I'm taking a year long trip July 08 to July 09, and am considering cashing in for an award 35k-50k AA RTW.

My optimal routing is US-SYD-AYQ-BNE-NRT-HKG-KHG,HKG-DEL,COK-BKK-RGN-BKK,
HKG-MRU-RRG-MRU-SEZ-MRU-JNB-VFA,DAR-AMM-CAI-IST,MAD-CCS,
LPB-EZE-SCL-IPC-SCL-US
(27 flights)

With the 50k/16 segment/1 open-jaw restrictions, an award would be something like (independently bought segments in brackets): US-SYD(-AYQ-SYD)-BNE-NRT-HKG(-KHG,HKG-DEL,
BOM-BKK-RGN-BKK,HKG)-JNB-MRU(-RRG-MRU-SEZ-MRU)-JNB-VFa,
DAR-LHR-AMM-IST,(MAD-IST)-MAD-SCL-IPC-SCL(-EZE-LPB,CCS-SCL)-US
(31 flights/71740 miles)

If I simply bought an award ticket, I would do it ex-SYD for price reasons, and try to combine it with a platinum challenge to get the double miles for the itinerary:
(US-)SYD-AYQ-BNE-NRT-HKG(-KHG,HKG)-DEL,BOM-BKK(-RGN-BKK),
HKG-JNB-MRU(-RrG-MRU-SEZ-MRU)-JNB-VFA,DAR-LHR-AMM-CAI-AMM-IST,
MAD-CCS,IGR-EZE-SCL-IPC-SCL-SYD-US
(30 flights/71032 miles)

Given some sensible estimates of the one-ways I'd have to buy along the way, plus taxes, the award routing would run 3300 and the ex-SYD routing about 5700, though I'd get no miles for the ex-SYD.

My question concerns booking the award ticket: do award RTWs come out of standard award seats only? I imagine it'd be nigh-impossible to do such a routing if that were the case. I took a look through the archives, but couldn't find anything speaking to this question.

Thanks for the help.

Yes, all awards seats are the same, and yes, to plan a year-long trip based on award ticket(s) is going be extremely hard.

So hard as to be almost impossible probably given your routing above. Please post your success if so but it just seems impossible.

The only thing I could see saving it is an **extremely** flexible travel schedule, where you could book the segments on almost any day as long as they are in the right order, and maybe try to change some later.

But given the 330 day issues, you'd have to probably find all those segments in a row, in a short period of time (like a 1-2 month trip) and then successively try to change the later flights as you go.

And even then you run into the issue of the ticket being valid for a year, so you'd have to issue right before leaving, when most seats are long gone.

If I was facing this situation I'd find the money for a LONE/DONE and rack the miles up for some status and great point to point trips in the future, like US-SA or US-EU and back for you and a friend in a premium class.