I have read the FAQ's and done various searches and just wanted to make sure I understand the rules of a XONEX ticket.

I am planning a RTW trip for Sep 2006, and am planning to travel to Japan, China, Hong Kong, South East Asia, Australia and North America/Canada, departing from LHR.

1. This itinerary would require a xONE3 ticket, correct? Also, are there any limitations on the xONE3 compared to xONE4 (apart from the number of continents)?

2. Do you have to declare all the flights you wish to take, including internal flights in each continent? e.g. I couldn't just declare the flights between each continent and then decide along the way I want to take a plane from Hong Kong to Bangkok?

2a. Assuming you declare all the flights you plan to take, if you decide to cancel one (an internal flight, not trans-continent which I assume are non-cancellable), does this cost anything, and does it affect any further flights you have declared in that continent?

If you want to include Australia it must be a xONE4.

Yes.

Edited to add: as for cancelling segments, check this thread:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=185677

starting at post #24

NO. But to add the flights you would have to get the ticket reissued at a fee of US$125 (and its takes time to do)

Thanks for the help guys. Looks like i'll have to work out which internal flights I should take and if needs be change the destinations on route and pay the $75 change fee.

When you talk about re-issuing the ticket for $125, do you mean the overall OW ticket?

Now to go open-dated or dated...

The change (reissue) fee has gone up, from $75 to $125. You can make as many changes as you like in the same transaction for the one reissue fee, but note some airlines charge a service fee on top of that, and all will recalculate taxes and fuel surcharges for all remaining segments, something not trivial these days.

Thanks for the information. I've pretty much got a route in mind but i'm not 100% sure on the internal flights at the moment, so i'll have to do a bit more research.

The only specific differences between an xONE3 and an xONE4 is the price and that you can 'touch' 4 continents rather than 3.

A secondary difference is a result of the continent sector limitation between the two. While you have the 20 segment limit in all xONEx's it's far easier to get 20 with a xONE4.

With a xONE3 you can have 6 N/A segments plus 4 in both the continent of origin and the remaining continent giving a total of 14. You need to be very creative to get six segments comprising your intercontinentals.