Well, myself and Mrs Mac enjoyed a pleasant weekend in Cairo, picking up our rtw tickets from the BA office.

Most of the people who I have told about this ‘side-trip’ have been as disbelieving as I would have been a year ago, before I became a follower of Flyertalk – although funnily enough when I mention how much money we’ve saved, some of them do realise the sense of it (and I’ve even managed to persuade my stepmother to have a look here – it’s only a short step until she’s got my dad flying to Lisbon to pick up there transatlantic tickets ).

From the moment on Friday afternoon when the self-service checkin rejected our pre-chosen seats 29 A & B for a pair of rear-facing ones the trip was smooth as silk. Nabila from BA had written out the tickets (after I had faxed her cc details), so we were in and out of the office within ten minutes, which gave us some time for sightseeing as well as relaxing by the pool. Our return flight was uneventful, but packed; the Egyptian Special Olympics team (all 97 of them) were on their way to Dublin, but middle seats in the back are survivable for 4 ½ hours – just !

If I can help anyone with the ‘beginner’s guide to buying a rtw in Cairo’, feel free to ask questions.

For the record, our itin is:

CAI-LHR
LHR-SFO (for July 4 fireworks)
SFO-DFW-ELP (big Marty Robbins fan)
Overland through Mexico, side trip to Belize and/or Cuba
CUN-JFK (visiting friends and family)
LGA-UIO (sidetrips to Galapagos and jungle)
UIO-SCL-GIG (overland via Pantanal, Foz, Fray Bentos, BA, the Lake District and Torres del Paine)
PUQ-SCL
SCL-IPC
IPC-PPT
(separate *A ticket PPT-AKL-BNE)
CNS-AYQ
ASP-DRW
DRW-PER
PER-SYD
SYD-JNB-CPT
CPT-LHR
LHR-CAI

(the eagle-eyed amongst you will notice that that is only 19 segments – we originally planned to fly NYC-MIA-GYE, but a last minute decision allowed us to get on the single-flight number LGA-UIO. We have already used our 4 segments for Sth Am and SWP, and I didn’t have the energy to shuffle the itin to use the last segment.).

In no particular order, I would like to thank UserMark for posting the OW starfiles, ExMo for compiling the fare chart, Manta for his recommendation to visit the jungle in Ecuador, and ExMo again, christep, Guy Betsy, Markie, Markonen, and countless others for all their help, advice and tips. If you feel that you’ve been missed off that list, don’t worry, you’re under countless others

And lastly, thanks to everyone who contributes to this forum for making it, unmoderated, the single most useful, cheerful, and aggro-free place on FT !

(with the exception of that time that christep got a bit annoyed when people queried the new April 15 rules….. )