Ahh, thank you so much - you are indeed the guru (or font of wisdom if you prefer)!

So my TA sad that stopover via DOH is not possible as it breaches the no backtrack rule, but glad to know that they are wrong.

On date change, do you suggest waiting until I've flown the first sector before rebooking the Dec sectors for the correct dates? Or is change of date (but not ticketed point) also free of charge before departure (that is my read of the OW rules but my TA insists that I'm wrong...)?

Finally, if I wanted to squeeze in an added return sector from London to, say, somewhere in Italy in the European summer (i.e. between the first May trip and the last Nov/Dec trip), am I better off re-positioning HKG to LHR (rather than CDG), albeit at the cost of being slugged with additional APD on all UK departures? I wanted to go via CDG originally as it's much lower taxes, but am I right in thinking that leaving the CDG-xDOH-CPT sector intact would result in one of my 16 sectors being used up as a surface sector?

I ended up giving up on Qantas trying to sort out the ex-CAI using QR, after 3+ days of multiple QF people scratching their heads and 'logging an issue' with QR. I did find out a bit of info that was a tad concerning during this process, QF agents regularly in the background use the Oneworld online booking engine for itinerary validation if they run into a booking issue themselves. This is concerning as we are all aware how buggy the online engine is - I'm sure other airline agents would be doing the same.

As my travel needs are quite soon I was able to get online a working DONE4 ex-CAI for $8800 AUD (10 flights, I'll fill out the rest later). First sector CAI-LHR-CPH on BA. Surcharges were actually ok (LHR transit only). What I did find interesting is that QF was the ticketing airline for the DONE4, not BA. My receipt clearly stated Qantas was the ticketing airline (which I'm actually ok with in this instance, there are some good QF agents, though rare now).

That's ridiculous if the online tool still ticketed on QF with your first flights on BA. One more data point supporting to never use that site for booking again. I think the only way that site will ever be useful again is if it starts allowing the customer to chose the ticketing carrier from a list of valid carriers on their itinerary.

You may find yourself hating life until this ticket is completed, especially since you've making it more complex by planning to fill in remaining flights later. No one at a QF call center is going to know how to do that based on my own terrible experiences with them. Your best best as I learned very late into mine is use their social media team. Twitter DM or Facebook Messenger. It's slow, at times several days, but they do know the correct people to reach out to within QF to get things done. Just watch out, they tried to charge me $125 for a date change with no other changes to airline or airports. Had to remind them that's a free change and quoted them the fare rules from EF. Finally it got done with no charge. I expect that if you attempt the call center for any of these adds (or changes if needed) you're going to be met with the same incompetence you already experienced with them trying to buy your ticket.

[QUOTE=dvs7310;35362631... Just watch out, they tried to charge me $125 for a date change with no other changes to airline or airports. Had to remind them that's a free change and quoted them the fare rules from EF. Finally it got done with no charge. I expect that if you attempt the call center for any of these adds (or changes if needed) you're going to be met with the same incompetence you already experienced with them trying to buy your ticket.[/QUOTE]

Carriers are free to charge their own service fees for making changes. Qantas is the type of airline I would think likely to do just that.

This may be because, according to Expert Flyer anyway, BA does not offer exCAI fares. Neither does Royal Air Maroc (AT). I didn't check every oneworld carrier, but AA, AY, IB, JL, CX, QF, MH do list the fare. For my current DONE3 AT was my first carrier, CAI-CMN, and at first the agent thought they weren't part of oneworld. When I produced an AA codeshare flight number, she booked that. Now I wonder if being the first carrier is why she didn't see the airline. Edited to add: knowing QR cannot be the first carrier, I just checked, and sure enough, they do not offer DONEx fares either.

My own data point on the BOLDED text above.
QR can be the first carrier. I had done ex-OSL DONE3 & DONE4 with QR being the first carrier (OSL-DOH). AA gladly ticketed both.
EF has a glitch when search with QR as ticketing airlines. I got 2 results. First the search resulted in NO PRICING. But immediately searched again, it showed DONE3 Base Fare as US$4,810. However, if I search with AA or CX, the DONE3 Base Fare is US$4,213. Date of this search was 21:00 PST June 26, 2023. A discrepancy of US$600!

Hi All

I'm part way through my trip and having a great time, but I've hit a snag, and wanted to check my thinking!

When I booked my trip, I got a seat from KIX-->HNL no problem. Now I need to change the dates, and I can't find a single D class seat available on this route in September or October.

I was thinking that I'll have to either change my flight into Japan into e.g. Tokyo to keep HNL in plan (I can see a few seats for HND --> HNL) or alternatively drop HNL and fly straight from KIX-->LAX

I think both options will incur a change fee, right? Any other issues I need to look out for?

