.... and ask them .... what? Until the OP has figured out where they want to go on this tour, what's the point of calling? For the OP, if you really want to call them, the number is 1-800-247-3247.

I may be missing some sarcasm here, but reciprocity is probably the most common policy for visa/entry/application fees. The State Department even has a whole section of their website dedicated to reciprocity in visa fees.

http://travel.state.gov/visa/frvi/re...city_3272.html

They even publish something called a "reciprocity schedule."

Try EU threats for a start. If you don't think other countries retaliate in response to American actions, you are sadly mistaken.

Educational, thanks. Nothing whatsoever sad about it.

Happens regularly - Chile is one country that finally slapped a $131 fee for American visitors, in retaliation for the American fee to Chilenos.

E.g. (Timatic) "Chile: NOTE 32733: A reciprocity charge (payable in cash (USD) or
by credit card or traveller's cheques), is levied when
entering Chile for holders of normal pasports entering for
touristic purposes, being nationals of:

- U.S.A.: USD 131.-, multiple entry receipt valid until passport expires."

But as some found out using the short-lived AA flight to DME, the Russian visa documents are probably among the most onerous for Americans - iirc, they want to know every country you have visited, military service, etc. This all militates the OP make some speedy choices and decisions, particularly if headed to BRICs.

N.B. As this topic is really not about American Airlines, but is more related to oneworld airlines for RTW or similar travel, this thread will be relocated - no visa necessary. / Moderator

I think I either typed something weird so that people misread it or the first person misread it and everyone followed suit.

I was picking the winners at the end of the week, when I had posted so I'd have their names at the BEGINNING of MARCH and that we were departing around the 7th of APRIL. I still have 3 weeks left before we leave. I have the winners and they're all US citizens and one Canadian.

So far every country I've looked into that requires visas can either be granted in person or online. We shouldn't have any problems with that respect.

Thank you for all of your help. I'm just reading through this now since the thread got moved and I was blanking on how to find it. Now I've got it back.

I'm trying to stick with oneworld since I have EXP but it seems like their tickets are anywhere from 2500/3000 more expensive than the alternatives. It's a tough call!

I've been to Japan and my magazine has a huge following there. I've never had any issues with being heavily tattooed. I'm the most heavily tattooed visibly in the group and I am very well received in all of the countries that I've traveled to. I've been everywhere, with the exception of the middle east and some parts of Asia and Australia. Plus our hosts in Japan run Burst Magazine so we should be well taken care of and also won't have any problems going to bath houses or staying in hotels that ban tattoos.

My ideal travel situation would be that we could purchase tickets that would be the skeleton of our trip. Our routing would be cemented as well as our initial departure date but that our dates of travel would be more flexible. It'd be great to be able to extend or shorten our stay in a given city without having to pay hefty fines. If that's how RTW tickets work, I'd be happy as a clam but from the routing applications that I've been using, you need to pick the dates.

I had a really specific routing that I was using on various sites but now I seem to have misplaced it. I'm not at home and that's where I have my cute little map with our routing drawn on it. i'm guessing I didn't save it on this laptop. I had about 11 segments on it. I just found a one way fare sale to get us from LAX-SYD for 525 per person which seemed like it was a lot cheaper than anything else I'd seen. I need to figure out if it makes more sense to just buy a multi trip ticket or one way tickets using sales etc if it would be less expensive.

Here is my ideal routing:
LAX-SYD (travel in Australia would be based on what fit our needs while there, either an airpass, some train or bus travel etc)
Australia to New Zealand (figure we'd do that near the end of our trip to get advanced purchase for a 1-2 day trip to meet with Maori)
Australia - Japan (same situation in Japan where we move around ourselves as needed)
Japan- Bangkok, Thailand
Thailand - China (need to check out visa requirements, mostly want to see the great wall and more of a tourist stop than anything)
China (or Thailand) - Calcutta, India (same travel plans as above)
India - Isreal (relatively short trip, huge fan base there surprisingly enough!)
Isreal - Europe (once we're in Europe we'll be touring in a Tour Bus)

Russia all depends on if the promoters who want to bring us there arrange everything. I've had friends who live there who I trust their opinions and they had to live with armed security and didn't have very pleasant things to say about the country. I have a large following there as well so it's fairly important to me that we at least go to St. Petersburg and Moscow but it may turn into more of a weekend jaunt than anything.

I'm not sure if I have enough hard set destinations right now to use all of the 16 stops we're permitted with a RTW ticket. We're not going to South America or Africa on this trip. I just don't feel that there is enough time to squeeze those continents in. I'm planning on spending 3-4 weeks in Australia, 3-4 in Asia/India, a couple days in Isreal and then the remainder of the trip traveling around Europe in our bus.

