Originally Posted by CCayley

I've also been considering AONEX from a variety of locations, and after toying with South Africa, Argentina and other more exotic starting points I have to say that I've come to the conclusion that the best option for me (as a Brit) is a start in the US. Although I could shave a couple of thousand off the price, a US start is enabling me with little difficulty (i.e. one ex-EU feeder flight to JFK and one cheap LGW CE ticket to feed the feeder) to:

1. have a month or so of genuine RTW experiences in (in my case) JFK,EZE,AKL,SYD,HKG and NRT (could easily have added a few if I had time or inclination);

2. return to LHR and some time later have a week or two in CAI (or any other European place of choice - choosing CAI gets F class, 360 TPs and 2A on a 747!);

3. return to LHR and sometime later spend another week or two in the States, in my case in LAX and JFK;

before returning to LHR and exhausting the various tickets (exEU bit aside).

So the 3 tickets provide a multi-centre holiday, a separate Egyptian holiday, a separate US holiday and if wanted 2 weekends in Rome or Lisbon, all to be taken on a pretty flexible basis over many months.

On the whole I think this is better value than slogging to Mauritius or somewhere twice (i.e. once more than you could realistically want to be there) on the one hand or buying an ex-EU RTW which makes splitting the trip into several elements and returning home between them somewhat tedious/difficult.

FWIW AA want $13,840 for my RTW itinerary (against a base price of $13,100 for an American AONE5).

I'm sure others will think I've missed an opportunity but I just prefer having highly attractive and flexible itinerary options over saving a couple of thousand pounds...