I was told that this routing is illegal (this is only part of the res):

LHR-CPT-MRU (land) NBO-LHR-LAX

he said if I enter south africa at all I cannot transit back to LHR even if I go by land to NBO

is that correct?

Is this part of a oneworld explorer fare? where does it start? Who's "he"?

yes as an LONE - he refers to AA RTW desk, but he didn't know a lot of rules off hand and repeatedly had to refer to the starfile.

Starts in SYD-LHR//MAD-IST//ESB-LHR-AMM//DAM-LHR-CPT-JNB-MRU//NBO-LAX//BOS-SDQ-BOS-SAL-BOS-LAX-AKL-MEL

It looks ok to me, in that IMO it does not break the Europe double entry rule, but I also believe such an itinerary has not been tested yet, or at least not reported here, if memory serves (and mine ain't that reliable).

Presumably that's NBO-xLHR-LAX, and yes, if <24h at LHR it ought to be okay.

Thanks - I'll call back and hopefully get a more knowledgable person.

I got rejected again for that routing including the manager but they seemed annoyed when I asked them to consult with the rate desk - is it possible that the ticketing agent in SYD would interpret it the right way and/or could QF and BA differ on the interpretation?

This seems to be an AA thing; I tried to book a similar routing about 5 years ago when I didn't know the rules well, and it was rejected with the explanation that the dual transit rule was to allow returning home for tickets originating in the listed cities -- so you have to originate in NBO, etc. in order to make use of the 2nd European transit rule. Not the way I read the rule as written, but that was how AA applied it, and it sounds like they still do that. QF is unlikely to ticket it (they would rather sell SYD-PER), and BA is even more fickle.

So how are they explaining the rule as written? Have you tried an email/fax with the relevant star file section?

The manager/supervisor said that you can only use the double transit if you do for instance LHR-NBO-LHR (or LHR-NBO//DAR-LHR) -- that is if you touch South Africa it's not valid. I asked how she was reading that from the rules and she read me the relevant section and said that is how she interpreted it and that there was no point in me arguing because she wasn't going to change it. I think the interpretation is so obviously the wrong one and kept reading her the rule and asking her where it said I couldn't go to South Africa and she really couldn't justify it... but I finished it up the way she wanted me to and got the record locators hoping another AAgent would be able to correct it but sounds like from number_6 that that won't be happening. I will attempt with QF today and report back (I'm not excited about the prospect of paying the additional fuel surcharges - but I must get to MRU because I've sandwiched an AONE4 in between my LONE4).

That is just plain wrong.

That PNR most probably contains a negative note from the clueless manager by now, so if you want to try AA again (with another agent) I suggest you start from scratch.

Tried AA again except that I asked him the issue right away so as to not waste any time and he responded in the exact same way.

Called QF and after much teeth pulling (she didn't know anything - and suspected my itinerary as a whole wouldn't be approved but she couldn't explain why) got her to send the itin to the rate desk and should hear back by tue. Had to convince her that BMED and Comair were allowed, that you could open date tickets -- she just stopped questioning me after a while and just kept saying she didn't think it would go through but would put it on anyway (although ironically one of the few things she didn't make a fuss about was the MRU//NBO land sector).

QF rate desk came back with the same interpretation
ARGH - I'm so screwed.

You just have to do SYD-JNB etc. instead of SYD-LHR-JNB etc. Still viable, changes order of continents and reduces the mileage but every city that you wanted to visit can still be visited. So from the airline's standpoint, there is no problem with this rule and their interpretation.....

Yeah, that's what I'm going to do - it's only annoying because I have to refund MRU tickets that are already ticketed and reformulate everything.

If I cancel an MRU AONE4 - do they have to refund the credit card and then recharge it or can they just credit the amount to a different ticket? If it's the latter that will be a big relief.