RTW ex OSL, tight positioning and "married segments" problems
 

Hi all,

Just spent a whole week of nightly research / staying on hold with customer service for booking, canceling, and rebooking a DONE5. Current itinerary:

(new line = stopover; same line = layover)

OSL-MAD-DOH-SIN (only this line matters to my questions; full itinerary is just for completeness and anecdotes)
SIN-HKG
HKG-SYD
SYD-HND
HND-HNL
HNL-PHX-SEA (HNL-SEA on a recliner is no fun)
SEA-BOS (thank you for the sticky thread suggesting that I could "stop over" my home by starting from a different continent!)
BOS-JFK-EZE
EZE-MIA
MIA-BOS
BOS-DOH-OSL

Zooming into the first line, my first 3 flights are:
IB3496 OSL-MAD, 2:35h layover, QR152 MAD-DOH, 2:55h layover, QR944 DOH-SIN.

I then booked my positioning flights IB6166 BOS-MAD, 4:45h layover, IB3496 MAD-OSL. These are on one ticket. IB3496 and IB3497 are only 40 minutes apart, but for as far as I cared to go back in history, it's been one plane doing the MAD-OSL-MAD round-trip every day these flights were scheduled.

My questions are:

1. Am I too bold in positioning myself this close to the start of the DONE5?
1.1. Is it possible for the Boston check-in counter to check me in all the way to SIN?
1.2. And if so, can my checked luggage skip the MAD-OSL-MAD plane, because I don't want to depend on IB optimizing the luggage handling in OSL?
1.3. Alternatively, should I request short-checking for both myself and the luggage to MAD only, and use the 4:45h layover time to handle the rest? This probably still requires IB to allow the luggage to skip the first segment of my DONE5 ticket.
1.4 Just for the full context, I'm scared of getting flagged for skiplagging, so I will do the MAD-OSL-MAD trip. I just don't want my luggage to do it.

2. I want to stay longer in Doha but not necessarily a stopover. There's actually a better DOH-SIN flight, QR942, that'd give me 14+ hours of (day)time in Doha, but oneworld.com didn't let me choose it (it would appear to accept it, but then last-minute complained that it had a "waitlisted" status and didn't let me proceed). I tried calling QF and they could confirm that there was available D stock in the QR942 flight I wanted to be on, but the MAD-DOH-SIN segments were "married" and they could only help me change to other options of MAD-???-SIN, and QR942 wasn't in any of the available options. Is this a hidden rule (because oneworld.com also had issue with it) just like "QR can't be the first segment" rule? Is there a way to talk QF (or even QR) into "divorcing" the two segments?

[Anecdote; not part of the questions. Oneworld sent this booking to QF for ticketing. My heart sank a little after knowing that QF was considered least equipped to do RTW tickets right. But after battling with BA canceling two of their legs in my original itinerary causing the ticketing process to get stuck, I couldn't help but wanting to see my second attempt ticketed, even if it had to go through QF, so I proactively called them, stayed on hold for hours, just so I could see the "ticketed" status.]

Thanks!

What is this 3497 of which you speak?

Highly unlikely.

There is no such rule. The Oneworld RTW tool won't allow such an itinerary (anecdotally, because QR don't want to ticket them) but if you go to a travel agent -- or the AA RTW desk -- they will happily do it.

Not sure why you are faffing around with MAD, as you say it's not a stopover. Why not position BOS-OSL and then start your RTW OSL-DOH-...? If you need MAD for your own reasons, then, yes, try to short-check your bag(s) from BOS and put them in a locker or left-luggage desk. After you come back from OSL, since you have 2h35m, get the bags and check them through to SIN.

On point 2: The married segment issue on QR is frustrating, but it's something you have to live with. You can check it in EF with your dates, but without dates no one here can look into it. The good thing is if that married segment opens up at any point, it'll be a free change, but getting QF to do it quickly is an entirely different issue, so if that opens up on the day of travel or day before it's unlikely to get re-ticketed in time.

Very interesting data point that QF is ticketing for IB too. That's sad, seems to be all of RJ, AT, and IB then that OneWorld is using QF for ticketing.

On point 1: 40 mins is extremely unlikely, I don't know what IB's cutoff time is in OSL but at best you'd be at the checkin counter 20-30 mins pre-flight which there's no way they're going to check you in and take baggage at that point. You may or may not be able to OLCI but I wouldn't rely on it but that wouldn't help with checked bags.

My mistake; my first RTW leg should be IB3497 OSL-MAD. Connecting via MAD was the only possible option for me, given the additional constraint that I wanted to route through DOH for onward Qsuite experience. The other option via HEL was more attractive to me (since I could then also try out AY which I've never flown) but the tool didn't allow me to choose that routing.

Correct that MAD is not a stopover. It just happens to be the connecting airport of both my positioning flight and my first RTW layover, so I was only looking into whether it could be a saving straw for my mistake of positioning too riskily.

From the customer service agent's words, it's (currently) not an option to pair QR152 MAD-DOH with QR942 DOH-SIN. They were able to change my MAD-SIN itinerary to route through LHR (but I declined since stopover/layover in DOH was of higher importance).

Well, perhaps the Doha stopover tours are overrated so I could live with not going out of the airport! I'll have another layover at the end of my RTW itinerary so I still have a chance, although it'd be in summer and I don't think it'd be fun to go out of the airport (I still want to visit Oslo in the summer so there's that constraint too).

Could it be that QF is the first carrier in my itinerary that could issue RTW tickets AND flies a "significant segment"? (CX SIN-HKG is just a regional flight, for example).

Of all the (increasingly dwindling) options I could choose, I wouldn't want to have to go landside in OSL during a short layover. My plan is to pick the best of these options:

• (If IB counter at Boston could through-check) Fly my luggage in hold with me and do the same silly roundtrip MAD-OSL-MAD (and maybe even sillier since it includes a roundtrip from the plane to the luggage system back to the same plane, hence the risk).
• (If IB counter lets me through-check with short-checking) Fly my luggage in hold but skip the MAD-OSL-MAD roundtrip; let it stay in MAD airside until the MAD-DOH flight is ready to accept it (best option among the 3).
• (If IB counter lets me short-check my positioning flights) Fly to MAD, go landside, store luggage, go back airside to complete MAD-OSL-MAD without luggage, go landside to retrieve luggage, check it into my onward itinerary to SIN (seems like a viable option but still with some risk; basically my original "point 1.3" with more details that henry999 also added).

Basically, I'm seeking the wisdom from the experienced to see if I should just position earlier.

40 minutes! OMG, I wouldn't it.
I did twice ex-OSL, both times I stayed overnight in either Radisson Blu or Red the night before.

I'd ditch transit in MAD and save 1 segment. I think if you have OSL-DOH-SIN, AA RTW desk will ticket for you if you have 1 long haul flight on AA metal.

Just my 2 cents