Some further thoughts (it’s a quiet Sunday afternoon here)

I am boggled by how much you guys know!! I am SOOO out of my depth in getting the best value I can with my DONE4 - very grateful for the help as my husband and I intend to do a lot more travelling now that the kids have all moved out and started paying for their own flights!

Thanks MWENEZI - I think I will take your suggestion and consider booking in January next year when there will be a clearer picture of what airlines and routes are available. Also taken on board are yours and PANDAPERTH's suggestions for flying SYD-JFK-LAX or SFO then travelling back east visiting all the places we want to across the state.

We need to stop in NY, we want to spend time in Jordan, Turkey, Greece, Italy and Paris, we are happy to spend a couple of weeks travelling across the US and will transit anywhere just about to maximise mileage as by then I will be busy planning the next trip (2015) which will involve Spain, Morocco & Portugal with the necessary stop in NY to visit the daughter again.

Thanks GARDYLOO - I had already thought about doing our Turkey/Greece content first before staring the DONE4 - I will have to recheck a Cairo vs Amman origin in Dec/Jan when I book so thanks for the bug work-around.

PANDAPERTH - you would be proud of me - the last itinerary I came up with I managed to use ALL 16 sectors - with a little help from your suggested itinerary! Thank you so much for your succinct explanation of the AA Challenge rules - nowhere else explained it so well.

Just a couple more questions (for now that is) - when I book in January, intending to start the itinerary later in the year, for dates which then fall outside the required time - you mentioned dummy dates. Would I just book in earlier dates and change them when I commence the itinerary? And if I book in a dummy finish date, will I incur a fee pushing it out to near the end of the 12 month ticket?

And regarding the taxes and fuel surcharges, is there a listing somewhere of these charges for each airport?

Thanks again for all your help!

Just saw this one PANDAPERTH - must have come in while I was writing my reply. You have confirmed it would be better to delay booking for now - I do need more knowledge and information and I think I would end up with a better itinerary by waiting. The DFW-ANC-DFW is a side-trip I had not considered but which definitely has me thinking now. And your suggestion re maximising flights to requalify for PLT status is food for thought - no doubt I will be bothering you again come January to guide me in the right direction!

And hopefully having a daughter in NYC will have side benefits re mileage!!

I will be researching the AA Australia-Europe return tickets which allow a NYC stopover - definite bonus! Can't thank you enough - I have no idea how you know the system so well - you must either work in the industry or have put in many many hours of research!

Lots of excellent advise here.

Just wanted to add that I am fond of using Great Circle Mapper to plan. It shows flight miles and segments, and the visual map is handy for visualizing if I'm properly going from continent to continent. I also use ExpertFlyer to plan specific flights, since I can see the airlines, the equipment, the flight duration, seat maps, etc.

Are you referring to the huge increase ex-Middle East last year, or something else/more recent?

I was able to save about $800 on YQ/YR on the DONE3 I just booked by using codeshares where available. AA code on CX transpac, MH and IB codes on European BA and AY flights.

Same here. I knew almost nothing until the local Qantas Travel office closed in 2007 and I had to start working almost everything out myself.

Something more recent

In June this year there were a number of price increases for Europe/Africa (and also it seems some decreases - but I've not heard which fares actually decreased)
See the 2nd post in this thread - oneword-global-explorer-economy-sale

Yikes! An ex-JNB DONE4 went up 10,900 ZAR ($1,116 USD). That's my staple RTW. (Luckily our 2014 is already ticketed, but not happy about an extra $1k per person going forward.)

Is anyone else having difficulty getting Oneworld Planner to work - I am currently working on a DONE4 originating in Cairo and haven't been able to get the planner to list flights for me?

Hello again pye1201

I've been having two sorts of problem with the online booking tool lately

1. Using my old desktop PC (Windows Vista) The tool won't even load properly - neither in Chrome nor in Internet Explorer
2. Using my shiny new Windows 8 PC the tools runs very well, BUT sometimes it just hangs when searching for flights

I've been playing with itineraries out of Sth Africa, and if my first segment is CX JNB-HKG the tool just hangs (BA to LHR and QF to SYD work fine). Also trying to add QR segments anywhere in the itinerary is likely to cause the tool to hang.

I just knocked up a simple ex-CAI itinerary and it displayed CAI-AMM and CAI-LHR flights just fine.

