Oneworld RTW tickets do exactly that. If the ticket is electronic (which they usually are) you have to pick dates because you can't have open-dated segments on an electronic ticket. However, provided you don't change the routing, changes to the date/time/Oneworld carrier are free. Routing changes are $125 every time you make a change. The only thing to watch out for if you're going to be changing dates as you go is whether there is inventory available when you need it. Oneworld economy RTW tickets book into "L", which is a relatively low fare class, so not always available when you need it.
Ahh, okay, now I get it. I was trying to figure out why I couldn't book that online. I'm fine with having the routing stuck in stone but I would love to have more flexibility in changing the dates. We may find we've got too much time on our hands in a certain city and not enough in others so I'd like to be able to phone up the airline and try to cut out a day later or a day earlier.
If they don't have the actual fare buckets open, are you able to fly "standby" ie, just go to the airport when they have seats open but not the fare class and hope to be put on the plane?
To leave the dates open then, I'd have to call and book it through the desk and then they'd actually physically mail the tickets to me? If we lose the hard copies are we SOL then? It's been a very long time since I flew with paper tickets!
Which airline? If this is a Qantas 'deal' (given your preference to stick with Oneworld), that fare probably has to be on a roundtrip basis (and probably has to be roundtrip on just about any airline to be that price) and probably won't earn any AA miles. Caveat emptor.
I think that you're correct. It may have been a Vatlantic flight, which I was considering.
[Edited to add]
Wow - I guess Air New Zealand is desperate for business - $390 + $45.20 in taxes = $435.20 one way for LAX-SYD the week of April 5 ....
As that goes via Auckland, could you make that (NZ) your first country and then on to Oz from there?
Air New Zealand isn't part of OW correct?
Note also that RTW tickets in economy are cheaper if you start in Australia (or NZ) than the US - you would have to end up back in Australia (or NZ) if you start the ticket there but that can always be 12 months down the road (and of course you may just 'forget' to take that final flight...).
I was looking at that. The only thing I wasn't sure about was if I would be able to purchase the tickets and get the cheaper RTW ticket if I started the RTW ticket in Ausstralia but was purchasing using a CC with a billing address in the US. The RTW fares on OW are $4400 but when purchased from Australia they're only like $3380.00. Then again, if you add in the price of the flights to Australia to begin the tour and to return home (unless I made it so we were making a stop in LA and then forgetting to take the last leg), it saves about 2500 if I can save 500 per ticket over 5 tickets. The only question I have is if I can purchase the RTW tickets for the Australian price with a billing address in the US.
Depending on where you decide to go, you will probably end up with some segments that cannot be flown directly (at least on Oneworld) - for example China (or Thailand) to Calcutta, where you would have to route through Tokyo or Hong Kong to get there, and that's likely to be to Delhi or Mumbai rather than Calcutta, so by the time you get there you've used up more than one of the 16 segments.
If I need to fly from point A to B but it requires that I make connections through C or C and D to get there, does that equal one segment or more? When I used the booking tool online, I did the following:
LAX-MEL--BNE--AKL--DRW--TYO--OSA--SHA--BKK--DEL--TLV--HEL--STO--OSL--LON--LAX--LAX
It said that it was valid so I'm assuming that even though a couple of those have connections even they're still one segment each. According to what I printed from the saved itinerary, it said this:
Stopovers: 15 /
Coupons: 15 / 16
So I'm going to guess I still have one more segment that I can use?
I have two weeks until we leave, though to get a RTW ticket I need 8 days advance purchase. I hadn't been planning on using the RTW to do all of our travel, other than where it makes sense like burning segments in Australia, since we have a lot of overland touring that we need to do to visit the various cities in smaller countries.
I really appreciate everyone's feedback. I've done stuff like this before but usually I go by myself or with one travel companion. I thought it would be easier to plan, just do what I normally do but buy more tickets but it's one thing just to hop a flight to the next place when you're traveling in a small group but when you've got 5 people, those last minute flights add up!