Hello everyone. Thanks so much for your interesting comments and advice, I've spent many enjoyable hours reading and am sure I could spend many more. I'm sure a slightly geeky nature is required for full enjoyment though, maybe that's why I feel at home!

Anyway, I've recently been made redundant with a payoff, so thought I'd use the opportunity to satisfy my travel bug. My plan is to use a OWE ticket to head from London to South America, across Pacific, through Oz/NZ, up through Asia and then home.

Provisional route is: LHR - EZE - LIM - SCL - IPC - PPT - [swim] - AKL - MEL - SYD - NRT - NGO - HKG - [haven't worked out the last bit!] - LHR

Questions:
1. In travelling from SCL to AKL, I would ideally like to go via IPC and PPT. I see LAN fly up to PPT, then Air Tahiti Nui, who seem to codeshare with Qantas, fly from PPT onwards to NZ. Can I use these flights with a OWE ticket? I'm presuming probably not.

2. From what I understand, if one travels within a continent, land segments do not count as one of your four flights, but multi-leg flights, even if just changing planes, do count as two flights of your allowance?

3. JAL can be used only with Global Explorer not OWE?

4. There is much talk about who to buy tickets from and where to start. I am based in London, and I have to say having called BA several times, they are clueless with regard to OWE, and unfortunately one cannot speak directly to the all-knowing fares department! So.. If I were to buy the ticket in London - who would you recommend buying it from? I have seen Qantas suggested here. Secondly, in terms of European hops to save money - Stockholm or Copenhagen seem to be recommended? And would I buy it from the OneWorld office in that country?

5. I have seem some suggestions on this board that it sometimes makes sense to run two OWE tickets in parallel. This is interesting for me because it allows me to break my trip, and potentially do North America. Which continents are cheapest around the world to buy the second ticket?

6. Final question - there seems to be a lot of talk of routes getting booked up very early in particular classes on certain routes. I was hoping to fly in Business, setting off at the end of October. Is a month not enough? To be honest I'm fairly flexible with exact dates, but feel slightly nervous from the talk on this board where people are planning 2008 travel!!

And finally, thanks again for all of your advice and time - It certainly explains many things that one could not hope to discover by speaking to BA Reservations!!