To add to Hagbard Viking's excellent post I'll just fill in some of the detail that I've gotten by learning the stuff surrounding Economy RTW's (there are so many Bus/First experts on this board!):

- As Mr Viking suggested, with AA, only some airlines can count. OWE RTWs are booked in M class. With the AA rules this means:

Airlines that are fine:
- AA
- AY
- BA
- IB
- LA
- QF

Airlines that you cannot earn in:
- CX
- EI

- Whilst most airlines give miles, not all of those give full amount (1mile=1mile). QF is bad at 0.7 and IB is worse at 0.3. Avoid these as much as you can if going for Q-miles (as you would be). If you can't avoid them - use codeshares (the AA flight from SYD-PER would earn 1 instead of 0.7)
- A few useful routings are the following, I've found these to be very useful when maximising mileage for retaining plat:

SW Pacific:
- there is now a AKL-PER direct flight (stops in MEL), it's huge compared to the rest but only that direction and only on a Tuesday
- Do at least a SYD-PER-MEL run, if not CNS-PER-MEL or something like that. You can only have one PER-SYD or CNS or BNE because it's so long, so you might as well use it!
- Might be a good idea to do a MEL or SYD-DRW as well. You can only have one of these but they too are long.

Asia:
- CX is out (see above) but all is not lost. QF operates SIN-BOM-SIN and SIN-HKG-SIN which are both a lot better than a kick in the head, distance wise! BA also operates HKG-TPE or HKG-MNL but they are much shorter than the above.
- AY will be operating a BKK-HKG from Feb 2002 - this earns both 1 Q-mile and 1 Q-point (rather than 0.5 if it was an AA flight - it must be a bug with their computer system) per mile.

NA:
- You can only have one transcon but make sure you use it!
- Make sure you fly between two points using the furthest away AA hub. LAX-ORD-SJC is a lot further than LAX-DFW-SJC
- LAX-SXM has to be the find of the week for me, I don't think it even counts as a transcon either!
- BOS originating transcons are the longest - BOS-SAN is the biggest IIRC.

Europe
- You can only use two flights from LON to all the far away places (Middle East, North Africa and the baltic States). So again, use them! They are restricted because they are long - what a good hint from the airline!
- LHR-DXB-LHR is by far the best way to use the above. You get a tonne of miles.
- A lot of the other routings besides those excluded above are reasonably short and you don't get too much variety in distance (because you get 500 minimum Q-Miles on BA, so the shorter flights aren't that much worse anyway)
- Some larger other routings though include DUB-HEL (1249mi) and HEL-MAD (1821mi)
- LHR-HEL is about as far as you can go from London without being hit by the rule referred to above (the "Cut down on the long flights on BA metal" rule)
- For fun, you can do MAD-FRA on Lan Chile, in case you want to experience wihtout having to go to the SA continent.

Intercontinent
- From Europe to Asia, fly to SIN. It is always the furthest distance. LHR-SIN is the furthest way to go between the two.
- If you include SW Pacific and Europe, you'll need to fly via Asia or Africa. The key thing is that you are actually allowed two entries to Asia provided one is a transfer without stopover on the way between SW Pacific and Europe. I've found the best way is then always NA-Asia-SW Pacific-Asia-Europe instead of a direct Qantas NA-SW Pacific flight.
- Some great AA pacific flights include LGA-OSA or MIA-NRT and BOS-NRT. MIA-NRT is the king at over 7500 mi. These all stop somewhere else but it doesn't count because they are all one flight number.
- I'll also repeat another tip I've used and also seen around here. If you are going into another continent, you can maximise it by going the most extreme opposite points of each continent. ie Don't fly DXB-HKG - LHR-SIN is much better. Don't fly LHR-JFK, HEL-JFK or LHR-LAX is much better. Don't fly SIN-SYD, NRT-MEL, HKG-AKL or BOM-MEL are much better.

Just a few hints I've used so far (all uses theoretical only I must admit) and I'd love to hear other people's!

Oh and gc.kls2.com is your new best friend. Make sure you are a sizeable amount over 50,000 though because it has a certain amount of error, the last thing you want is AA to tell you it was only 49,870mi!