Hi pandaperth - thanks so much for replying. I'm having some real difficulties - I use a Mac OSX vets 10.7.5 - it's just not wanting to list flights at all. I can get my airport list down but then when I go to choose flights it just hangs. I've been working on the following itinerary: CAI-TYO-SYD-NOU-SYD-WLG-SYD-JFK-YVR-MEX-ORD-LHR-CDG-AMM and just can't get a pricing. I also have some more questions for more experienced one world RTW ticket users if I can just get this planner to work!!

Well now I'm confused

Earlier I was able to choose flights and get a price for a couple of ex-CAI itineraries
And now I cannot

I have managed to price up a variation of your itinerary pye1201 - the variation is that it starts in AMM instead of CAI. Why this should work and ex-CAI does not is a mystery

The pricing is in USD as follows:
Base Fare: 7,225
Taxes: 932
Carrier Surcharges/Fees: 1,580

The true base fare is JOD5,100, which converts to USD7200 so that matches OK

Thanks so much Pandaperth – that sounds a similar fare to what I was getting when I was able to get the planner to work. If you remember from my postings last year, I have waited until closer to my proposed departure date for finalization and as foreshadowed, our circumstances have changed a little in that we will soon have a son living in London as well as the daughter in New York, thus necessitating a change in the itinerary.

Our plan is now to fly one-way to London in September to spend a week with the son & daughter, then spend some 6 weeks in the Greek Islands, Turkey and Jordan, before “commencing” our DONE4 in Cairo in November.

We plan to fly from Cairo to Japan for a week then home to Sydney for a few months (incorporating side trips to Noumea and New Zealand in that time) before commencing the second half of the RTW in May 2015. Our plan is to rack up some miles in the US for a month, seeing a few places on our bucket list before heading back over to London, then down to Rome for a few weeks before finishing the trip back in Amman as per the previous itinerary.
On mileage monkey that comes out at around 40,000 miles I think.

My queries are:

Is the itinerary as previously described the best way I can rack up miles in the US sectors (tried to get all 16 sectors in there….)?

When I book the itinerary, I ring the AA desk and have the bookings done over the phone, then I have to find a travel agent in Cairo who will take payment via credit card over the phone?

With this itinerary, together with the separate flight to London on either American Airlines or Oneworld Partner airline Qantas, would I have enough points to qualify for a flight back given the miles are earned in BC (F in North America). Or would it be better to just buy a return ticket and apply for an upgrade on the way home?

Can I commence an AA challenge on the flight over to begin qualifying for platinum status?

And if I can qualify for Platinum status with American Airlines on the above flights, does that mean that for the period that I am on Platinum, if I pay for a full-fare economy ticket to JFK or LHR, the chances are good that I will be able to get an upgrade to business when requested? (Thinking of all the extra travelling required with both kids OS).

Are there any other tips I should be aware of re booking flights on an itinerary of this scale?

Thanks in advance – apologies for any obviously silly questions from a learner.

It might be a good idea to get the travel agent in Cairo lined up before you have the AA RTW folks ask their rate desk for a fare calculation. I seem to recall reading here that the fare they quote you 'expires' in some fairly short time (48 hrs?).

Emeco Travel in Cairo has been AA's GSA (general sales agent) for some time, and a number of RTWers have had xONExs issued through their services. http://www.emeco.com/index.php There are phone and email contacts listed on their site. Often a (Skype or similar) phone call helps get things started, rather than a blind email.

The online booking tool lets you put in destinations that require a plane change, but sometimes that causes it to seize up (along with its general perversity, the time of day, the wind direction, the tides and phase of the moon, apparently.)
In addition, it balks when Royal Jordanian or Qatar are the first carriers, and when you end in a different Middle East country than the one where you originate. Although the rules explicitly state this can be done at no charge, for some reason (the answer, of course, is lousy programming) the tool imposes the price from the ending country rather than the originating one. Thus if you start in Cairo and end in Amman, you'll get the higher Jordanian price for the whole trip. Seriously annoying; the work-around is either to have a human do the booking, such as the RTW desk or Mindpearl (South Africa) Tal (Israel) or hopefully Emeco, OR to show the trip ending in Cairo and then just re-issue the ticket later, changing back to Amman - US$125. Try CAI-LHR-NRT-SYD-NOU-SYD-WLG-SYD-JFK-YVR-DFW-MEX-ORD-LHR-CDG-AMM-CAI in the tool and see what happens. Having BA as the first carrier (CAI-LHR) will trigger huge BA fuel surcharges for the whole ticket, so you might ask whatever human you use to ticket via DOH or AMM as the first segment (i.e. CAI-DOH-NRT...) to avoid this, something the online tool can't handle.