Yep, might change ZQN-CHC into the same airport to avoid the surface segment, though I'm not sure where I would use that freed up segment, given that I've already used up the max allowance for flights within Europe and Asia, and have time constraints surrounding how long I will stay in Oceania. Perhaps I could make a detour via NAN to maximise points earn, will have a deeper look. Also wish to try the new Aria Suites which only fly to SYD and MEL currently, hence not taking the NZ-HKG CX flights.

I believe the codeshares all exist, but the only thing I don't know is if I actually have this freedom to nitpick the codeshares for every flight I want, or if there are some married segment logic or requirement to link it with a prime flight of that carrier. Not sure I understand your example on the SYD-HKG routing, as your example of the CX flight shows a BA code like I have in my itinerary. Same way I wrote AA between HKG and SIN, which is obviously operated by CX. The reason for this is that AA, BA, IB codes earn double the tier points vs CX, QF, JL, etc. on AY, so I'm trying to pick these codes where possible. Not sure if this has YQ/YR implications, especially with BA's reputation of high surcharges on their own flights, do these apply to codeshares too? This

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/37292353-post1122.html
Saw this post mentioning QR-issued tickets only have YQ/YR levied on QR and BA sectors, unsure if that's universally applicable or if I've misunderstood.

You do not have the freedom to select any codeshare on any flight. Most (but not all) of the time, codeshares require a connection to or from a prime flight of the codeshare you want. I haven't yet figured out any pattern or logic to this, however. Like you, I try to select codeshares to maximize the mileage I earn (in my case, in QRPC). Sometimes I can get them, sometimes not. Never hurts to try, however.

codeshare selection really depends on who is ticketing.. travel agent or airline agent.

tnx. The issue was that some agents were just totally divorced from reality but 6 hours later another agent wasn't, but none till today stayed online with me long enough to get 5 date changes onto my ticket and pass it on for pricing. Now -- today, a full 8 days of going round in circles -- an agent stayed online enough to put in dates and pass it over for pricing. I'm banking on the back office contacting me so I can have a synchronous conversation about real dates and ticketing all in one.

Full route booked (for 4, cost per adult = ~USD7.5k; so a lot of fuel surcharges)
OSL-DOH-HKG // HKG-CMB-SIN-HKG // HKG-AKL-NAN-MEL-HKG // HKG-JFK-ORD-ANC-SEA-DOH-OSL
(Return from another RTW) // 1 week CNY Holiday // 2 week Easter Holiday // 2.5week Summer holiday and return

Other points to note:

1. In general, even 9 months in advance, Alaska Airlines are very stingy with their D class availability on direct flights out of ANC - Near impossible to get even ANC-SEA, but the moment you do ANC-SEA-LAX or ANC-SEA-DFW, lots more space. This was frustrating as my ambition here was an Alaska visit in July, busy times clearly (maybe not helped with the football world cup)
2. Continuing problems with Trans-conntential availability remains, over a 5 day period couldn't find a single flight (admittedly I need 4 business tickets) from JFK/BOS to LAX or SFO. In the end I had to accept defeat and do JFK-ORD-ANC, rather than JFK-SFO-ANC that I could find on EF). Maybe they're blocking for the world cup?
3. No enforcement of AA codeshare across an ocean (all of my US flights were AA or AA codeshare)
4. I had to do this twice as the first agent (after the HUCA) seemed to be doing a good job, but actually hadn't: She had missed an entire flight out; had one flight taking off before I landed, and misspelt a name (which leads to a restart). The second agent, who I've had before, was great and fixed it all as quickly as possible when I called back ten minutes later after viewing online (the other agent was too keen to get me off)
5. The ticket cost vs fuel surcharge are wrong and so I'll need to call back when I have the energy (children's fuel surcharges are more than adults, but one adult looks to have paid a child fare). The overall amounts are probably correct, but not how they're split... Edit: Yes, looks like one of the adults was classed as a child when I called, maybe I entered passport details incorrectly, or the agent copy/pasted across. God knows what that means. The fuel surcharges are still the wrong way around too, so it's with AA to decide what to do. I have a horror of having to redo this all again, or splitting the ticket to fix the adult fare. Sigh :(. Maybe the tip there is: Don't enter passport information until AFTER ticketing.