So you're going to do a "World Tour" avoiding the two most populous countries in the world? Only in America...

And you said in the first post that you were going to Russia - that requires a visa in advance with a processing time of several days.

I laughed when I saw that visa retaliation was called an "interesting theory". Must be the travel nerd in me!

Can someone point me in the direction of a good routing that someone has done going West to East departing from the US? Or even departing from somewhere in AUS? All of the routing examples I can find are all East to West since it's a more popular routing.

I want to get as much warm weather as I can which is why we're going West to East.

Any help is sincerely appreciated!

We're not going to Africa and to South America on this portion of the trip because, as I said, I didn't feel I had enough time to do it justice during this trip. I'm not sure how that warrants an "only in America" response.

You could also make a comment about how I'm not planning on going to Muslim countries but because of the fact that I'm a heavily tattooed and visibly tattooed woman, my personal safety is more important to me. I originally had planned to visit several countries but then was warned away by readers who live there that it wasn't a good time to visit.

I already have a separate trip planned for S. America that's being arranged by my contacts there.

Africa itself also has way too many cultures where body modification is ingrained into their culture and I also feels that it deserves it's own trip. Having spent 2 months in S. Africa, I feel like I'm not a closed minded "American".

I also just said that I have promoters bringing us to Russia so it's all dependent on what they put together for us. They have assured me that while we're in Europe, they will be able to arrange our visas for us and that it won't be an issue.

I suppose that because I'm going to Australia/NZ, Asia, India, Isreal, Europe, Scandinavia, Russia, etc that it's not enough to call it a "world tour"? What would you suggest that I call it instead so that I can be more politically correct?

You edited you post long after I posted my response.

Who mentioned Africa or South America? The two most populous nations in the world are China and India! Those need visas in advance.

And unless you're trying to maximise air miles you should have a look at a map of Asia Pacific - your routing is going a very long way round!

You are aware that the only people with tattoos in Japan are gangsters or their concubines (who are tattooed as a sort of ownership mark)? You'll get some strange looks there. (And getting around unless you speak the language is non-trivial)

Oneworld RTW tickets do exactly that. If the ticket is electronic (which they usually are) you have to pick dates because you can't have open-dated segments on an electronic ticket. However, provided you don't change the routing, changes to the date/time/Oneworld carrier are free. Routing changes are $125 every time you make a change. The only thing to watch out for if you're going to be changing dates as you go is whether there is inventory available when you need it. Oneworld economy RTW tickets book into "L", which is a relatively low fare class, so not always available when you need it.

Which airline? If this is a Qantas 'deal' (given your preference to stick with Oneworld), that fare probably has to be on a roundtrip basis (and probably has to be roundtrip on just about any airline to be that price) and probably won't earn any AA miles. Caveat emptor.

[Edited to add]
Wow - I guess Air New Zealand is desperate for business - $390 + $45.20 in taxes = $435.20 one way for LAX-SYD the week of April 5 ....

As that goes via Auckland, could you make that (NZ) your first country and then on to Oz from there?

Note also that RTW tickets in economy are cheaper if you start in Australia (or NZ) than the US - you would have to end up back in Australia (or NZ) if you start the ticket there but that can always be 12 months down the road (and of course you may just 'forget' to take that final flight...).

Depending on where you decide to go, you will probably end up with some segments that cannot be flown directly (at least on Oneworld) - for example China (or Thailand) to Calcutta, where you would have to route through Tokyo or Hong Kong to get there, and that's likely to be to Delhi or Mumbai rather than Calcutta, so by the time you get there you've used up more than one of the 16 segments.

Perhaps -

LAX-AKL-SYD-<Oz>-NRT-BKK-HKG-PEK-HKG-DEL-CCU-DEL-LHR-TLV-LHR-LAX

That won't actually work because it has too many segments in Asia and there's no Oneworld service from DEL-CCU. You can check the validity of a Oneworld routing here, (plug the routing into the "Oneworld Explorer Validator" box). Though the list of routings (Oneworld flights) this tool uses isn't always fully up to date, it's useful for helping to validate a proposed routing and/or playing with it to see what works.

what about:

LAX-AKL-SYD-<Oz>-NRT-PEK-HKG-BKK-DEL/BOM(-CCU-DEL/BOM)-AMM-TLV-LHR/MAD/BUD-USA

with a bunch of segments to spare. MileageMonkey says the routing is valid. The main thing is, the OP has a pretty circuitous routing in Asia, which can be "straightened out" to save segments. But if the routing has to be circuitous then it's all the tougher.

I think the OP will have problems finding L availability for that many people anyway, though. Especially with the trip coming up so soon.