Originally Posted by Padkir

Not sure whether to put this in the newbie forum or in here, but hopefully people with experience here can steer me right. Sorry if it's a bit long-winded and sorry if my lingo isn't spot on. This is based on my wife and I taking a year off work and travelling for leisure.

I have a proposed RTW route that I've been working on for the last while, as follows: CAI-xLHR-SCL-xDFW-CUN-ORD-ANC-HNL-HND-SYD-NAN-xSYD-AKL-KUL-DEL-xDOH-AMM.

This is based on ex Cairo tickets still being good value when I want to book in a couple of months, as DONE5 is very little more expensive than DONE4. If something changes there, I'll probably leave SCL off the ticket and just go to CUN (and then do all of South America on my own), so as to only need a DONE4 ticket.

I have come to the conclusion that BA Exec Club is the best loyalty program for us (currently don't have any status or miles with any airlines), particularly since I'm based in Ireland and their relationship with Aer Lingus. I can get to bronze status very quickly (after a few flights) and silver not that long after if I make sure to hit the eligible flights. I understand generally that BA tend to be one of the worst for adding surcharges, but that they can also be applied on other flights too. So probably best to avoid having them ticket the RTW if possible. I also understand that AA have a dedicated RTW desk that would generally accepted to be the best for dealing with set up, questions, changes, issues, etc.

What are the chances that AA would ticket the above RTW for me? There wouldn't be any overwater flights on AA based on this - just South America to North America and a few internal North America flights. If they insist on having an overwater segment, I had looked at an alternative as follows (with the LHR-DFW flight being AA codeshare on BA metal, so as to satisfy both having an eligible flight for BA status purposes, and an AA overwater flight so they will ticket it): CAI-xLHR-xDFW-SCL-xDFW-CUN-ORD-ANC-HNL-HND-SYD-NAN, AKL-KUL-DEL-xDOH-AMM

I believe both options are valid itineraries. I can tweak this as we investigate other places to go and it's up for debate of course, but generally speaking this is the routing we largely want to follow to make the most of weather, etc. in the different areas (South America - North America - South Pacific - Asia - Middle East). The HNL-HND-SYD is purely in place because it looks like torture to try find D fare direct HNL-SYD flights. We have been to Tokyo before so wouldn't mind leaving it out. I also know that I could save a segment on the original itinerary by doing SYD-NAN and then surface to AKL, same as the alternative itinerary.

Would generally appreciate any feedback on the routing, but particularly in relation to who I should get to ticket the flight. Thanks.