POC is OSL (the origin of the first segment in the PNR, even if already flown). When you say "start of travel on the day of travel," you are probably referring to Married Segment Control (MSC), where the availabilities of all segments that have less than 24 hours of time between each other (i. e., transits, not stopovers) will be taken into consideration as a whole.

I see POC control becoming more and more common in the past couple of years. Yeah, with POS, POC, and MSC, it is getting more and more difficult to determine the availability unless you are working within the very PNR.

The result I see for QF24/19SEP is the same between POC MAD and POC OSL, so perhaps there are other reasons why it is not available (POS or a genuine blocking against certain other oneworld carriers).

That's quite interesting and would explain why there were times I could find availability when the airline would insist there isn't any. Something EF needs to address to justify their monthly fee.

Seems it's a way that the airlines can effectively shut down ex-CAI DONEx's without explicitly pulling the fare like BA did. A bit frustrating when before all you had to do was find the first segment out of CAI on your preferred airline then the rest of the ticket was more or less fair game. I really hope we don't see that trend on ex-TYO as well since TYO is actually a typical origination point for regularly priced business fares too. CAI and to a lesser extent OSL not so much despite OSL being the point of origin for several 'sale' fares in past years.

As the proud possessor of an ex-TYO which will need fiddling with as some of what we wanted is too far out to book yet, I do hope this doesn't get extended to TYO.

It's difficult these days, as availability is essentially a product [pun intended] of POC * POS * preceding flights within 24 hours (sometimes married, sometimes not technically married but still considered so). Good point a good way to make ex-CAI xONEx have a difficult time would be to restrict POC CAI availabilities, although that would potentially hurt other travellers ex-CAI, too. I think it would be difficult to implement that for ex-TYO without affecting the business on a wider scale.

Thanks again to everybody for their help! I managed to get CX to issue the ticket (even though the first sector was not on CX metal), so I thought I would report back for everybody's benefit.

In short, it was incredibly painful - only go through CX if you have time on your hands and access to a good CX agent. Here is my experience:

• Ineptitude / Internal Politics: It was confirmed to me that the (internal CX) "Oneworld desk" still exists. But customers are not allowed to speak directly to them. The instruction from the desk is that, if a customer requests an RTW ticket, CX Global Contact Centre personnel are to use the OW online RTW tool to check availability and price xONEx tickets. As we all know, that is rubbish so, correspondingly, GCC agents typically tell you that a valid itinerary is invalid because of bugs in the tool. I had to really push them to prove that my routing was valid before they would escalate to the Oneworld desk for manual approval; I was able to do this by giving them my Amadeus PNR for the same routing made through AA RTW desk (and which AA had rated so I could handover the pricing too for them to verify). GCCs can, at least, hold inventory pending Oneworld desk approval, but they are unable to price until manually approved by Oneworld desk if the agent can't price it through the OW online RTW tool.
• Urgency: The turnaround time is horrendous (it took about 2.5 to 3 weeks after I put through the initial xONEx ticket request until the Oneworld desk approved the routing and was able to issue pricing). By the time we finished all the back-and-forth, the whole process took about two months (mid-June to mid-Aug). You need to be patient if you insist on ticketing through CX and pray for D class availability for your "must have" travel dates that are within system range. I count myself lucky, as I have access to a single point of contact within CX through a corporate contract arrangement, so they were able to chase the Oneworld desk on a daily basis for me. Others may not be so fortunate.
• FX: Ever since the last major Amadeus upgrade implemented by CX, CX GCCs will no longer allow you to pay in a currency that is not the same currency as the ticket's POC. Although they were (eventually) happy to give me xONEx pricing in GBP (at the prevailing IATA RoE for NOK:GBP), they would only allow me to ticket (and pay) in NOK. When CX sends you a payment link for ticket issuance, you can convert it to your currency of choice, but be warned that this does not convert at IATA RoE; CX adds a spread (about 400 to 500 bps more than the prevailing IATA RoE based on my calculation from some dummy bookings) which, I assume, they pocket as extra profit. Unless you have a no-FX fee credit card or a credit card issued in the currency of the ticket's POC, you are therefore likely to either get hit by your credit card FX surcharge (2.99% for most of us UK-issued Amex holders) or else you're paying for CX's inflated FX spread to avoid that surcharge. A non-point, though, if you're not picking up the tab!

I would say that the above is potentially outweighed by only one factor - you have a (potential and slight) timing benefit versus booking through AA. If you have booked certain sectors in advance, for which date changes will need to be made because (at the time of initial ticket issuance) your intended travel dates are out of range, then booking through CX (or any other OW carrier) will give you an edge because Amadeus allows them to access OW inventory +355 days out, whereas I was told by AA RTW desk that AA (by virtue of using Sabre) can only access OW inventory +331 days out. So if you MUST travel on certain dates over a peak season (and are relying on a future date change / availability once intended travel dates are within system range), then you will have a ~15-20 day advantage in accessing OW inventory versus anybody booking (and making a date change) through AA RTW.

