Originally Posted by
anabolism
It's personal preference. If you use a travel agent, you will have much greater flexibility, e.g., being able to choose which carrier to ticket on, and being able to book many flights as codeshares, but you will have to pay the agent's fee. As an example, I've used my corporate TA for personal RTWs because he can book domestic AA flights as codeshares so I earn in AAdvantage using the distance method rather than the fare method. Other people I know have had a TA ticket an RTW on UL because the fuel surcharges were much less than way.
AA is a convenient option for many of us in the U.S., since we can just call them and do things. A number of people in the OW forum use BA, which has dedicated RTW teams, but I think they are reachable via email, not phone, but I'm told any of their phone agents can book RTWs.
Interesting. So if you use a Travel Agent, is it possible to choose which carrier to ticket on regardless of who the first flight is with ? I booked a DONE4 starting in CMB in February on which the first flight is UL and ticketed via UL because I thought you had to ticket via whoever your first flight was on. I would have far preferred to ticket on BA because then I could manage it via the BA Executive club website. Also, dealing with UL is extremely painful. BA is tortuous enough, even as a executive club gold member, but I imagine making changes via a TA would be a lot simpler.
I guess one way around the bug in the online tool would be to set up the itinerary using somewhere close to OSL - Helskinki or Stockholm for example - and then just ask the agent to modify the first flight when you call up to make the booking.