Erm . . . no. I suppose that could be an issue. One Qantas flight is an AA codeshare, but that may not help.

After looking through the available flights, only 3 in my revised itinerary have first-class cabins, and one is a pretty short flight, so A class hardly seems worth the premium.

I was struck by another thought, spurred by the notion that I might want to take a short hop back to the U.S. mid-trip. That thought was, I'll be in Asia anyway, why not visit S. Korea and get an xone3 and go around the world in the other direction before resuming my itinerary?

I will have to sleep on this, it's possible that all this logistics planning has driven me temporarily insane. Plus I would be essentially living on aircraft for quite a while.

If I were to do this crazy thing, I guess I would also have to figure out how to book a flight ex-ICN. I assume that really does require a travel agent, although I would actually be flying AA metal on this one so I suppose using the RTW desk would be OK. Any leads on what S. Korea travel agent I would use for this kind of thing?

And while I'm at it . . . if an xONE3 goes ICN-NRT-(North America stops)-(Europe stops)-HEL-BKK-HKG-ICN, is that kosher if the stopovers between BKK-HKG and HKG-ICN are each less than 24 hours? I wouldn't plan to use the last two segments in any event. Mileage Monkey says OK, the OneWorld online booking tool gives me a "warning": "You have already used the maximum of two stopovers in your continent of departure. You can only make an extra stop if it is less than 24 hours." So . . . OK?