What did you book?
 

I looked at your postings for details. Could you share what and how you booked? Cost? Thank you!

I totally agree with the sentiment in support of the AA RTW desk. I've done 4 trips with them and wouldn't hesitate to use them again, but AA, IMHO, has cut off their nose to spite their face. If you care about miles and points--and who on this site doesn't--you want to avoid airlines who issue said rewards based on fare paid rather than miles flown. Here's an example: DFW-ICT-DCA-ICT on AA was 3940 butt in seat miles and earned 5005 Loyalty Point\s; DOH-AGP on Qatar was 3372 miles flown and earned 12,477 LPs. Granted the oneworld excursion fares are a bargain so the amount prorated to the first example must be miniscule (and beyond my math skills). My TATL flight on AA earned 5863 LPs, the TPAC flight on JL earned 25,061. I did deliberately try to minimize the distance flown on the former, and maximize it on the latter.. So, with some regret, I'll be booking next one with a TA.

Thank you for the post about LPs
 

Thank you for the examples.

I am new to RTWs and typically only book one a year in business class DONE3 or maybe DONE4. Have been crediting to AA without any regard for Loyalty Points just to get miles to book award flights. I don't think I could earn enough LPs to matter since I don't fly that much. Am I missing something here?

Also I am confused on the requirement for booking the TATL or TPAC on american metal to use the AA RTW desk. I have seen posts that a Codeshare would work. I don't even understand Codeshares at all - does it matter if you only want AA miles?

Yes, you are missing two things: status, which is earned by accumulating loyalty points, affects how many redeemable miles you earn. There is a multiplier at each status level. And the second thing is that your award miles are also affected by the scheme of the airline you choose to fly. It's more than ironic that if you want AA miles you will earn more of them on other carriers (in most cases). Those examples I gave also apply to award miles earned: 1 mile = 1 loyalty point (again, in most cases).
Codeshares will work: you can fly on Qatar with an AA codeshare flight number across the Atlantic and AA will happily issue your ticket, but the AA earnings will apply, not the much more generous Qatar points. It also works in reverse--fly on an American airplane with a QR codeshare and you will earn under the QR scheme. (Disclaimer: I am NOT an expert and find myself bumping into self inflicted sanfus all the time.)

We ended up with a DONE4 of OSL-LHR-IAD-SEA-ANC-DFW-MEL // NAN-SYD-CMB-BKK-KIX // CTS-HKG-TFU-DOH-OSL with stops in all places except Doha at the end.

Booked with BA via email (sent them the itinerary with exact segments) and then when the booking was created had to call to pay. Total was about £6.5k per pax. I probably could have reduced the fees a bit by booking with another carrier but in hindsight I'm glad I didn't. As it was BA-ticketed we were grandfathered into the old system for status earning with them and were less stung by the changes to BAEC starting in April 2025.

Would appreciate people's views on this, I just tried to book the following with AA RTW desk, presuming it would have been a DONE:
HND-SYD-AYQ//AYQ-SYD-PER//PER-HKG//HKG-PEN//PEN-HKG-LAX//LAX-JFK-MIA//MIA-SKB//SKB-MIA-DOH-OSL//OSL-LHR-HND

The agent was great, but it wouldn't price, and then it took a while but in the end the ticketing desk (Whilst I was on the phone) said that it was rejected as I couldn't go back to Asia and do stopovers, this means there must be a nuance to this rule:
Or is it this rule, seems more likely as I guess I have 2 arrivals (PER-HKG, LHR-HND).. but I thought the extra southern continent meant that was allowed?
The lady did say they just basically removed segments until it was allowed, which means it is some nuance to their booking rules. So I think the problem as she explained was, 1) Direct Asia to Australia combined with 2) Back to Asia, having the Penang stopovers. But unfortunately she was pretty unclear as she couldn't really state which rule was the problem. I believe the advice was that she wanted me to do something like Tokyo - Australia - North America - Europe and then do my Asian stopovers later.

Ideas welcome on where the problem is?

I think the problem was that you were originating in Asia, so you couldn't do Asia stopovers after leaving Asia unless you had returned for the end of your ticket.

Whereas if you had started your trip in another TC, I believe you could visit Asia, then Australia, then Asia again before proceeding to another TC.

