There is nothing challenging at all about plating on QR stock, you just have to use a travel agent. But as others have pointed out TA fees aren't so high that you'd not want to do it that way. You'll save tremendously on YQ / YR fees in most cases. There might even be other plating carriers that could work out better than QR on fees, but your itinerary doesn't include any segments on them so wouldn't matter in this case. This is where a travel agent who has spent a little time to play around with different options in the GDS is so valuable. You'll pay them a token amount compared to the savings in YQ / YR quite often.

The BA operated / AY-coded LAX-LHR will likely credit as if it were a BA flight.

Buried deep down in the BA Club T&Cs under the Finnair section: . NB the poor wording is BA's, rather than my own.

If your schedule allows, a workaround would be to book the AY operated LAX-HEL.

In which case they should add the bonus TPs (Fully Flex Club World 1,100 tier points)?

I wonder how the fare paid would be visible to them as the ticket issued by QR. This flight is being flown early July so I'll report back.

Yeah, this is where the recent changes to BA Club bonuses are a total mess. I hope this works in your favour. AFAIK, there's no direct mapping from cabin prime and subclasses to these definitions of flexible, non-flexible etc. Though if you use the BA Tier Points calculator, it does group JCD together into "business flexible." - note it doesn't differentiate between semi and fully flexible in this table. If there's any shilly shallying, I'd say you have a case in your favour. Though I would also be screenshotting stuff. How unlike BA to make a change like this without thinking through how to transparently explain it to customers. :rolleyes:

As Matt highlights in his most recent episode ..

RTW fares are published fares, so they are visible for all OW partner airlines (most of them also use the same system Altea).

Different then Bulk fares, then the actual fare is not visible.

They just divide the ticket price by the number of flights to work this out?

Isn't it sector mileage divided by total mileage, in which case it would be 1/9th vs 1/16th (sectors on my DONE4). 1/9th base fare is c £450.

I can't speak for British Airways, which is what I think the original question was about, but in terms of American Airlines crediting AA coded flights to my account, ticketed as part of an around the world ticket, I've had some really bizarre earnings, I've had some super short flights that credit a lot of miles, and some longer flights that barely credit any miles. Most of them were posted as utilizing the fare and not distance.

But if it's not consistent amongst all OW airlines, then don't you end up with the potential scenarios that either you are getting benefits or disadvantages on less than (or more than) 100% of what you book? Is that expected? It seems strange to me - my natural assumption is that the airlines all agree, that if you need to make a calculation for a flight that you are responsible for, this is the basis. This could apply to YQ / YR, crediting Avios, or loyalty scheme points, or any other metric.

EDIT: so a straight-line basis (i.e. ticket cost divided by flights) or a weighted basis (segment mileage divided by total mileage multiplied by ticket cost) would both be options, and would be consistent for all OW airlines

I think what you're saying objectively makes sense I have a feeling frankly based off of my experience with AA that many of the loyalty systems may not be engineered or set up to deal with 16 segment trips with lots of carriers and lots of complexity.

Ha! Yes I should remember not to give airlines too much credit...

My experience crediting to AA is that usually the base fare is pro-rated per segment by the ratio of the segment's distance to the total flown distance, with YQ/YR allocated to specific flights. With AA, flights booked as AA, BA, or IB are supposed to earn by fare while other oneworld airlines earn by distance, with a table that shows base earnings as a percent of flight distance based on booking inventory plus a cabin bonus that's a percent of base (also based on booking inventory), and for those with status on AA, an elite status bonus that's also a percent of base. Often, even flights on BA or IB do earn by distance (which is typically a lot more than by fare, for an RTW), and sometimes even AA-coded flights earn by distance.

Even more or less straightforward itineraries may include flights booked as different airline codes. The mechanics of prorating the base fare of each pricing unit (e.g., outbound vs inbound) by the flight distance of each segment covered by that pricing unit and adding in any YQ/YR are essentially the same and scale from a simple one-way to an RTW. In my experience, multiple ticket reissues (common with my RTWs) tend to make AA's crediting system fall back on distance rather than fare.

Even more complicated, as some sectors are longer then the other ones.

Have 2 trips, with 5 unused flights (due cancellation QR) Refund Application just filed.
Note: recalculation of Round the World fares always needs to be verified by the issuing carrier.
I am good with numbers, but this makes my head buzzing.
When have an answer from Qatar let you know.