It's all sorted but an extremely painful experience. Probably had around 5 hours on the phone or on hold.

There were two problems - the first was that CX didn't confirm their leg and much later in the whole saga it appeared the USA routing was invalid (even though the tool and the confirmation said it was ok). So I had to compromise and take a CX flight on a different day and do one overground segment in the USA so will need to book a separate flight for that.

I appreciate that ROW routings are complex but this was crazy. I had to escalate to a supervisor and made it clear that this was their problem. They had confirmed a booking in writing saying that a ticket would be issued. I said that they couldn't say this and then decide not to follow though, even though they hadn't taken payment yet. I'm not sure if my OW status was a help here.

I felt they were pretty sneaky a couple of times to try and get me to give up. At one point they said that I hadn't put in credit card details when making the original booking but this was impossible as the booking can't be submitted without it (I offered to screen share to show them). Another person told me all the flights were not reserved when in fact the only flight with the problem was one CX leg.

@Mwenenzi I couldn't start from OSL due to work/time commitments but the flights fit within my budget.

My reason for the trip is that I have a few work meetings in North America and also a friend in Australia who is very ill. When trying to book the North America trips alone it was actually more expensive than the ROW trip which was a good for me so I can see my friend and keep within the travel budget for my clients.

All in all its going to cost me £418 more for the extra flight and I get one day less in Australia to see my friend, however by this time I was committed to my work meeting dates so had no choice.

I'm a fairly frequent flyer but never done ROW before so it was a bit of an adventure/experiment. Based on this booking experience I'm not sure I'd do it again.