aaupgrade, you've put a great deal of time and thought into your response, and I appreciate it. Let me go a little more into my RTW plans. I'll be buying a four continent first class ticket in CAI, then flying to the States and spending time at home. During that period, I'll use my domestic flights - which as you guessed, are limited to 4 because I need my other sectors elsewhere. My domestic trip will be standalone, with time at home before and after.

It's not important to me to maximize miles on my domestic travel. I'm more interested in going somewhere interesting and expensive to reach in the normal course of airfare sales. I haven't done much travel in the Caribbean or Central America, so those are interesting possibilities - also, I'm likely to travel in March or April so don't care to head north. (I went to St Martine two trips ago; I went to Bermuda this year. At the time, St Martine took 4 segments, but Bermuda took 5 - the classic problem with almost any Caribbean destination it appears.)

I do have some concern for comfort, so the summer ANC flights don't suit - they leave ANC in the middle of the night.

I have found some possibilities:

- Belize via DFW
- San Salvador via DFW - or SAN-DFW-SAL-LAX (there is nonstop LAX-SAL service I've discovered) - but a very quick read on El Salvador doesn't make it sound inviting.