Hopefully there are some experienced round the world travelers in this forum.

I've a lot of experience booking RTW tickets on OneWorld, but zero doing this on Star Alliance. The version of the rules on the StarAlliance website says that a stopover is a stay of more than 24 hours - anything shorter being a transit. They also say that there is a maximum of 1 stopover in any city and 3 stopovers in any one country. And that in the country of origin you are limited to 4 domestic transfers.

I'm trying to book what follows as a way to make international trips that I need plus take a bunch of extra UA sectors to help fulfill a United PQF challenge to keep my matched 1K status (the PQP I've already met):

OSL-xKEF-xORD-xBOS-xEWR-xORD-xIAH-TPA-xDEN-COS-xDEN-MCO-xSFO-PVG-xFRA-OSL

Every city with an x in front is a transit, or at least a stop of less than 24 hours. Actual stopovers are TPA, COS, MCO and PVG, so 4 in total. I count 15 flights sectors, one under the limit of 16. Total miles should be 25,574 according to Great Circle mapper. I plan to book in business class, and with Z space available on all sectors presently I chould be able to get a CRWSPCL fare which is presently USD 5768 plus taxes and surcharges.

I can't get the online booking tool to accept this, so I tried emailing the StarAlliance reservations email address in Germany. Someone else recently reporting success doing this. The response I got the next day was that my itinerary was not valid because ' the number of stopovers/transfers taken in continental USA/Canada must not exceed 4 (not more than 3 per country)". I wrote back pointing out that stopovers are limited but not transits in other than country of origin. The second reply basically doubled down on what they had first said: "According to the Round the World fare conditions you can have a maximum of 4 transfers per country. You have a lot more in the USA."

Am I miss-reading the rules? Or is the person at the other end of this email not familiar with them?

And if I am right, but the online tool won't work, and this reservations desk won't help, how else can I go about this? Can any travel agent issue this or do I need one in Norway? I only plan to fly in and out of Oslo on the same day, finishing a OneWorld RTW and starting this Star Alliance one.

Many thanks in advance for advice.