There seems to be a bit of confusion with some of the terminology here, so for the benefit of those not especially familiar with how the xRWSTARx tickets work it might be good to sort it out.

First, the ticket allows 16 flight segments. If you stop after each flight, then you can have 15 stops. But 'stop' here means a break between flights of 24 hours or more. A connection is a break between flights of 23h59m or less. Thus, a connection is NOT "also considered as a stop".

Next, the ticket allows you to pass through any given airport up to three times but only one of those visits can be a stop (i.e., more than 24 hours). And, in general (there are a few exceptions), you can have only three stops in any country. Clever RTW planning often involves including a break, even an overnight stay, of less than 24 hours so that it is counted as a connection and NOT as a stop.

cheers,

Henry