Dang2202:

If you book your flights you have a confirmed seat (if one exists in the appropriate booking class of course) until the ticketing deadline is met. Usually your agent or local *A carrier(whoever you are doing your ticket through) will stipulate a ticketing deadline where you must get the ticket issued (ie: paid for). I know my agent is flexible on these, but he also knows that a) I am good to pay, b) I am a reliable customer not likely to book stuff just for the hell of it, and so on. I've found though there is no set rule as to how long they give you to ticket, but it could be a month or so before due departure date (depending on how far in advance you book your trip - the last one I booked 2 days before flying so the ticketing deadline was kind of moot... ). I doubt you'll see any difference between the *A carriers in terms of what you ask, though it may well differ between agents as I don't see any advance purchase requirements in the * RTW rules (though this may vary by country) thus in theory you could hold it up to departure date, but I doubt any issuing carrier would not set a ticketing deadline some time in advance of flight time to a) allow for the ticket to be issued and b) protect them from "booking mania"

If you want that 1x/week flight, I'd say book it in. *A rules say that only the first segment has to be confirmed anyway, so you can always leave the others open dated, and revalidations (date changes) are free, so if you decide to go the next week, if there's space to do it, there should be no problem with moving your booking.

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