Originally Posted by helgaflyer

Here's a new data point about my experience trying to ticket a DONE4 through AS. After Gardyloo's promising suggestion in post #1048 I called AS with my ex-TYO itinerary ready to book. The first agent said she was familiar with OWE tickets but they could only be purchased through the Oneworld website. HUCA. The second agent didn't know if it could be booked through AS and put me on hold, returning briefly afterwards to tell me that AS doesn't ticket RTW tix and I would need to use the OW website. The following day I chatted online with an AS rep and asked if there was a dedicated desk (a la AA RTW desk) that handles complex international itineraries - he said the "partners international desk" was proper group to talk with and gave me a phone #, It did not connect directly but rather to general reservations where I asked to be routed to the international desk. Spoke with a very nice woman who confirmed she was at Alaska's Oneworld desk and seemed to know there was such a thing as a RTW ticket but wasn't certain if it could be ticketed through AS. She put me on hold to ask around and about 5 min later she explained that the answer she got from several people at the international desk was that these tickets could only be booked through the OW website or an independent TA. I explained that AS has a published DONEx fare and gently asked her if she was willing to experiment creating my itinerary to see if it would work but she was not willing to try. Note: all the reps were equally friendly, polite...and apologetic. <sigh> I called AA RTW, spoke with Kelly (really knew her stuff and very pleasant to work with) and a short while later it was finished. Unsurprisingly each flight had to be booked as prime but no pushback about AA only playing a very small (4/15 segs and no transoceanic flts) role in the entire itinerary. She even went above and beyond by putting me on her tickler calendar to keep the itinerary on a rolling hold in order to get the Dec flights I wanted once the 330 day limit had been reached. A very positive experience with AA RTW desk and made me wonder: if I had been successful at booking it with the one rare AS agent who knew how to do it, what support would there be mid-itinerary if something needed to be changed? Perhaps this is simply part of growing pains after joining OW so we will see if others have a more productive experience as time goes on.