And my maiden posting too.

My itinerary as follows: TUN-LGW BA, LGW-MEX MX, MEX-YVR MX, YVR-DFW AA. DFW-SCL AA, SCL-IPC LA, IPC-SCL LA, SCL-SYD LA, SYD-AKL LA, AKL-HKG CX, HKG-DEL CX, DEL-NRT JL, NRT-SIN JL, SIN-CMB CX, CMB-AMM RJ, AMM-TUN.

Suggestions and advice most welcome.

I reside in Vancouver and my purpose for this trip is to visit places long on my bucket list and to obtain AA Plat. status.

Price obtained from online, Tunisian Dinars $11607 +$1912.00 taxes $TND13519 ai. per person.

How do I book and pay for this? Ideally I would want to use AARTW desk for future date changes.

Paper or E ticket? Departing March 25th 2010, arriving YVR April 6th for a 6 month layover.

How to obtain two locator numbers as we will be using our SPG cards to get best credit card coverage?

Is it necessary to complete two additional AA flights to achieve Plat. status, if so I was thinking of a quick return flight on AA out of DFW?

Taxes? Are these average for our flights?

Thanking all in advance.

Welcome to FT kiwimagic

I presume you're planning to start from TUN because it is one of the cheaper locations from which to start a DONE5.

How to book and pay
As you probably know, using the on-line tool the airline of the first flight does the ticketing (in general - there are a few exceptions). Since your first flight is TUN-LGW, your ticketing airline is BA, which is known to hit you with heavy fuel surcharges. (The on-line tool shows all the various taxes and surcharges - scan through them and you can easily spot the fuel surcharges - they are the big numbers!)

Purchasing by not using the tool usually has the gotcha of you pay the higher of the price of the country of origin or of the country in which you purchase (or you somehow arrange to pay remotely in the country of origin).

However, some good news for you. There is a specific exception for Canada! You pay the fare of the country of origin. (See Rule 15)
So you can just call up the AA RTW Desk, tell the agent you are calling from Canada and set everything up. Since you have an 'over water' AA flight (DFW-SCL), there should be no issue with AA doing the ticketing.

Paper or eTicket
Some prefer paper, some don't. I'm in the don't camp.
Changes to electronic tickets are easily made by phone; paper tickets mean going to an office, or desk at an airport, to make changes
If having difficulties at check-in, a paper ticket is strong evidence of your booking; however you should always have a printout of your eTicket with you.

Four AA Flights
AA does not, currently, enforce this rule.
I acheived PLT status, via the challenge, in just 2 AA flights

With regard to your itinerary, are you aware that LA starts flying LIM-IPC early Jan 2011?

Currently, you are visiting SCL twice (DFW-SCL-IPC-SCL-SYD)
you could change this to ...LIM-IPC-SCL... getting LIM as additional stopover
(side trips to CUZ and/or IQT and/or GPS?)

Since there are no OW flights DFW-LIM, you'd have to make a change there too; I suggest YVR-JFK-LIM-IPC-SCL-SYD...AA codeshare probably - so that you have at least one AA (marketed) segment for when you book through the AA RTW desk!

unless you realy want to go to DFW...
or can't stand the big apple...
or find LIM so passe...

Thank you Pandaperth for the Lim-IPC information. I was planning to use SCL as a base for overlanding to Argintina, Boliva and Peru, so this will certainly help with the travel plans.