A stop means 24 hours or more. A connection is less than 24 hours. Every flight is a segment and you can have up to 10 of those. You can have multiple connections, but only 3 stops max.

I have two questions for any of the more experienced redeemers.

1) I have my route planned out (and Okayed by AE), as I search the segments for availability, I assume I can only call in when I have found the seats I am satisfied with on ALL my segments. But what if I can't find availably on only one for e.g. YYC-LAX(SFO) as my first segment. Do I wait until that becomes available before calling in and run the risk of losing the known/seen availability on the longer segs? Is there any way around this issue?

2) I am booking for two of us. Myself and the Mrs, I am using my AE miles for my costs and the Mrs AE miles for her costs. How do I get AE to allow me to use the miles in her account? Will this be booked as two separate itineraries? Transferring her miles to my account to cover her costs is just too expensive. How difficult are AE about this?

They will never "hold" a segment for you, i.e. you should call once you have the most desirable segments available. Typically, unless you are flying some backwater undesirable routes, you will NEVER have your ideal seats on ALL segments from the first shot - so find those that you're really OK with, and reserve the itinerary, then monitor the remaining segments and call in once they release seats on those (or call in to pay the $90 change fee and re-route to others - this is in case the segments you want are outright unavailable in any class of service lower than the one you are paying for).

They won't transfer the miles - you will need to book under her name. Have her available when you call to authenticate herself, then just pass the handset back to you. You could probably have her add you as an authorized user with a note on her account or something to that effect - but generally, AE won't transfer the miles w/o a cost. Also: yes, it will be 2 separate itineraries, which can be a good thing if you NEED to get 2 seats of a kind and only 1 is available.

Thanks for the reply Pseudo.

Just doing dummy searches now to get a feel for availability as I am waiting for my dates outgoing and return to open up next year, and it seems like that the long haul segments mostly have availability, but its the short haul that don't (yet).

For example YYC-LAX/SFO nothing, but.....

LAX/SFO-NRT-SIN always seems to bring up something.

Thats why I asked this, as I foresee problems trying to string together a complex itin when the airlines make the short NA hops the difficult segs to get seats on.

Yep, totally hear you. I had huge problems getting from the east cost to YUL - ORD/IAD/JFK were all giving me huge headaches, whereas over-the-pond was no (or almost no) issue whatsoever.

I'd say still - depending on how rare the spots you're looking at getting on the long-haul are, you MIGHT want to consider booking with a fake return point and tack on the local flight for $90 when it opens up. That is to say, let's say you're booking F and see a spot on NRT-FRA open up on the 380, or NRT-JFK on the "inspiration of Japan" configuration, or whatever - I'd grab that and to hell with local flights, since those are so hard to get - then I'd just call and fix the local routing when it becomes available.

You need to have everything available to book the ticket. Unless you want to pay change fees ($101.90 per ticket) later to add those segments on.

Even if the desired short segments are in coach now, it may be worth securing them and monitoring availability.

Try looking at Continental in F. Some two cabin Continental flights show up as F, but number of points required is J. Booked Mrs. Allbrosca on points on Continental in F and J for J points to Hawaii through LAX on way down and Denver on way back and myself on an AC flight pass through Vancouver. Saved a bundle on fees, but we are travelling seperately. (As a sidenote, this is in December and should bring me over 35,000 miles and back to E! ).

Interesting. I wonder if it's like the UA flights on E90s which show an F cabin, which means something like 2 seats that are just ever so slightly larger

Book those in economy if business is not available, then check business availability periodically. You can upgrade and pay no change fees. If you are in economy and business is not released before flight, you can stand-by at the airport for upgrade to business (on AC flights only).

Or, if even economy is not available, book a dummy route, and then pay $90+tax change fee per ticket when your desired routing becomes available.

United does not operate E90s ...

The United Express aircraft (such as E170s and CR700s) each have 6 "F" seats (one row less than AC) - these are the same size as Air Canada Embraer Executive "First" seats. 38"/20" width, so I am not sure what you mean by 'ever so slightly'

Continental flights are sold as X/I, United mostly as X/O for award purposes.
Aeroplan has chosen to charge first class mileage for United/USAir domestic "first" class - while UA/CO charge business rates for these. Continental "first" class is still charged business mileage (I class) by Aeroplan.

Right, that is what I suspected I might need to do. I was just wondering if there was any other work around.

Because of this, is it possible to book a departure city in North America with a different arrival city. e.g. LAX-XXX-YYY-SFO or YVR-XXX-YYY-LAX? Is that allowed within the rules of the mini RTW,or do you have to return to your departure city? If that is OK then it may make it a bit easier for me to pick up the short hauls at a later stage when they open up.

And that is interesting. As I would be searching for J on these routes under the mistaken assumption that F does not exist.... So thats a good tip!

Youre mixing things up

There are two cabins on North American routes

CO "First" + AC Executive "First" - this is business class (I)

however, for UA/US flights - AE chooses to charge First class mileage for those business class seats because of the designation 'first' (O)

to make things even more confusing, some flights which still only have two cabins on UA - there is both for sale (I/O) - those you can get for business mileage - but you will be seating in "first"

If you depart/arrive in different North American city - you lose one of your stopovers
In addition - you will pay $101.90 for adding those in - you would also need to leave space for these flights - ie. your trip in total still could not exceed 10 flights.

My bad - retracted. I was up front on an E70 flight on United Express some time ago - but if I am not wrong, the redemptions for "F" seats on United Express count as "First", whereas the Embraer AC seats are "Business", yet as you say the seats are quite similar. Hence the complaint. But seat size wise, I guess they are more than "ever so slightly" larger - I should be fair.

Awesome, thanks for the tips guys. I have booked. I will have 24 hours in the following:

LAX
SIN
IST
BUD
PRG
FRA

Any tips on what to see? I realize it's a short amount of time, but if I can get in 1 or 2 must sees, I would be happy.

Also, as a solo traveller, are all these safe?

And stopping in BKK, is that safe? Hotel or hostel?

Oh, and in Business class, do I have access to lounges with showers, beds, etc?

YYZ-LAX-SYD (4 weeks)
SYD-SIN-BKK (2 weeks)
SYD-IST-BUD-PRG-FRA-FCO (4 weeks)
FCO-YYZ