Ditto. The trying and failing to get in bit anyhow.

Just a thought
- I wonder how hard it would be to acquire a Mastercard/Visacard debit card from a South African bank?
- might be easier if you are actually in the country than if you are outside

Then you could load it up and pay for the ticket

I bought my current DONE5 through BA. Set it up using the online tool, which gave me a BA Record Locator. I then phoned BA in Jo'burg and paid over the phone (using my Australian C/C)

Since the payment is not made using the tool, it should be possible to tweak the itinerary with BA before paying for it - might be useful to get flights that the tool does not display, such as codeshares

My spider sense thinks something else is going on here with regards to the "do not ticket" note. Am I correct in understanding that the AA agent who lectured you was not from Mindperl?

You might call Mindperl and ask for Rucien -- assuming he's still there -- as he is able to price and ticket RTWs himself which cuts a lot of faff.

Many people have paid with foreign cards without issue many times over the last few years so it would be a big change.

Has anyone else been able / unable to ticket via Mindperl within the last month or so? Almost tempted to put a dummy reservation in.

I did exactly this on my last two AONEs ex-CPT, except I used BA Gold in the UK (Newcastle or Manchester, I don't know which) with a US CC. I was able to select all the code shares which weren't available using the online tool.

By "exactly this" do you mean that you used the on-line tool to set up an ex-JNB trip, then phoned the BA Gold line to ticket it? You didn't even have to call BA in JNB?

This is correct, except the AONE began CPT-JNB-LHR, all on BA.

This is what I did after the Mindpearl failure. I just used the online tool to get an itinerary close enough to what I wanted to fly and then called the US BA number and was able to change all segments I wanted to.

However, I am now having a hard time getting the new itinerary repriced. But FWIW, the JNB BA office told me that paying with a Canadian CC would not be an issue at all.

This is a bit OT, but do you think that I will be able to enter SA if it has not been ticketed before I fly, as long as I can show a printout of the booking?

I have now entered South Africa twice

Neither time has the airline (South African) asked to see an onward ticket before allowing me to board (first time I did have an onward ticket; second time I didn't - I purchased my DONE5 while I was in the country)

Neither time has South African immigration asked any questions - about anything at all;)

Of course - YMMV

Is BA not able to price it?

I go to South Africa at least twice a year, and never has anyone asked to see my onward flights. New Zealand and Canada have done so, but never S.A.

Well, I called Thursday morning the US phone number to change my segments and this was done pretty quickly. I was then told that the new itinerary will be sent for repricing and they would call me back within 24 hours with the updated price. As I did not hear from them, I called the SA office this Friday morning. The price had still not been updated which prevented them from ticketing. As the SA office was about to close, they were not able to get the updated price today, but the agent promised me that it will be done early next week. He also told me he was dealing with booking RTW tickets all the time and this is also when he said that a foreign CC was not an issue. I still do not get why it takes so long to update the price, but he made me feel more confident than anyone at AA and Mindpearl did before.

On the other topic, I have never been asked about my onward flight either when entering SA, but until now, I did have one, so it was not really an issue!

On the issue of SA immigration not asking you for flights.

Sure they don't, but if you don't have evidence of a flight out of SA, then the airline that flies you into SA might not want to board you.

I did at one point have the return leg of a JNB-SYD-JNB flight on QF so was checking in at SYD. The QANTAS Agent didn't have any evidence of any flights out of SA at all on her system (I had an AA ticketed DONE4 which was still pricing but not yet ticketed). I had to do a little bit of persuading at SYD as without a confirmed ticket, just a reservation, the QANTAS agent was unsure of my intentions in SA. They did put me on board eventually, though. And at SA, it was no issue at all.

Please please please let this be the case. Booking through the AA ATW desk is such a pleasure I would be really saddened to lose it.

But Phileas is talking about booking with BA (and phoning BA's US number to tweak the itinerary). He's given up on AA because they are now insisting on a SA credit card.

Any other Mindpearl experiences in the last few weeks? I'm a few days away from being ready to book; I've setup with AA RTW in US and am finalizing/tweaking and planning to call Mindpearl to pay and ticket by Friday this week. If that is off the table, I'll need to alter the plan.

I've done 2 other RTWs setup with AA in US and ticketed using a US-based CC over the phone with Mindpearl (the most recent booking was March this year.

Never used BA but seems like that a potential option; has anyone used any other carriers? My current itinerary starts off JNB-DOH-ZRH... has anyone ever tried booking with Qatar?