I could not get a seat heading east out of Australia the week after the Sydney olympics. So the only route available to me to RDU was BNE-SYD-FRA-LGW-RDU. Took me 44 hours, involved 7 consecutive airline meals and very little sleep.

This was a paid fare and ended up cheapest as a OneWorld Explorer MONE4 (back when they were booked in M). But the routing was not selected for any reason other than availability on the day I needed to travel.