I had a rough time recently with the AA RTW desk when attempting to book a RTW AONE3 ticket, to the point where I believe they were intentionally deceptive in trying to book me on AA flights/codeshares over OW partners' flights.

The first bad experience came when I was trying to WL for CX 831, the JFK-HKG nonstop. AA told me that they could not waitlist for the flight, and pressed me to ticket on the previous night connection via YVR where they were able to book me in the AA codeshare. When I pressed and asked if they could request CX to open up an A class seat on the nonstop, they told me there was nothing they could do and to call CX. When I called CX, they told me they could only process a request to clear a seat if I had a WL on that flight, which in this case had to be done by AA because they had control of the RTW booking record.

When I told the CX agent that AA told me that they were unable to WL me on that flight, she paused and then said: "no, they should be able to do that." She then proceeded to initiate a conference call and conference in an AA RTW agent where the CX agent instructed the AA agent to WL me on the CX flight (and the request cleared within an hour!).

It turns out that AA was unable to WL the AA codeshare but was quite able to WL under the CX flight number. I think I was intentionally provided the wrong information by AA becasue they thought they had me over a barrel (I had to ticket within 24 hours) and I would have to fly the AA codeshare via Vancouver. Of coruse, my preference is/was to book on the AA codeshare on CX 831 (AA 6091), if for no other reason than I lose 8,000 QF status bonus, because QF only gives status bonus miles on AA and BA, but not CX. But ignoring the bonus miles, I'd certainly rather be on the best flight at the best time (nonstop, departing at 3:50 PM), than depart JFK at 11:15 PM and fly all night and stopover at 5AM in YVR, on the wrong date to boot, just to get 8,000 more miles.

In addition, I found the AA RTW agent I was woking with to be hesitant to agree to book me on BA vs. AA from LHR-BOS, because "we prefer that you fly AA". In fact, the original RTW agent that I was working with actually told me that I could not connect on the same day DME-LHR-BOS, when it turns out that the BA DME-LHR flight arrives from Moscow in time to legally connect with the last BA LHR-BOS flight at 7:35PM -- just not the the last AA LHR-BOS flight at 6:05PM.

Naturally, I would be thrilled to fly AA LHR-BOS, if AA offered remotely comparable service!!!

All in all, I have become pretty unhappy with the AA RTW staff; in addition to what I believe to be intentional misdirection or miscommunication, I find that some of them can be "dangerous", because they know some of the rules, but tend to think that they know all the rules, while admittedly some of them are very knowledgeable and helpful. On the comlpimentary side, I was pleased with the follow thru by one agent who called me back to tell me that my WL had cleared and then offered to stay on top of the ticketing process given my tight timetable, but the other negatives are much more substantial.

More troubling is the fact that they obviously can be very reluctant when it comes to non-AA bookings on routes which AA serves directly or via codeshare -- to the point of not disclosing other carriers flights or cooperating with waitlists on those carriers, etc.

As a result, I will try to avoid using the AA RTW desk whenever possible, even though they would be my natural preference/tendancy.