The Oneworld Explorer has no restriction on the number of stopovers allowed at any one point.
You can arrive at/depart from a city any number of times (subject to complying with all other rules).
So from that perspective, both of your itineraries are valid

(although, as an aside, both are invalid - because both have more than the one allowed allowed trans-con flight. But substitute say ORD or DFW for JFK, then both are valid)

You are only allowed to fly between a pair of cities in the same direction once. Other than this, there is no restriction on visiting the same city more than once.

I'm not entirely convinced your question would make sense, because both cities will be visited. There is one stopover but it is not somehow centred on either city.

IMHO, under usual IATA rule,
both of cities are considered as stopovers. However, in terms of the number of stopover, the count is ONE for a surface segment.

The number of stopovers affects minimum number of stopovers in whole itinerary, and maximum 2 stopovers in the continent of origin (for oneworld explorer fares)

DONE Availability
 

Just wasted 2hrs of my life with QF agent trying to rebook some DONE4 segments in Asia, DPS-HKG-SIN-HKG. Using EF, changing POS accordingly i could find sufficient D availability on each segment, but QF had different availability.

Anyone know the most reliable source of D availability for DONEX other than pin the availability with QF agents?

The EF availability was dynamic with each POS, so I am confident in their availability tool, just would like to know if the airlines have it different or just that i have to accept the agents cannot change their POS, so i'm stuck with whatever the call center has.

One possibility is married segment. The flights didn't included any connections?

Another theory: QF is using call centers in many parts of the world, the call may have been routed to somewhere where you didn't expected, thus they might have been using different POS. That happened to me, called to Oz number but UK call center agent picked up and was using UK as POS instead of Oz than I expected. Did you ask where the agent was located and compared that to EF availability?

At least QF Premium desk (in Hobart) have been able to change the POS when I have requested to grab some flight that have been showing availability in EF only using some other POS than their default POS. Your YMMV, definitely not all of the agents are that flexible.

This is relevant for *A RTW but not for OW xONEx. Both ends of surface segment are considered to be stopovers.

Charging Service Fee in Hong Kong for changing dates- DONE3Ticket Ex-CAI issued by QR
 

Hi guys

Wondering if anyone can Comment on the legality / or whether QR is allowed under IATA rules to start charging a service fee HKD80 for each change of the flight dates on my ticket bought last year (Dec16) that is still valid - without informing me they changed policy in May 17 - and certainly not the rules when I bought the ticket from QR.

They are also messing me around with as they are unable to offer the last leg of DOH-DXB and after a month have offered me an eight hour journey via Kuwait.
They previously told me they would take care of me and would allow me to terminate the journey with a reasonable flight anywhere from DOH and then changed the policy again without telling me.

Whilst they are messing me about the availability of D class seats on the flights I need are diminishing and I might not even get to use the last 4 coupons.

Any thoughts about how to tackle QR?

Thanks in advance!

The rules do allow a service fee to be chargedIf your change requires a re-issue (or I guess if QR decides it is going to re-issue whether it was needed or not), then QR is free to charge a service fee.
(IIRC Qantas charges a service fee for economy class RTW changes, but not for premium classes)

With regard to your routing issue, QR of course faces on-going problems due to its being barred from flying to the UAE (and other regional countries) - see this thread https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/qata...-airspace.html.
In that thread, you can see that generally, QR re-routes its passengers to such destinations only within a few days of travel.
Have you considered re-routing yourself, and so paying the USD125 change fee, to get what you want?

Thanks pandaperth

I have 5 more sectors to fly.

The issue with the service fee was when I bought the ticket D class there was no fee. Now I’m told the policy changed - without previously informing me.

Bit annoyed

QR LONEx purchased through Australian TA. $AU30 to change the dates plus the US$125 if I wanted to change the routing/stopover/transit arrangements. Since I moved the flights forward 8 months I thought it was a good deal. Though I did re-arrrange to keep the same stopover/transits when they wanted the re-issue fee though with the same routing.

Happy wandering
Fred

R has always had this fee -
 

I cannot comment on whether QR has always had this service fee - reports of people purchasing QR-issued RTW tickets were a rarity until the ex-Egypt fares were being purchased last November

When you initially purchase a ticket, there is no provision in the rules for a service fee. The fee only kicks in when you make changes.

Generally, QR service fees vary by the market that is determined by the booking office you contact to. In my experience, main office in Doha still don't charge service fees for ticket changes, even after HK office started to charge those. I was able to avoid the 15€/80HKD ticket change service fee on one of my exHKG R/T tickets by calling directly to reservations in Doha, +974 4023 0000, instead of the local number. It's more expensive to call, but use voip service. At least also Nordics and US offices/lines have the service fees already introduced.

I wonder, too many of these rtw tickets were purchased ex-Cai, ex-JNB, ex-MPM, agents started to get annoyed and so they charged all these fees.

RJ wanted to charge me HK$100 to re-ticket on top of US$125 in Hong Kong office. Their service is extremely good (but their headquarter is really slow), and I am willing to pay.

I purchased two ex-MPM DONEx tickets in July last year.

The first was QF-issued. Made numerous date changes on this ticket. No charges at all (however QF does charge a service fee for economy RTW tickets)

The second is AA-issued. After the first two flights, I re-routed the rest of the ticket - no service fee, just the USD125 re-route fee plus a recalculation of the taxes. I have since made some date changes - no service fee.

I have been flying DONE5 ex JNB for many years all issued by AA and the back half of each trip interestingly are all QF sectors and other than on one occasion all have been reissued by AA with NO service fees as the changes were date changes only.... whilst on one occasion I bypassed AA and used QF who were a pain to deal with until I managed to get hold of a fabulous senior supervisor who told me "to go to sleep and I will fix up all your sectors and email you the new eticket "...which happened overnight with no charges but was reissued on QF stock....will always use AA I think to change dates as I think its a safer way to go