Correct, either of those will incur the $125 change of ticketed points fee. That fee is per transaction not per change so if you have any other changes you want to make, do them all at once. If you've got the extra segments available, I'd just go via Tokyo, usually Class J is pretty widely available to HND, but you'll want the KIX flights if you only want to burn 1 extra segment (ITM would count as a ground segment if you arrived at KIX). I'm assuming you arrived via KIX?

[QUOTE=allset2travel;35365532
EF has a glitch when search with QR as ticketing airlines. I got 2 results. First the search resulted in NO PRICING. But immediately searched again, it showed DONE3 Base Fare as US$4,810. However, if I search with AA or CX, the DONE3 Base Fare is US$4,213. Date of this search was 21:00 PST June 26, 2023. A discrepancy of US$600![/QUOTE]

Good to hear. I'd recalled seeing QR pricing at substantially higher than the other ow carriers a week or so ago. Then when I went back to check using CAI-CAI (with no fare listed), then DOH-DOH and still no fare, I began to wonder about my mental capacity. Better a hole in the matrix than a hole in the gray matter.

thanks for this - I've not yet arrived in Japan, so I think I'll try and change my arrival point from KIX to HND then I can keep HNL in plan

Hi everyone - really sorry, I have another question!

I'm looking for seats in D class from HND-->HNL now.

Expert flyer tells me that there are no seats on any of the Japan Airlines flights e.g. JL74, but the Malaysia codeshare for the same flight e.g. MH9788 has 9 seats in D class.

Do you know if I can book onto the MH flight? Or does it have to be a JL flight if it's JL metal?

Sorry for so many questions - I just hadn't come across this one

Who's your ticketing airline / agent? If AA directly then I suspect you're out of luck. They don't see to be as flexible with codeshares. But a travel agent might be able to do it. I've only ever used the codeshares in conjunction with a connecting flight, not point to point, so not 100% sure it's possible but it is indeed showing up in EF when searching point to point.

Hi pandaperth (and all!)

I'd be really grateful for your thoughts on the updated situation.

My optimal itinerary is as follows:

• May/June 2024: OSL-xLHR-oATL-oLAX-oBNE-oSYD-oHKG-oLHR [Note, I've dropped BNE-oHTI-oBNE from before because this is operated by Alliance Air on behalf of QF which, I'm told by AA RTW desk, is not a permitted affiliated airline of QF despite bearing a full QF code on the flights]
• Summer 2024: LHR-oPMO-oLHR
• Dec 2024: CDG-xDOH-oCPT-xLHR-OSL

I've contacted the AA RTW desk and they've told me that (after they consulted the "rights desk" and OW) the ticket is invalid for the following two reasons:

1. I have too many stopovers in Europe - I am only allowed two stopovers in the continent of origin and, here, there are three stopovers (firstly, between landing at LHR in May and LHR-PMO, secondly, between PMO-LHR, and thirdly between LHR-CDG (which is a surface sector)). Is this true? If so, the quick fix would seem to be to ditch either LHR-PMO or PMO-LHR so that I am only left with two stopovers (being, firstly, between landing in LHR in May and PMO) and, secondly, PMO to CDG as a surface segment)?
2. My itinerary in Africa includes a trip to South Africa - AA is insisting that, even if I route my flight via Doha on QR metal, this is still deemed a trip "to/from Europe" and therefore this is invalid (I was told that I could alternatively choose a different African destination that is not in South Africa or Mauritius). This seems to contradict what pandaperth previously advised. Do you have any ideas on convincing them otherwise?

Many thanks - I really appreciate your help!

Anecdotally - I also tried to get CX to quote for me but CX told me that they won't issue RTW on CX stock unless the first sector is on CX metal. Not sure if this is a recent change of rule or not!

I confirm the same (No Fares showed) if my search was in EGP currency.
Changed the currency to US$, then the fares will show.

Ouch, that certainly throws a wrench into my own plans. I wanted to go HND-SYD-AKL on QF and then AKL-HKG-ORD on CX, but no reason to do that if CX wouldn't issue the ticket, might as well find a day that QF has availability either on AKL-JFK or one of the Australia-USA routes. AA typically has availability to LAX or DFW but don't want to risk getting stung by revenue based earnings on such a long segment.

Not a single D availability on CX from HND / NRT / KIX / CTS to HKG the week I want to go to AKL, though seems HKG-AKL is fine. Found a few from FUK, so that may have to be the new plan, not sure why CX is so stingy on D from the rest of Japan.