So I just started my first RTW ex-IST.

Some thoughts and observations:

Getting the ticket issued, ticketed and paid for was a huge hassle. Picking the ticket up at the BA IST city office was the easiest thing in the world, though. The folks there are great! The ticket is a thick booklet of paper tickets, written out by hand. Oy!

First flight - IST - BCN on Iberia. There was an unexplained delay at boarding. They made no attempt to preboard first class or elite members, nor did they make any attempt to board by rows or groups or anything of the sort (incidentally, I had the same experience on CSA *shrug). The second they said boarding would start everyone on the whole plane rushed up to get on board forming a huge crowd at the gate entrance. Seats were ok and service and food were pretty good.

Next flight - BCN - HEL on AY, all coach. They did announce that boarding would be by row and invited elites to pre-board. Judging by the mad rush of people to get on I doubt that actually followed through with that approach. I had a seat in the first of the two emergency exit rows, so no recline. The leg room was pretty good. Decent seats. Hot meal served to everyone, though I didn't choose to eat it. What a horrible FA uniform -- the women wear these plain dresses of this light blue color... ugh. This was the first time I've seen the FAs wear leather gloves. I kept thinking they were planning to off some unruly passenger.

Next flight: HEL - JFK on AY. Boarding is done similar to CO's EliteAccess, where one lane is reserved for business/elites. After that everyone goes through the same gate and door to the airplane. By the time I got there the line was the entire length of the jetbridge, so I chose to wait it out. Wide-body MD-11. Business class seats (2-class) are 2-2-2 towards the front of the cabin (first 3 rows, I think) but then become 2-3-2. Decent leg room, although I think AA has more, and DL certainly has more in BE. The seats are so-so. Huge (by airline standards) LCD screens for personal entertainment and a power socket for the laptop. Pretty good service. They did note that the baggage weight limit is 32kg.

I'll post more later.

What were the hassles getting your RTW ticketed in IST? I am currently in the process - I'd like to anticipate some of the inevitable problems.

Now that the hasles are behind you, enjoy the trip!

I have the exact same question.
Whom did you call to make your reservations? Did you simply do it over the phone with someone at BA in IST?

Here's what I did, and have advised others, including someone near and dear to you, I believe...

You book the itinerary through the N. America BA RTW desk (still in Toronto, soon to move to Florida, or is that Delhi?) and get the PNR. Toronto will try to sell you the seats at N. America prices; just say no, I'm looking for the PNR so I can review it. They are serially helpful, reluctant, aggravating, chatty, evil. Luck of the draw; if you don't like what you're hearing, call the next day. Eventually they will email you the printed itin and the PNR. Tel 1-800-828-7797.

Then you email BA in IST and give them the PNR. They bring it up, vouch for kashrut, then send it off to the rates desk in... somewhere. Eventually, most likely ><48 - 96h, they will email you with the price including taxes. You send them credit card info, and at least in my case the charge was booked and was there glowing on the online CC balance screen within 24 hours. Unlike the BA rates department, the Master Card system is flawless.

Tickets are printed and held at the CTO or at the airport, although if it's Ulya in the CTO it's worth a trip out to the Tefken Tower to get the tickets and thank her. Obtain wad of tickets, commence journey. Easy as pie, once you're past Toronto.

I don't know what permutations of this occur if you're not initiating the call in N. America. You could probably communicate directly with IST from the beginning; I think they've now done enough of these that they know the rules at least as well as the Toronto people, but honestly that's not saying much. If you want to start with direct communication with IST, I'd put your plan up on this board for vetting before I sent it off to them. My policy was to make it as easy on them as I could, which worked well.

You can follow Gardyloo's plan, which is very close to what I did. If you have your exact itinerary, dates and flights all planned out, then you can do the whole thing directly by email through the BA IST office. Ulya is really helpful. If it gets a little bit more complicated, though, you'll be better off doing it on the phone with the BA RTW desk.

The key to payment -- if your first flight out of IST is not on BA, they will not accept credit card payment. I had to send a wire transfer for my payment.

I just really had a hard time dealing with Ulya by e-mail because of a few tricky things in my itinerary, and I had an equally hard time with the BA RTW desk on the phone. They'd chang something, I'd go to look it up, and the thing would be totally screwed up, and I'd have to call to get it fixed.

Once my itinerary was all set, I just emailed Ulya, she sent it out to the rate desk, sent me the payment info and once payment was received she ticketed the thing and sent me the ticket numbers.

what is the email address for the contact in IST?

Could I suggest people use PM rather than post it on the web? Avoids spam, frivolous messages, etc.

I began the process by sending a letter of inquiry to the IST BA office. They responded in 24 hours that the price of a DONE4 is Eur4358 and asked for scanned images of my passport, my wife's passport, and credit card. I sent these along with my itinerary:

IST-LHR,LHR-PVG,PEK-HKG,HKG-BKK,BKK-SIN,SIN-PER,PER-SYD,SYD-CHC,WLG-AKL,AKL-MEL,MEL-LAX,LAX-BOS (6 month break - remaining segments are open dates) BOS-ORD,ORD-SLC,SLC-ORD,ORD-BOS,BOS-LHR,LHR-TLV,TLV-LHR,LHR-IST

To help the IST set the trip up, I included all flight numbers and dates for the first half of the trip. (I did not set up a PNR with BAEC - NA as Garlyloo and other suggested.) I carefully vetted the itinerary to make sure it was legit before contacting IST.

Three days later I received an e-mail back with the complete itinerary, including booking codes, that I could view on MMB. The fare was Eur4358 plus an additional Eur540 in taxes (no surprise). They just asked me to reconfirm and they would charge my credit card.

Absolutely hassle free!

Sounds much better than my attempts to deal with AA's GSA, who hasn't even bothered picking up the phone in 2 days of middle of the night calls from the US. So much for my attempt to do a 48 hour rapidly booked xIST trip (and my attempt to get up to ANC since those flights end Oct 2, but I'll just hop there from SEA on AS some day, until then hello SJO!) and get to IST before Ramadan. It's a shame how this varies...the AA GSA in CAI was at the top end of great customer service.

I (think) I have the phone for the BA IST CTO, could someone be kind enough to PM me the email address for them so I can try it that way? I'll be interested to see if they can pull the full AA RTW approved and tariffed ticket given I start on BA 675 or if we have to start over entirely...