LONE5 3217.49 USD
DONE5 7022.53 USD
AONE5 14327.64 USD

ExpertFlyer has a few of shortcomings, but on balance I am quite happy with it. I shall be renewing my subscription at the end of the year.

The ex-Egypt base fares are actually quoted in EGP, so their cost in other currencies can fluctuate

LONE5 EGP23000
DONE5 EGP50200
AONE5 EGP102420

Just used EF to get these numbers for you
Been using its premium service for a couple of years and am very happy with it (and especially so with its fairly recent enhancement to show timetables)

Thanks both of you.

The AA Desk has taken my ex-Cairo DONE5 itinerary which I gave them on the phone and are pricing it now & I wanted to check the base price.

Was thinking of subscribing to the Expert Flyer. Not sure how much I'd use it. Did the fares quoted come from Expert Flyer? Oops, just noticed EF is where they came from ;)

Thank you for the assistance!

I'm not sure I quite understand what "point-of-sale issue" means. Is the best course of action to call the AA desk and get it priced via a representative? Will they do this if I don't have AA flights on my itinerary?

I have a good bit of year-end travel lined up, so the hope is to do a Platinum Challenge on AA and secure status by the time we set off in January. Is a DONE3 Asia-SWP-S America route worth considering, using accrued miles to take us to Europe after wrapping up in Tokyo? Or is it impossible to get from S America back to Japan without touching N American or Europe?

Thanks again, and appreciate your patience with a newbie.

A pricing question as well. When I was playing around with the online tool a couple months ago, LONE4 itineraries starting in Japan were coming in around $5500. The same/very similar itineraries are now pricing out in excess of $9000. Am I doing something wrong, or was there a significant fare hike in the past few months?

The base fare for an ex-Japan LONE4 is JPY369,600
So even your $5500 seems high
In the tool, the price is broken down into Base Fare + Taxes/Surcharges and will be shown in JPY. What are you getting for each component?

Edited to add: Just priced up a simple LONE4 in the tool (NRT-SYD-LAX-LHR-NRT).
Base Fare JPY369,600
Surcharges/Fees JPY108,440
TOTAL JPY478,040

At present it isn't possible to purchase an xONEx that avoids Europe (which includes the Middle East) owing to no trans-South Atlantic routes flown by Oneworld members.
Expert Flyer shows the base LONE4 fare at $3459++ ex-Japan, so I'd look again at your inputs. (Note "++" means plus taxes and fees, which, depending on your choice of stopovers and carriers, can be as much as 20% or more of the base fare.)

The economy v. business class decision is obviously a personal one, but I'm not sure I'd try to justify it based on the differential in mileage earned. Yes, you get class-of-service bonus miles (for AAdvantage, 25% in business, 50% in first) but on a 40,000 mile (+/-) RTW that doesn't amount to some stunning total. Really, you could play the credit card churning game and do better, without all that pesky flying.

But of course, 16 flights in business or first class for an average cost of $500 or less is a screaming deal, so I wouldn't discard the idea out of hand. The USD is pretty strong against the Yen at the moment, and a DONE4 ex-Japan is barely twice the price of an LONE4. So my vote (and I don't get one of course) would be to talk it over with your honeymoon companion. Personally, I would willingly step down from a 4-star hotel to a 2- or 3-star one, and use the spread for more comfortable flights, but that's me.

One thing I'd also mention is - as a leisure RTW traveler - you might consider doing a two- or three-year "strategic" travel plan, and see how the RTW ticket might fit into it. In our case, we found that we could break a RTW itinerary in half, come home as a "stopover," and return to work, using the 6 allocated North America segments for work or leisure purposes, then, even months later, continue the RTW back to the start point. That way, in our case at least, we found that we could do most of a year's travel just with one ticket, and in the course of that year, earn enough miles so that a significant amount of travel could be accomplished the following year on the house.

For example, a DONE4 or 5 that covers, say, 55,000 flight miles, will earn roughly 125,000 - 130,000 AA miles, enough for a business-class round trip from North America to Europe or Asia, or for a couple of first-class round trips within North America or the Caribbean. This is what we did; we'd do a two- or three-part RTW in year 1, usually starting in whatever country was "cheap" (relative term) for DONEx tickets - usually South Africa, but also Japan, or, formerly, Turkey or even Sweden - then fly "free" on the miles in year two, then repeat. With around $6K out of pocket every two years, we usually managed something like 20-22 business class or first class flights over that period, making the average cost something like $300. Not bad for Vancouver - New York in J on CX, or Joburg to Sydney in J on Qantas.

Of course it depends on your own budget, travel style, and work/family obligations. But planning doesn't cost anything, RTW tickets are good for a year, and - trust me - they can become very addictive once you get the hang of how to plan your travel over a longer period than just one trip at a time.

Depending on the airlines flown, the difference can be much more than that
For example - as an AA PLT flying CX, the difference is between earning 0% in L and earning 225% in D.

Oh yes. I'm hooked. Currently planning my next trip/s. Looks like it will be an ex-CPT DONE5 (where the only continent NOT visited will be my home continent:))

Thanks for the price check! I see where I made my error, and the adjusted fare is now coming in under $5K. Really appreciate the help, pandaperth and Gardyloo, and thanks for giving us plenty to think about as we decide on fare class.

Confirming Carrier Charges DONE4 ex-JNB
 

I just priced up this basic DONE4 out of JNB and wanted to get the collective wisdom on the charges, especially the carrier fines. Since they are lumped in, it is rather difficult to ascertain where they are coming from. I shudder to think what including BA might do to such an itinerary.

Base fare: 59,010ZAR
Carrier fees: 11,790ZAR
Taxes: 2,499ZAR
Total: 73,298ZAR

Itinerary:
JNB-DOH QR
DOH-MAD QR
MAD-LHR-LAX AA(IB Codeshare)-AA135
LAX-JFK AA
JFK-HKG AA (CX codeshare)
HKG-NRT CX
NRT-HKG CX
HKG-JNB CX

Who's pricing it? You should be able to get a breakdown on the surcharges. It seems high for the carriers involved.

AA RTW desk priced this one. Are they able to give a segment by segment YQ/YR?

To gauge the reasonableness of the charges, you could plug each segment into itasoftware and it will list the all the charges, including YQ/YR

This method will give you the charges that each carrier collects if it is selling you a ticket for the segment. IME, AA does not collect all of these

FYI, I've been pricing up an ex-CPT DONE5 in the tool, and my total charges/fines comes to ZAR16,120. I've run my itinerary through ita and the total looks reasonable. (in the tool, I have BA as my first carrier. When I get serious I will change that to QR and get the AA RTW desk to price it up)

Mmmm...if including a BA segment barely makes a difference on your itinerary I may rethink using QR as my first flight.

Using Matrix to try and gauge YQ at least on the JNB-DOH-MAD-LHR-LAX-JFK segmetn, I see that there is about 2,080ZAR from QR and 2,430ZAR from AA. Looks like AA has gotten thirsty and lapping up those fuel fines for TATL.

I'm going to use BA on my first leg and see what the tool prices out at.