I agree here as well, international codeshares on RTW tickets tend to be pretty easy to book depending on who is doing the ticketing. Even from airlines I've had both QF and CX book them for me on flights that certainly did not line up to prime flights. The domestic ones are more questionable, like booking QR codes on AA domestic flights, but it does appear that travel agents can do it. Thankfully AA has added QR codeshares to many of their domestic and regional flights, much to the benefit of us AAdvantage captive folks.

And the QR codeshares on AA domestic flights are sometimes a way to "break" AA's penchant for married segment availability.
HOWEVER, QFF took a very dim view on crediting those flights. :(
Yes the RTW was ticketed by a TA (UL) the only downside being that in a couple of cases, the code shares were NOT available during the initial ticketing and changing later proved "not feasible".
Also remember that surface segments can also be used to break married segments (e.g. you need more than 6 in the USA) and some I class AA flights are now "quite reasonable" as a surface segment filler.
Who knew about all the complications of wandering
Fred

I tried to change a QR (DFW-DOH) flight to AA codeshare to no avail. AA RTW desk said not possible.

..because it wasn't available?

I checked EF and it had D7 on my date. AA RTW agent simply said she could not see the codeshare.

Potentially dumb question - what are DONE3/DONE4 fares like ex-CAI nowadays? I’m glancing through the oneworld explorer without paying too much attention to D fare availability and its pricing at ~14k AUD. Looking at EF I don’t see fares filed.

They're quoted using QR as the issuer. Base fare is around A$12K for DONE4.

AA has D0 for many flights on many days - What happened?
 

Trying to book an ex-HND DONEx. I have 6 domestic segments on AA for July 2026 timeframe. For examples: JFK-LAX (D0 for all flights with afternoon departures, as I will be coming in from HND, connecting at JFK to LAX); even DFW-YVR; DFW-ANC.

What happened?

Now I plan to book those segments in Y (in hope to have them changed to D later). Is this a workable strategy? Never had to do this before.

I've found really bad AA availability as well, but I'm looking for late December. Quite a few routes I looked at were entirely sold out in business / first, not even just a D problem. AS however seems to be wide open on the transcon, not that it's even remotely the same experience. But might help you for YVR and ANC to go from LAX on AS instead of DFW on AA.

Not sure if this is the right forum for this question, but …

Does anyone know if on a business class OW RTW, can one individual segment be a PAID upgrade to First Class (ie on a BA flight that offers true F)? Most of my itinerary doesn’t offer First, but a couple do, and I’d be happy to pay for upgrade.

Any ideas, and if possible, is it via airline directly?

Thanks!!

The relevant rule is:

16(c) 4. Upgrading by sector to Business/First Class is not permitted.

So the correct answer to your question is 'no', meaning that you cannot have an issued ticket with one sector showing First Class and all the other sectors showing Business Class.
But, if BA has issued your ticket then perhaps it will accept a payment for the one sector upgrade - no harm in asking.

OK, so the same problem as I had above then, and on a number of ex-HND DONE fares to be honest, even when not 9 months out.

I would observe that I have managed to get on the transcontinental in the end, but this required a lot of calls to see if anything opened up (since EF doesn't give an accurate result) and so you're basically shooting in the dark. To give an idea the last time I needed to change from JFK-LAX to BOS-LAX, about 3 days in advance. That meant a worse lounge but better flight. And with 25 hours in Boston to create a break in segments, I was coming from MIA.

Personally I'd just take the other flights in AS business and then see what happens closer to the time. I'd rather have a backup that isn't economy if I've paid for business.

To be honest with a DONE5 or 6 I'm amazed you have that many segments to want to do much in the USA, I'd have personally done something like into JFK/DFW from CX or JL, down to South America on a real international flight, back up and then out to Europe via QR/Doha? Better than any transcontinental experience by a long way.

It was not like that in the past (even 2023 when I was able to get all 16 segments in D from the get go. All NA segments had D availability and was easy to make changes.

Just to mention on this, as I was pleasantly surprised. I was able to get the "child" fare upgraded to an adult without needing to split up the ticket or issue a new PNR for either AA, AS or the other flights. I believe I'm due some money from AA from the wrong taxes, the final agent did mention a refund note but haven't heard of that. But at least I didn't have to waste time on a call dealing with this all. And happy we didn't have to start again with a big copy paste (though for all I know they did that in the background). There are new ticket numbers though.

Edit: The refund came through without me needing to take any action about a week later, so all fixed in the end.

