I've had xONEx's issued by CX, AA and QF in the past. Only CX has asked to see the card when checking in for the first flight.
Of the 2 issued by CX, one was ex-ICN. They asked for the card. The other was ex-HND. Although the website had a notice to show the card at check in, when I got to the desk, they never asked for it.

Backtracking between Hawaii and other points in North America is not permitted
 

I've known about this rule for some time, but in planning our next xONEx I ran into an unexpected problem. I wonder what the opinions of the gurus are on this.

Snippet of our proposed itinerary is...

...DOH-DFW-ANC-DFW-HNL,DFW-GIG...

So we're flying DFW-HNL and have a surface segment HNL back to DFW
The online tools will not allow this; it gives the error:
I always thought the rule meant one couldn't fly both to and from Hawaii.

What do people think? Is the tool correctly interpreting the rule do you think?

After flying to Hawaii from US mainland you then resume flying from US mainland. That seems like backtracking to me even though you have a surface sector.

I've always read that rule to mean that once you've traveled mainland NA-Hawaii, you can then only travel on to Asia or SWP.

Pretty sure that it's backtracking even if it's a surface sector. I looked for ways around this when doing my RTW last year and wasn't able to find any.

Thanks for your comments
Looks like it's back to the drawing board for me

(but it does mean that an itinerary such as mine AFR-->EUR-->NAM-->SAM-->SWP-->AFR cannot include Hawaii, which is a bummer:td:)

Can't you utilise the 2nd entry to NAM exception and do something like the following?

JNB-LHR-xJFK-GIG-MIA-LAX-HNL-NRT-HKG-JNB

Yes that would work
But it's changing the order of the continents (SAM before NAM - ignoring the initial transit)
For various reasons, we need to do NAM before SAM, so I guess we'll have to skip Hawaii this trip :(

Just got a few different options for a LONE4 priced up with AA and I am seeing massive differences over what they were around 1 year ago! For a 16 segment mixed carrier (AA/BA/RJ/MH/CX) ticket I am getting taxes and fess almost the same as the ticket price! This is crazy, when previously you could get total charges less than 500 gbp.

So, that brings the question, how to get around this?!

I see from comments here that people still agree AA is better than other carriers for ticketing, as have I. No-one has better experience, perhaps with the new OW members?

Regarding specific airlines, it seems that MH and AA intercon are bad. Has anyone worked out which others have high charges for short or for long haul? No matter which carriers I choose, these seem to remain now.

The culprit is almost always BA; even if AA tickets the trip, they're happy to pass through BA fuel fines, particularly when BA is the first carrier. However without a detailed itinerary from you, all we can do is guess.

My recent experiences with AA RTW desk have been very mixed. One might guess that some experienced hands have retired and for the rest perhaps the transition to US Air ownership has brought with it some low-level turbulence.

If you know how to use the ITA tool you can enter your trip into the multi-city page and see what fuel fines and taxes are being imposed for each segment. I think 6 segments are the most allowed so you'll need to do several pieces and have to be careful not to invoke a departure tax for a city that in your real trip would be a transit. (The OW on-line tool may give you that too, but I haven't used it.)

The only time I've used the desk, before the Canadian Exemption was removed, they tried to charge me for an AONE3 when I was booking a DONE3.

US Airways on DONE4 & DGLOB34
 

Does anyone know if you can book the US Airways Express flights operated by Skywest & Mesa in A class? Or can you book the AA codeshares in A class? Or do you need to travel in Economy? The fare sheets are not very clear and have different rules for each fare.

Yes in first, subject to availability.

For flights within North America, a business class oneworld fares book into A when business class is not offered.
If business class is offered, but not available, you downgrade to L.
If business class is not offered, and A is not available/offered, you downgrade to L.