuf's expert hand, we managed to code share a fair bit into 50% earners. Fare inc taxes £6,300 each./QUOTE]
Can you share how hard/easy it was to ticket with QR unless you used a travel agent. These codeshares would give me a headache even to attempt to ask AA RTWs agents to do....

As mentioned, nufnuf (of this parish) is a travel agent specialising in these RTW tickets. He guided me when I bought the initial ticket but also pointed me towards code shared flights. I used Flight Connections.com and Expert Flyer to find routes to maximise miles and code shares to earn tier points by mileage, not fare paid.

He sorted the ticket plating and a lot of advice on routing ideas. Take a look at some of his posts, very interesting and showed me the way to fly round the world for the same price as I paid BA directly for a Singapore return last year that didn't even get me silver status when at the end of this trip I will have only flown on one BA flight number (OSL-LHR) yet achieve gold status until April 2028.

I'm already planning the next DONEx.

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/members/nufnuf77.html

it has to do with ‘point of commencement’ that JAL BA IB apply - basically HND DEL will look different is 10 days earlier you have OSL LHR HND in the pnr. And there is NO WAY to simulate that on EF alas!

I don't understand your answer. basically HND DEL will look different is 10 days earlier you have OSL LHR HND in the pnr. Is there a typo or punctuation error?

Talking about DEL. This is the lowest DONE5 fare now that I can fine to start your travel from, together with BOM, KTI. Lower than TYO, OSL or JNB.

DONE fares applied correctly are ideal for requalifications and exploiting market inefficiencies. Just purchased our third RTW to extend emerald on QR with one ticket that will be used for 2027-2028 member year! BA emerald will carry us through April, after which QR emerald will kick in for a year and then another year thanks to flying around the world in comfort for less than 7K USD. I am surprised that even BA status can be gained without spending an arm and a leg - thanks for sharing.

Yes, the "is 10 days" should be "if 10 days," although as I understand it, it's not about what flight(s) are earlier, it's about the airport from which the first flight departs, i.e., the point of origin/point of commencement. It may or may not also be about the type of fare. The poster was asking if a non-RTW ticket that originated in the same location would have the same reduced availability as an RTW originating there.

DEL or ex-India is only the lower than the others you mentioned on base fare. But India has a very substantial 18% GST on business class tickets that makes it less competitive unless it's a lot cheaper to position there vs. Japan, Norway, or South Africa. Same with ex-Pakistan, tax for business class tickets is even higher than India. .

I don't advise buying through the online tool because it'll usually ticket with QF and you can optimize YQ/YR with a travel agent, but you can run a simulation through the tool with similar itineraries and you'll see that ex-India is a bit more expensive than ex-Japan, ex-Norway, and ex-South Africa (though note ex-South Africa you must have a DONE4 or higher, DONE3 isn't possible)

I thought the Indian GST was 12% for premium tickets and 5% for economy tickets.
Do other countries impose a GST tax on air tickets? If so, then the fare difference may not be as large as shown.

Does anyone happen to know what ticket price is used for this calculation? Does it only apply if you have an ex-India starting point, and then applies to the whole ticket price? Or just the segment that departs India? And presumably it also applies to any segment that departs India mid-Explorer - can anyone share a guide as to how the overall ticket price is broken down for this? I guess that also applies to TP earnings for BA on any BA, AA or IB segments, or indeed any other reason why an individual price is needed...