To follow-up, the Cathay team have a way to search within a booking for date change availability and they believe this is asking the airline in question for availability. I'm consistently seeing D class availability discrpency, at short notice in case that matters, with both QR and now AA flights. I.e. when I can see availability on oneworld.com/rtw/ AND on expertflyer (several choices of POS), the Cathay agent often doesn't see it as available from within the booking. This is for a stand alone segment, no married connection issues. This includes an AA flight that shows D6 I6 on expert flyer with all relevant variations of POS -- it's showing as D0 I6 for the agent from within the booking.

The agent was kind enough to raise a query for the back office team on why I can apparently book on oneworld.com/rtw/ but not change to it via an agent so I might learn more in a bit.

I'm getting an error message when searching for xONEx fares (prices) in ExpertFlyer:

Someone has reported that error, over in the appropriate thread
ExpertFlyer Help Desk, Information and Updates Thread - FlyerTalk Forums

I've also posted on that board. The error message now just reads "No results found."

I haven't checked each single one of them but QR still doesn't charge YQ/YR on most airlines. Definitely not on CX and most (if not all) JL flights.

How do you get it ticketed on QR? Through a TA?

I'm asking as I'm based in ARN and would like to start my RTW with ARN-DOH-"somewhere in Asia", but the tool never suggests the QR flight ARN-DOH as it says the first flight can't be with QR.

The tool won't allow QR as the first flight but a TA or, indeed, the AA RTW desk, can do it easily. Sorry, but why would you start ARN-DOH on QR when you could save a LOT of money with a hop to OSL and take QR to DOH from there?

Thanks for quick reply and confirmation of my thoughts.

Thank you, I'm aware of that but there it was the same issue OSL-DOH-"somewhere in Asia" was not bookable on QR through the tool. So for the purpose of my question it didn't matter.

The tool has load of bugs in it, you can safely ignore that. Just go through a travel agent or the AA RTW desk, it's about $1000 cheaper from OSL than ARN, and you can use QR as the first segment that way. If you book in the tool, whether from OSL or ARN you'll still need BA, AY, or IB as your first carrier, I guess from ARN there's RJ as well which is probably how you're getting a price but be aware they cancel the BKK flight very frequently (if it's even running again now, was cancelled for quite a while over the summer) and it's a 3rd tier airline, worse even than BA.

Yes

Interesting.
Early September, I did MIA-DOH on AA8137 operated by QR.
Lots of date changes prior and I’m pretty AA RTW desk always made it a codeshare.

I have a BA-issued DONE3. I'm considering changing one of the segments from a BA code (as ticketed) to the JL code share when D class for the latter becomes available. My question isn't about use of code shares - my itinerary features several of them, though I acknowledge others have reported difficulty booking these. My question is about the consequent change (in my favor) for YR/YQ charges - JL's are about half those of BA. At re-issue will that mean I receive a small refund?

There should be no Explorer change fee, as I'm not changing the ticketed points, though I half expect BA to impose a service fee for the change.

I've never bought one from BA, I buy mine from AA. AA does refund if the total cost is less.

Along these same lines , I recently changed my routing , stops and carriers with an AA ticketed DONE5. There are lots of posts on surcharges , taxes etc. and if they are done correctly. I had all the data from my orignal ticket. The new carriers had lower surcharges and the stops less local fees. I calculated all would be @ $ 117 less than original ticket. AA came back as I owed them $ 6 when the $125 fee was imposed. IMHO AA is the place to ticket if you can.

To answer my own earlier question (#3071), in case the information is helpful to someone else.

I managed to get through to the agent who originally booked my ticket. D class grabbed for the code share, change made and within an hour confirmation that taxes had been recalculated £115 in my favour. No change or service fee.

Glad I could reach this agent, as a colleague of his who I spoke to earlier told me there was no D class availability. Sometimes it pays to HUACA.

DONEx out of Manila???
 

Has anyone had recent experience with DONEx flights starting in MNL, as to availability of flights and current starter prices?

Doubt availability will be an issue.. CX HKG MNL is practically a shuttle flight for domestic helpers.

According to expertflyer, IONE3 starts at 9748 USD from MNL and a DONE3 is another 200 USD extra. Both of these are excluding taxes, surcharges, etc..

definitely bookable. And so is OSL DOH LHR ASIA

Just for your information, you can take an LCC up to Tokyo or Osaka and get a DONE3 for about $4,000 cheaper than starting in MNL.

very sound advice indeed!