Thank you all for your constructive comments.

As I know my broad itinerary for the next two years (work related) and I don't mind having it issued with open segments (following the advice of christep), I prefer to have the ticket issued now so as to avoid any POSSIBLE fare increases. I haven't heard of any in the immediate future, but the strong likelihood is that another one will happen well before I start the RTW in Aug 06. I've never known them to go down.

EMECO sounds like the way to go, particularly as Mrs Sobhi at BA hasn't responded to my last Email (though others have said she's very efficient).