Gardyloo,
Thank you so much for being so open to sharing your wealth of frequent fly knowledge, and particularly in dealing with OW RTW. Read many of your posts, you always spent time on strategic issues which frankly RTW newbies like myself wouldn’t even know how to post the question.

I was not aware that RTW fares could be so much lower when ex-europe (selected countries). That couples with your suggestion of doing some MR’s (to tie RTW (begin in Europe & ends in Europe) I went ahead and tried a dummy itin or 2.
Anyway, I like your diea of doing Europe > S. America > Oz > Asia > Europe. I am having problems however, in creating an actual itin ex-HEL (or LHR, PRG). E.g.:
HEL-IST-LHR-MCT-MAD-STO-SYD-PER-NRT-DPS-HKG-BOM-KIX-……….
So after only 12 segments at KIX, system shows DBX as the only “green square” but allows no selection of it. Funny, I can’t even get back to HEL from KIX. Where did I go wrong? Also MCT and MAD also show red-triangles.

Can you throw out a couple of itins ex-Europe? Thanks.

By next year, I have little clue as to what my AA status will be as biz travel slowing.
Per suggestion, I am also looking into doing couple of MR’s to Europe to boost status with AA. Major problem to overcome is time. That said, I checked into SFO-FCO for mid winter. Whether I will make plat or maintain gold remains uncertain.