If this does not matter to you, I think you are better off booking through AA RTW: they are generally more competent, will usually rate a (valid itinerary) ticket within 24 hours, and will allow you to pay in your credit card's issuing currency.

Super interesting data point as I was planning to have my next ticket issued by CX. I can get the routing on the OW tool so presumably it'll be issued by CX if I book there but there's one flight I want on a QF code vs the AA code so expect that's going to require manual ticketing.

It's a true shame that AA seems to be the one and only competent issuer of RTW tickets remaining, at least with a desk you can actually speak to. That's a huge determent to everyone who gains status via AAdvantage since we get massively penalized on any AA metal flights since the AA RTW desk requires you to ticket them on AA codes. Now with BA and IB going to revenue earn for AA as well, you really want QR, AY, or QF codes when possible.

For what it's worth, my impression was that CX would let you do that once they've validated your itinerary. As you say, possibly will require manual ticketing - but perhaps the way to do it is to get a validated itinerary from the OW RTW tool and then ask them to change individual sectors once they've confirmed that the routing works. If you call the CX GCC's HK number, it is a cast of thousands and most don't even know what an RTW ticket is, so there will likely be a lot of HUACA'ing. Note that the Oneworld desk is based in HK and only works HK business hours (a non-point for those based in APAC, but for those in Europe / Americas, it means that any request raised through your local GCC and which requires Oneworld desk approval / pricing will have a lag).

The big sticking point for me was confirming validity of the routing (the agents are particularly oblivious to how second re-entry into continent of origin is permitted to operate, as is the OW RTW tool). Once CX's Oneworld desk finally confirmed that my routing was valid, the frontline agents were generally happy switching flights around different carriers etc provided the bones of the routing were unchanged. So I would hope for you that getting them to change to an AA metal flight to QF codeshare isn't problematic, subject to availability (and possibly more YQ/YR?).

Agreed! Sigh...

I am working with AA RTW Desk on a DONE4 itinerary CAI-LHR-PHL-YYZ-JFK-HKG-PER-SYD-AKL-SYD-HND-SGN-HND-LHR-CAI

The airports in BOLD are stops.

The agent asked whether as far as Oneworld was concerned.

1. JFK-HKG was really over the Pacific, and

2. whether HND-LHR was really not over the Pacific.
.
The actual flight routes are a grey area at best.

Anyone have any knowledge on Oneworld interpretation of these long flights?

JFK-HKG is trans-pacific (I flew it last year on my DONE4)
TYO-LON is trans-Siberian (or it was until you know what) - I flew it some years ago on a LONE4

Have you been speaking to an AAgent on the round-the-world desk (1-800-247-3247), because I would be very surprised if such an agent did not know this basic stuff.

I was speaking with an AA RTW Desk agent, albeit perhaps a well-trained newbie. He did not make any statements that were incorrect on their face, and after almost two hours of entering what I gave him, cancelling what was there previously, and checking every rule in the Oneworld rule sheet, he sent off my requested itinerary to the rate desk.

When he raised the question, I looked at actual routes taken recently and noticed that JFK-HKG recently has taken off to the Northeast and over the Arctic Ocean, and TYO-LHR has also gone northeast and not over Asia and Middle East.

I don't believe the actual routing of the day matters. They should both be valid flights as you have them. If there wasn't some sort of standard for ticketing purposes, then those types of flights would have to be invalid for all xONEx tickets and that's clearly not the case. I've been able to price out HKG-JFK just fine as a TPAC.

The rules require that travel be in a continuous direction between TC1, TC2 and TC3 or in the reverse, e.g. TC-2 (Europe/Middle East/Africa) to TC-1 (Americas) to TC-3 (Asia. Australia/Pacific) and back to TC-2. Your route satisfies that criteria. NYC-HKG has always been regarded as transpacific. Some years ago people were arguing that an American flight, ORD-DEL was actually transatlantic which would supposedly allow a 2-continent RTW (ORD-DEL-NRT-ORD) but the idea was given the kibosh because of the TC-1-2-3 rule.

Well I think this is a first - me disagreeing with something [MENTION=10228]Gardyloo[/MENTION] has said!
ORD-DEL was stated to be transatlantic, and it did allow for 2-continent RTW (and 3-continent RTWs that included either Sth America or South West Pacific)
The rule was:There was a thread discussing this - Musings ORD-DEL flight on a xONEn - it's like a Circle Pacific ticket - only better - FlyerTalk Forums

In contrast, the current JFK-DEL flight is stated to be trans-pacific. (But I cannot find where it is stated, it's not in the rules, but I saw it somewhere!)

Well, it's not the first time my memory has failed. Sic transit and all that. Thanks for the correction.

If you have a copy of the rules from back then, did they have the TC1-2-3 rule stated?

Yes I do have a copy, from April 2008
And yes it had the TC rule:
My guess is that flying ORD-DEL was considered flying TC1-TC2-TC3, just without actually landing in TC2.