Fractured Ankle While On RTW
 

We started 8-month long DONE5 in Florida April 1, 2006. Two weeks ago my wife slipped in Australia and fractured her left ankle on both sides. Complete recovery may take almost two months. Apart from changing the destinations/dates of future flights, do we have any other options? I am particulary interested in finding out whether we can convert DONE5 into just Asia-Pacific. So far we have done China, Thailand, New Zealand and Australia with South Africa and Europe yet to visit. We are in the process of figuring out our options and would greatly appreciate any ideas some of the experienced members of this forum may have. Thanks.
:confused:
Ken

Unfortunately, the rules basically say that you can always convert to a more expensive ticket, but they don't allow refunds if changing to a less expensive one. I guess they might make an exception for medical reasons, but I wouldn't bank on it. This is a classic case where travel insurance could be a Good Thing.

I'm assuming that you're still in Australia. If you have a sizeable chunk of frequent flyer miles, you could (thoeretically) get FF tickets from Oz to your home and back, returning to Oz when your wife has healed and you're ready to continue your trip. The FF ticket is valid for 1 year, so as long as you complete your RTW by Mar 31 2007, you'd be ok.

As wideman indicated, you have validity 'til Mar31. You can rebook the flights to a later date and return home in the meantime. Purchase Oz-Florida Return, maybe any travel insurance you have might cover this. If not, as suggested, maybe use some points for it.

The OWE rules cover this eventuality:
78N . 1. IN THE CASE OF CERTIFIED DEATH/ILLNESS OF THE
79N . PASSENGER, THE PASSENGER*S IMMEDIATE FAMILY
80N . MEMBER OR AN ACCOMPANYING PASSENGER REROUTING IS
81N . PERMITTED FREE.

So you avoid the USD 125 change fee, but there is no extension in the validity of your ticket.

Not sure what policies purchased in the US would cover but UK policies would cover repatriation to your home country but would not cover you to return to the place you took ill.

I'd also guess that they would look at whether the tickets you had were flexible and may insist that you use them.

After you already did many sectors on the RTW changing to something else should cost you lots of money.
So it looks like you have two options:
- Buy a seperate ticket from your current location to get home and back to Australia. Australia is actually a fairly good place for inexpensive tickets in premium classes (or use miles) and then restart your RTW later - als long as the last flight is not more than one year after the first you are ok
- Or if you just want to get home and don't want to continue skip all the short segments, reroute to someting like SYD-JNB-LHR-xxx