Reply To: Round the World Avios ticketing update

[marcolau]

From what I see in the initial itinerary, the detour to Australia is the reason BA Fares team rejected the itinerary during tax calculation.

There have been various discussions on multi-carrier award on Flyertalk (https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/british-airways-executive-club/2137884-avios-rtw-multi-carrier-flight-booking.html), and one BA staffer commented on it, which basically reiterated the requirement for the itinerary to take the most direct routing possible.

Specifically, BA fares team have been getting restrictive over the years in how a route is constructed, in order to prevent a cash equivalent of true round-the-world itinerary is being constructed. If the direct routing happens to be round-the-world given the availability restrictions that should be fine, but if any options see a deliberate V-shape bend stopover when plugging in Great Circle Mapper it will almost be certain be rejected.

Your best bet would be to ensure there’s a reasonable breaking point in the itinerary, and that a cash fare for each direction are available on ITA matrix in its entirety.

One example from my booking some months ago:
HKG-DOH(x)-BOS-PDX
ORD-TYO-KUL(x)-HKG
The BA agent added 2 restrictions to it in order to approve the itinerary:
No stopover at DOH – transit only (DOH is in IATA Zone 2 – they tried to prevent a round-the-world trip)
No stopover at KUL – transit only (Deliberate detour – only allowed as no direct option available)