Is there any way to prove this to the TA or airline? I have tried to have teh following itinerary booked 4 times now (yes I know I should book this through AA but its a little complicated as it is a business trip - boss is happy for me to take whatever routing I want but need to charge to my Corp Amex or his Corp Diners - he is in US I am in SYD).

The routing was:

syd-hkg-fra-hel-lhr(stop)-dxb-lhr(stop),lgw-bgi-jfk(stop)-dfw-lax-jfk-nrt-hkg-syd(stop)-per-adl-syd

Local TA head's exploded when tryin to book - both LHR-DXB-LHR and SYD-PER-ADL-SYD were going to be ticketed separately

QF refused to book and said last time I did syd-xxx-xxx-xxx-syd-bne-syd that had been an illegal itinerary and I was "just trying to get cheap flights in Oz"

CX (now being booked through TA in New York) wont allow the SYD-PER-ADL-SYD.

I have given our TA a copy of the rules - but I want to be able to prove to our local TA its valid and QF.

Any ideas (other than just booking through AA which I will probably do next time...)

As far as I can see it's a valid xONE4 routing. You have to push the rules to them and get them to tell you the part of the rule that makes it invalid. They may be working on an old set of rules which did previously (a couple of years or more ago) say that once you return to your port of origin then the ticket must end. That rule was withdrawn a long time ago.

I am still a newbie to this forum but isnt this a xONE4 as it takes in SWP?

yes it is

To appease the powers that be, you could always just do HKG-MEL-PER-ADL-SYS and buy a cheap return ticket MEL-SYD. May cost you more than $100 of aggravation and phone calls to get someone to ticket it.

Incidentally, if you're going to be doing nothing but flying around Oz, you may consider doing a HKG-NRT turnaround instead and just losing the few hundred miles. Nothing against QF, but the experience will be nicer.

... or start in Melbourne instead of Sydney; but as christep says, the rules (as we know them today) no longer prohibit a transit through the city of origin, so there is really no reason not to insist, although I must admit that, as Darren says, sometimes it is just not worth it.

There is in the archive a thread about this, with CX absolutely refusing to accept this point, but the OP, thanks to advice from this board, kept at it, again and again, until the CX ****heads relented and 'saw the light', with apology included.

Or ticket it with a return to MEL and then do a reissue along the way -- especially if you think you might anyways.

Steve

You BREAK the rule by returning to SYD, the rule specifically said once you return to ur point of origin, thats it! NOT MORE flights. I was told by CX the rule is still like this. Otherwise I will start my DONE4 is HKG to save to hassle of starting in NRT! In terms of the other sticky situation is the HKG stop twice ( I know you are allowed to transit once in Asia and stop once, but sometime they can get funny when you do the US to Asia leg).

also I don't know ur curcumstance, but are all the flights as part of your business trip? Not try to be judgemental, but if ur boss finds out the company is funding ur FF fetish he might not be too happy ( I know base fare = same, BUT the cost of the TAX can vary quite significantly! and last time I did this I made it really clear to my boss that for any LEISURE flights I take I will pay for it seperately, so that the company or the client is NOT getting ripped off. Apologies if I sound too judgemental.

You were misinformed.

29N STOPOVERS
30N ----------
31N .
32N MAXIMUM 2
33N STOPOVERS PERMITTED IN THE CONTINENT OF ORIGIN.
34N .
35N NO RESTRICTION FOR STOPOVER AT POINT OF ORIGIN.

SHITE! so CX have been stuffing around with the rules! I acutally always through once u get back to the point of origin, thats it! But didn't know u can go further.

So techically you can take another domestic/local trip after u finish ur holiday!

On award tickets once you return to the origin the game's up. Maybe some miscommunication?

It's a fairly recent (2006?) change to the rules, so it may not have percolated to the farther reaches of ticketing agents...

Its a fair call and one that my boss is happy with. For context this trip will cost him US$9500 - the last person that visited OZ from NYC from our team took a J flight at a cost of $14K - so i he is happy with my decisions at this point.

Actually the change occurred in 2005. See, e.g., this thread.

And which domestic flight in HKG are you contemplating taking? A helicopter from HKG to the PEN? The rule for country of origin has not been changed and still applies; all flights from HKG leave the country of origin (even PRC is not considered to be the same country as HKG). So the rule change about city of origin had no affect on HKG oringination.