Yes, or any competent travel agent (not OTAs).

Can someone advise what happens to a RTW ticket if it miss a flight? I'm trying to arrange a Galapagos Cruise which results in us having a very tight connection back to the mainland!

Would we be better off just omitting this particular flight? Is it just a standard change fee or are there other costs?

You will be charged 125 USD for the no show.

You will also need to secure reservations on alternative flights in the appropriate class. At short notice L/D/A may be sold out.

Thanks, if I drop the flight, I assume I can use the segment for another flight for the standard $125 change?

Not clear to me why you would want to omit the flight. If it is a flight "back to the mainland" you would certainly need to take that. If it is a flight from Ecuador to your next stop you would need to take that also eventually.
If a tight connection in Ecuador is a concern, why not just change to a later flight? These changes are free if they do not involve a change in routing.
If the Galapagos-Ecuador segment is part of your RTW (which I doubt, but may be possible) you are likely protected for a missed connection. If it is on a separately purchased ticket (quite common) then it may be easier to merely change dates, as mentioned above The AA Ecuador office can do this for you or patch you in to the AA RTW desk. The change, of course, is subject to the availability of your fare class.

Be aware that LATAM have sometimes much worse availability in D/L when using South-American locations as point-of-sale compared to anywhere else in world, especially on last minute.

Looking to book an explorer ticket, wanted to check re backtracking (going TC3-TC2-TC1).

The rules say:
4 (b)
Travel must be in a continuous forward direction between TC1 - TC2 - TC3. Backtracking within a continent is permitted except as follows:
Backtracking between Hawaii and other points in North America is not permitted.

(e)
Only one intercontinental departure and one intercontinental arrival permitted in each continent except as
follows:
1. Two permitted in North America.
2. Two permitted in Asia when one is for travel between the Southwest Pacific and Europe/Middle East

Does the "two permitted in Asia" mean two departures and two arrivals?

More specifically, I am looking at:
AKL-xMEL-xSIN-xSYD-xLHR-JFK (then probably stopping in LAX and SYD before going back to AKL). SYD-LHR is on the single flight number QF1 which will transit in SIN as of next year. That single flight number would be considered as "one intercontinental departure and one intercontinental arrival" I'm thinking...

Yes - "two permitted in Asia" means two departures and arrivals

BUT - there is no equivalent exception for the continent of South West Pacific
- there you are allowed only departure and one arrival
- your itinerary has two of each
- and that is not allowed

Thanks. So the only way to maximise that would be if the ticket started in Asia, then you went to SWP, then EU?
eg HKG-xSYD-xAKL-xSYD-xLHR-JFK ...
Giving one departure and arrival for SWP and two departures and one arrival for Asia.

Correct. Although I think you have misunderstood the notation.

As written you would essentially be going non-stop from HKG to JFK by a very roundabout route with transits at each intermediate point. Stopovers are denoted by o rather than x.

Having said that, I did once do HKG-xJFK-xYVR-xDFW-xANC-xDFW-xORD-xLAX-xLHR-xCAI-xLHR-HEL (32660 miles in 108 hours), so you may be correct!

Thanks, I understand the notation, x = <24 hour transit which is what I meant and intended. So in my example, origin to destination would be HKG to JFK.

o = stop (>24 hours), which is sometimes (often) left out.

Formally, an O in the “X/O” column on the ticket is used to signify a city that is optionally a stopover. i.e., the flight coupon could be revalidated as a stopover without a fare recalculation. I don’t think it ever appears in the horizontal calculation. These days it probably doesn’t have much meaning.

You're welcome :)

If starting in the South West Pacific you can still visit Asia twice - the first time on departure from SWP and the second time just before arrival back in the SWP
For example SYD-HKG-JFK....-LHR-SIN-SYD

Although you Kangol are transiting just about everywhere.
a recent rule change means that the ticket allows stopovers in Asia on both visits
See this post and subsequent discussion in the thread http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/onewo...ule-sheet.html

Wow. That's awesome, never thought about doing that - transiting Asia between SWP/EU and North America/SWP. Links are helpful, too. Thanks again!

OK, apologies. I really hope you're not attempting that in economy! :D