It's gotten somewhat worse..
After another 90 minute hold, the supervisor has gotten back to me stating she has received advice. The advice puts my jaw on the floor and I ask to speak to
her supervisor (not really sure how else to escalate at this point).
So according to their interpretation of 14.4.3
(...itineraries finishing in a port other than the port of origin must include the distance to return directly to the port of origin when calculating the number of Qantas Points required to redeem the Flight Reward and the maximum distance for the Itinerary), the alleged issue with my current booking is that the last leg of my journey isnt.. get this.. the maximum distance of the itinerary - i.e. 35000 miles.
At this point it really dawned on me that they had no idea what they were doing. I asked them to tell me what flight will take me that distance given I could go around the world more than once with that distance.
As an aside, disappointingly, she said that when she recreates my current itinerary in a new booking, it doesn't price it at 318k pp but as separate flights. I am sure she would have gone wrong at some step, but she was adamant they were the exact same flights in the itinerary.
Obviously after the 35000 mile final leg comment, I asked to escalate further.
I am now at the most senior supervisor of the Fiji call centre who can also not tell me in what manner the booking fails to meet the oneworld classic flight rewards criteria; just that the system is recognising them as separate classic flight rewards and my itinerary doesn't have the unique "tag" that says its a OWA. I have now requested further escalation which will be to the Hobart call centre - although she still cannot get someone from Hobart to talk to me directly. The only assurance I have that I don't have to have all these conversations again are the notes on my file (which I cant see) and the call logs (which I can't hear).
I have been tempted to HUACA constantly but if I keep getting entry level agents and it really is a "system" problem at the initial ticketing phase, I am not hopeful I'll get any further than I have thus far.
I have confirmed that my existing ticketed bookings will not be altered and she will take the segment I want to add off the inventory. Scheduled in a time for a callback tomorrow where apparently from now on I will only speak to a manager since it's been escalated by a manager - watch this space.
I think I might put in a complaint so I can also attach the recreated itinerary showing 318k max. I think my call log is at least 8 hours across 4 calls including hold time to (not yet) add this one segment. For my peace of mind, I asked her to guarantee that none of the existing ticketed bookings will be cancelled or changed whilst this all goes on.