That's how I've done it on both of the ex-Japan DONEx's I've had. But that was by my own planning. First time I went TYO-SYD-North America and beyond, the second one I did TYO-xHKG-AKL-North America and beyond. I did my Asia stopovers on both of them at the end of the ticket.

Thanks both for taking the time: Whilst I can't see this written down anywhere I now realise, or at least understand, it isn't allowed, and by coincidence my other trips didn't fall foul of it. In this particular case my "smart" plans were blown up by this "rule", as essentially I wanted a holiday in Australia, then to stopover (at home) in HKG for a few months, then attend a wedding in PEN before having my Christmas holiday in the USA, each of which is individually fairly pricey, so I prioritized the wedding over Uluru. Though there is a nuance as amusingly this would then enable a nested Asia-Oceania-Asia Easter holiday on a second DONE4, but ticketed out of OSL (much cheaper), that I will try and do in a few months when 360 days for the last flights arrives and report back.

As such, I changed my plans to drop Australia and go back to a DONE3 (quite a bit cheaper in Japan, even if it means less long flight legs) and replaced it with Malaysian Borneo (looking at far away places still starting from TYO and a first leg in JAL). That does mean an extra "surface segment" flight which is certainly pricey, but not as much as the DONE3 -> DONE4 cost. It was ticketed this morning (will share the appropriate insight in the booking & pricing leg when I can get a breakdown).

So the troublesome part changed from:
HND-SYD-AYQ//AYQ-SYD-PER//PER-HKG//HKG-PEN//PEN-HKG-LAX
To
NRT-KUL-BKI//HKG-PEN//PEN-HKG-LAX
(separate ticket back to HKG/surface segment to be booked). This went through without any comments of course - I added another leg in Europe, but didn't manage the full 16 segments in this case.

That's interesting -- I thought MH and JL only flew NRT KUL not Haneda.

Generally speaking, it's usually better to start a RTW ticket in a tc that you don't live in.. That way you can break up the ticket into separate trips and go home in between. ymmv.

You're right, a bit of a copy/paste problem - should have been NRT-KUL rather than HND. I prefer JL to MH (though I did KUL-NRT-KUL in MH "F"/business suites recently, JAL is going to be better in business I feel, even if I've got the 767 on this day)

And the TC point is very fair and good advice for anyone reading.

Until this particular problem occurred I had managed OK with my "2 stopovers only" in Asia North by using the South continent, though it turns out it was sheer good luck that I managed to always do the stopovers before/after. In the case of living in Asia getting to another TC is quite a mission to get somewhere cheap for starting like the Nordics, as I need to move 4 family members including a two kids under 5: whereas it's quite easy/'cheap'/5 hours to get to Tokyo. As it is, I will now have a RTW starting in Oslo soon, so I could throw away the next legs and always start there.... but I will be very tempted to take my LHR-HND flight with JAL on the A350 :). However, that's a next year problem, as my penchant to do Tokyo starts does mean sometimes I "waste" money and do a TYO-HKG-TYO return before I start my next RTW to buy time, but it is poor value vs another DONE3.

Sigh - yet another battle with BA for my already ticketed DONE4

I am looking to change the date on one of my flights which I confirmed when ticketed that all changes of dates were free - in looking at the fare rules it just says that changes are permitted but it doesn't say for free and it also doesn't say there is a charge for changes (unless you are changing the routing etc).

Has anything changed with the rules or can someone confirm:

a) All changes to dates are free (where does it actually say they are free or no charge)
b) There is no re-price or re-quote on date changes

The fare rules on the oneworld site seem to indicate the above - from the rules it says: Rebooking is permitted as long as the routing remains the same

I assume a change in date does not mean the ticket needs to be re-issued which would be a $125 USD fee

Simple date changes are indeed free, send them back to study the rules if they push for a fee. Some airlines like JL charge for all changes, but most do not.

In theory the ticket does not need to be reissued, only revalidated for a date change, but there can be problems if they don't reissue so almost always do.

It's frustrating that the rules don't explicitly state date changes are free, as it explicitly does say USD125 is charged in some circumstances. Unfortunately, because of that, the rule seem to suggest a carrier is free to charge without falling foul of the rules.

Actually, I think that the rules are clear.The only mention of a charge is when there are "[c]hanges to ticketed points". The rules make clear all other things for which there might be a charge, such as in rule 12. No mention of any additional charge for something = no charge.