Is the following route permissible under the terms of the Circle Explorer? The purpose is to visit SA, Oz and HK on one trip, not to gather miles.

GIB-LHR-JNB-DUR-JNB-PER-SYD-AYQ-CNS-SYD-HKG-LHR-GIB.

Specifically is the JNB-PER route allowed as it is SAA metal for QF codeshare.

Thanks.

You can not use SAA metal. Only One world metal is permitted.
Furthermore, you can do only two stopovers in south pacific continet
(and other continents.)
So, you should specify stopover points for advice.

GIB-LHR-xJNB-DUR-JNB-xSYD-AYQ-CNS-xSYD-HKG-LHR-GIB
is valid routing example.

Thanks. Shame about the JNB-PER route as it is much more frequent than JNB-SYD. Not sure I understand what you mean by stopover in this case. In what sense is SYD a stopover and AYQ or CNS not?

With a little tweaking, you could probably squeeze into a Global Explorer which would allow you to use SA on that route. Specifically, if you do PER-AYQ-CNS-SYD without the backtrack to Sydney as you have it now then it comes to 33000 miles and you could route GIB-LHR-JNB-DUR-JNB-PER-AYQ-CNS-SYD-HKG-NYC-LHR-GIB.

If you want to visit and stay AYQ and CNS, they consumes two permitted stopovers in southwest pacific contint.
In that case, you can not stopover at SYD.

x before airport code denotes transit.

As Daren suggested, Global Explorer may be better solution, because price of 4 continents Circle Trip Exploere is (almost?) same as Global Explorer with 34,000 mileage limit.

Given that the OP's continent of origin is NOT SWP he is not restricted to 2 stopovers there.

With the circle indian you get two stopovers per continent and six total. Works differently than the OWE.

It is a Circle Trip Explorer ticket, not sure if that's the same as a Circle Indian?

I found the rules (admittedly for tickets ex-Japan!) and there is no mention of the 2 stopover rule except in continent of origin. It does say no more than 4 flight segments per continent however.

aristoph you need a little terminology here. The One World tickets are:

One World Explorer ticket a/k/a OWE = fare depends on number of continents visited
One World Global Explorer a/k/a GLOBEX = fare depends on mileage
One World Circle Indian Ocean a/k/a CIRIND = as it is described, can circle the Indian Ocean, i.e. travel to Africa, South West Pacific (Australia in your case) and Asia possible. European originations are permitted.

There is no such thing as a Circle Trip Explorer Ticket. The folks here are suggesting the relative merits of OWE vs. GLOBEX vs. CIRIND. You can find the rules for them here if you want to read up yourself. Good luck with the planning.

See
http://www.oneworld.com/products/circle_trip.cfm

Circtle Trip Explorer EXISTS!
Fare Code are
AONEWC3/4
DONEWC3/4
LONEWC3/4, LHONEWC3/4, LMONEWC3/4

Circle Pacific Fare also exists.
See
http://www.oneworld.com/products/circle_pacific.cfm


By the way,
I forgot total limit of 6 stopovers rule at my previous post.
My suggested routing violates this rule.
So,
GIB-xLHR-xJNB-DUB-JNB-xSYD-AYQ-CNS-xSYD-HKG-LHR-GIB
Is valid one.

Yes, they are the same. If you click on the link that someone else put up and go to "planning your trip" it lists the 6/2 limitations.

I found good pointer to these fares.
See
http://www.rtwinfo.co.uk/ft/explorerlatest.pdf

This document describes newest rules.

If Circle Indian Fare and Circle Explorer are same,
Circle Indian Fare Rule in http://www.hardlink.com/~markdu/OWFiles/
(eamus wrote above) is OLD and obsolete.

Under new rule, free flight segments within each continent are limited to 4.
Old rule did not have this restriction.
You can purchase additional flight segments within each continet except the continent of origin (same as One World Explorer Fare) under new rule.

Maximum of 20 segments is also applied under new rule.

Circle Indian Fare Rule in above link does not describe this 20 segment limit.

I would look at the BA files with a huge grain of salt because historically they have been notoriously inaccurate. I would personally put far more creedance in the starfiles than the BA files, especially since the starfile and the info on the oneworld website are identical while the info from BA is different. The starfile *does* reference the 20 segment limit but does not reference a four segment limit. I expect that whoever wrote the BA file mixed up the Circle Trip with the Oneworld Explorer but maybe it is something new. Maybe markdu would be kind enough to just check if there has been any modifications to the starfile. Should be easy enough to check by comparing the date at the end of the file. If there has not been changes then I suggest just booking through a carrier other than BA.

If you look closely at the rules here:
http://www.hardlink.com/~markdu/OWFiles/OneCirInd.html
You will see that the fare basis codes for the circle indian:
And the fare basis code for the circle explorer from the rtwinfo site are the same:
Also the 20 segment limitation is in the markdu version of the rules here:

If you are in A or D class, be aware that QF are only operating WHY class aircraft on more and more flights to ASP and AYQ.