I am about 2 weeks into my first xONEx trip and finally have time to post my booking experience here. I am doing a LHONE5 with the following routing:

AKL-xSCL-IPC-SCL-LIM-EZE-LAX-JFK-CUN-xDFW-PTY-MAD-CAI-AMM-FRA-HKG-SIN-NRT-SIN-xHKG-AKL

A total of 57881 miles and all 20 segments flown...lots of carbon offsets to buy .

I wanted to start from New Zealand but the problem was that I wanted ticketing done before 1st June but won't actually be in New Zealand until mid-June. And I don't live in New Zealand.

At first I wanted to purchase directly from a Oneworld carrier in New Zealand. Qantas and British Airways were out of the question because of their high fuel surcharges, LAN doesn't seem to have a contact in Auckland, American Airlines shut down its office, so I approached Cathay. After some emails back and forth, the agent politely informed me that they were not going to do the booking because it did not have enough CX segments in it (for a earlier itinerary different from the above).

So my next alternative was to approach a travel agent. So I contacted the good ol' STA in Auckland and asked them to see if it was possible to get tickets on American Airlines stock. Their in-house ticketing office managed to do so, and this AA-issued ticket works out to:

NZD4790 (about US$3645)
base fare NZD4109 + taxes NZD573 + the rest as fuel surcharges and whatever commission and fees of STA

The bottom line is that it is possible to get AA-issued tickets in NZ without having step foot on NZ or actually living there ^. Would like to see if any Kiwis can buy direct from AA in NZ. Maybe the ticket will be mailed over from the AA office in Sydney?