Originally Posted by
anabolism
Are you sure about changing between connection and stop? My recollection is that I often do this without needing to pay the $125 fee. More to the point, the $125 fee is not for a ticket re-issue, but for a change in routing, meaning that the list of airports changes (adding, deleting, or reordering). AA does not charge to re-issue the ticket, but reports here are that some airlines do.
The change from connection to stopover can trigger different taxes (departure, security) that will result in the ticket needing to be repriced, hence the re-issue.
Edited to add and off-topic a little: North American Circle Pacific and RTW shoppers should look at ex-Canada fares given the current USD:CAD exchange rates.