Not so

On my last xONEx I had three stopovers in PER, perfectly OK
(...HKG-PER-BME-PER-DRW-PER-HKG...)

In the continent of origin (in your case Europe/Middle East) you are allowed only two stopovers. You have the allowed two (both in London as it happens) so that's fine too.

As Moomba said - there is a bug in the tool that incorrectly prices the itinerary when you start in one Middle Eastern country and end in a different one.

With regard to getting your itinerary ticketed - you could book it with the AA round the world desk and then contact AA's sales agent in Cairo to pay for it. To do this AA insists on at least one of the "over water" (i.e. inter-continental) segments being an AA flight. On your itinerary that could be either HKG-JFK or LAX-SCL flight (CX or LA metal, but book the AA codeshare). If this option is of interest, let us know and we can provide advice on how to go about it.

Enjoy:D

ps You must of course consider the frequent flyer mileage implications of your trip- a whole new world of possibilities!

Hi, that would be great if you could give me some info on having the AA desk ticket this, esp if it means I can terminate the trip in Amman instead of going back to Cairo. I have doubts I can get £16,000 worth of tickets to go through on a website without human intervention somewhere. I'll need a human in any case as I need an infant ticket, which cannot be booked online.

What's the latest date of the last flight, is it 330 days from date of ticket issue?

Oh yes; there is a reason why I've put in HKG-JFK with later flights back to LAX via CUN and MIA instead of just going direct HKG-LAX, then JFK-MIA-CUN and from CUN there is a direct Lan Chile flight to Santiago. But that would reduce my FF mileage ;)

Due you want to finish in AMM or just any ME destination besides CAI? Try DXB; I believe that works using the tool.

I'd rather go to AMM..... if it finished in AMM, I would actually use the last flight. If it was CAI or DXB, I suspect the last flight might go bye-bye since the second last stop is London, which is home....

Last time I went to Jordan, a decade ago, I didn't climb up the hill to the Monastery in Petra, can go back and get it this time ;)

LHR - AMM using RJ would also be quite a bit cheaper than either CAI or DXB on BA (due to outlandishly high fuel surcharges added by BA).

+1 to the advise of using the AA RTW desk for setting up ticketing. It requires a phone call (rather than the DIY website), but it might save $ ,000s.

Does this mean the last flight could be as late as 12 months + 330 days (ie almost 2 years) from the ticketed date?

Something like that

Let's say:

You book the itinerary today
with the first flight in 300 days
and the last flight in 330 days (note 1)

Then during the intervening time you can move these dates out further into the future and finish up with
The first flight one year from today (note 2)
and the last flight one year after that

Note 1: you would likely want to have a (short) stopover between flights, rather than transits. This is because later changing a transit to a stopover is considered a re-route and so attracts the USD125 change fee

Note 2: There is a risk to changing the first flight of the itinerary - which is that if the fare has increased since you purchased the ticket, then you have to pay the new fare. This is also the case if you re-route any part of the itinerary before taking the first flight.

Why take BA to DXB when you can take a QF 380?

-10 to that suggestion! The RTW desk can be fine, but that depends on the agent who picks up the phone. They will transfer you to a specific agent if you know who to ask for.

But the rate desk they must use to verify and price your ticket is nothing better than pathetic. Unless price is of little importance to you, you'd want an independent way to verify their price.

I recently finished an ex-JNB trip, making several changes along the way, and the only time the pricing was correct was initially. That was done by the agent in Capetown, after he'd waited several days for the official rate desk to do it. I've posted several times about their errors.

Booking and ticketing ex-JNB was by phone. The personnel who answered were always intelligent, professional, and competent. But time zones meant I needed to call around midnight my time, a bit inconvenient. There was (is, I believe) a very good agent in Cairo who handled a couple of previous trips by email.

On the subject of AA code-shares, such segments will have a YQ/YR chosen by AA which might be lower than the operating carrier's. I saved about $200 on JNB-LHR that way. But when I showed up for that flight, the agent said "oh, your flight was canceled. We put all our pax on the later flight, but you'll have to talk to AA. Didn't they call you?" I don't remember if the rtw desk was even open at that hour, but with a lot of pestering I did get a BA supervisor there to rebook us - it wasn't easy or fun, though.

In another thread here we discussed whose responsibility it was. I don't recall the consensus, but BA certainly thought it wasn't them and they were the gate-keeper at that moment.

A lot of happy-face comments may be from people who've been luckier than I, or haven't flown recently, or haven't checked to see if the Good Old AA ATW desk did it right. We've flown a dozen xONEx's over the past decade or so - a pittance in some lucky folks' history - and I can assure you it's not like it used to be.

You are correct that my last positive AA ATW desk experience was a few years back. Based on your more recent experiences I shall stop recommending them.

I think like all things which are complicated, your success rate will depend a lot on the knowledge of the person who handles your call.

I'll give the AA desk a try, it's not like the OW-RTW tool is pricing up trips correctly if you start in CAI and end in AMM either!

I only have good things to say about AA's GSA in Cairo. The ladies there are outstanding and have helped me, more than once, outside of normal business hours. My current ticket has become a dog's breakfast and they are responding quickly to try to have it fixed.

Just to confirm the information regarding length of trip with the rules experts:

If I purchased the ticket on 17JAN2014 and segment #1 (trips started) occurred on 28FEB2014, what is the latest date I can fly in 2015? Departing from my last stopover.

Thanks.

28th Feb 2015 .... 1 year after the first segment.