As a data point, I recently booked an ex-OSL DONE5 via the AA RTW desk with the only AA-marketed or operated legs being US to South America and vice versa (MIA-UIO and GRU-JFK). Maybe I got lucky but no there was no mention of any sort of TPAC / TATL / overwater requirement

arrivederci Welcome to FT & the ongoing OW RTW discussion
US to South America is long haul intercontinental North America ~ South America and between OW zones.

This is a bit confused and/or misleading. In the last six years, the AA RTW desk has happily booked three DONE4s for us with QR as the first flight (OSL-DOH) and we have never gone anywhere near South America.

AA RTW desk requires an intercontinental AA coded segment. So your choices are between Asia / Oceania & North America, Europe / ME & North America, or South America & North America.

The reason you see this come up so often is because people credting to AAdvantage want to avoid long haul AA segments due to the revenue credit basis penalty vs. distance on other codes. More recently people crediting to BA also want to avoid AA codes. For everyone else it often doesn't matter (I forget if IB matters or not, and for QR PC it's an advantage to have AA codes over QR codes)

No need to "think", guess, or otherwise. Most everything is in the rules, here.

Rules, Smules :)
 

Yep, you are correct per usual! Agree there are rules but there seem to be many interpretations of them. Or am I just imaging all the questions coming from people (i.e. Moral's discussion with BA) having the fees applied when the rules imply/state otherwise.

My comment was thrown out there to see what others have had "ruled" on them. You are probably much better at getting the rules interrupted properly; I am a very bad negotiator but can be a little stronger with first hand reports to spur me on.

Still have question of how book a QR ticket? only way through a TA? Thanks.

As per some of my replies in between this one -

It seems (by some miracle) that BA have finally changed my dates as requested. My QF64 Flight from JNB - SYD with a next day connection to Perth on QF has now been changed to same day QF64/FJ5252 (JNB-SYD-PER) and shows up as confirmed on BA - on manage my booking on the Qantas site the flights show up as JNB-PER. My receipt has ticket numbers so I am guessing all is in order.

No change fees or any repricing was done for this change or the previous one (when I changed the date and carrier on AKL-JFK).

I guess things will go quiet until around the Dec timeframe when I will make a series of changes to add in new dates for all my US flights (all 6 of them) as well as my trip home to the UK for Christmas (Dec 2026)

P.S. I am still seeking a solution for finding out why EF shows D availability on Qantas (for instance on the Syd to Per routing) but BA cannot see it (says there is none). Regardless of PoS (which I think does not matter these days) why would this be. This would seem to be some error on BA's part as (per the above), When I got the FJ code share booked FJ codeshare showed D5 in EF and the QF actual flight number showed D7 - BA could see the FJ D availability hence my booking but none on the QF number - and there are many flights to PER from SYD but BA can see D on only one of these flights for the numerous days I checked despite EF showing wide open in D on all of them.

Yes, QR doesn't issue RTWs themselves, but you can most definitely get one QR plated by a TA.

AA ticketed DONE4, no QR baggage allowance
 

I booked a DONE4 through the AA RTW desk, ex-OSL with first 2 segments on QR. After ticketing, the QR booking record (different PNR from AA) does not list a baggage allowance. However, MH, the operator of the 3rd segment (same PNR as QR), lists the proper baggage allowance for all segments. The QR customer service desk is adamant that I have no baggage allowance. Similar occurrences have been noted on the AA forum: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/amer...allowance.html

My question: is there in fact an implicit agreement for OW RTW tickets? The OW website lists the default baggage allowance. The AA RTW desk as well as the X (Twitter) account states that for these tickets there is absolutely an agreed baggage allowance, but QR has a reputation for going by what's in their record and no other criteria.

Maybe try hanging up and calling again? It's not "implicit" - the fare rules explicitly mention that you get at least two free pieces:

hi Gerbs, have you tried AY/CX websites? You can request a detailed ticket email through their website, which includes detailed baggage policies. Not sure whether AY/CX would take the PNR if not flying with them, but if they do, they should use the same PNR as QR.
My last DONE3 was issued on QR, with no issues on checked baggages.

Thanks for the suggestion - the CX ticket detail does include the fare basis, which is actually DGLOB34 rather than DONE4. So as link2 suggested, I'll give QR a HUCA with the extra information.

So that I understand this correctly, are you saying that the information in the Matt video is incorrect and that crediting to AY scheme will not gain OWE for 80000 points?

No, I'm not. The original question was who was first spend based. AY or BA.

I've just booked a DONE4 and thought hard about where to credit the points. I originally thought Matt's idea best but as AY requires 80k for Emerald vs BA Gold at 20k. Best earning rates away from the host airline is going to be, for BA, 50% (EI, AY, JL, QR etc) so 40k miles needed (hiding fare from AA/BA by using codeshares on their legs). Best rate on Finnair is 250% on the "FAIB4" so 32k miles needed.

The big rub was carrier fuel surcharges. On BA vs JL or QR, I saw surcharges of £200-£300 more per sector choosing FAIB4 metal which soon adds up on the 16 sector DONE4 I just purchased. As an example, I'm flying JFK-LAX on AA but JL flight number and MSY-LHR on BA with AY flight number so will earn 50% miles rather than fare based that the airline would see if I used their own flight number.

I needed to add two more separate trips to obtain the itinerary I wanted (CHC-AKL-NAN and LHR-FCO-LHR side trip) and get a top up of NTPs with BA's current offer. Altogether, the RTW plus attachments has me earning 21k NTPs on BA for 34.7 UK pence per NTP. Plus the holiday of a lifetime in decent seats.

BA's TP Offer (per sector)

Euro Traveller - 75 bonus tier points
Club Europe - 175 bonus tier points
World Traveller - 150 bonus tier points
World Traveller Plus - 275 bonus tier points
Club World - 400 bonus tier points
First - 550 bonus tier points

https://www.britishairways.com/conte...er-point-bonus

https://www.britishairways.com/conte...points/flights