Good tip, thanks. I haven't looked at how to book and what codeshares or not will maximize our earnings, but competent agents are definitely something we want.

We have been focusing on the destinations first and are looking at shrinking the trip - too many days away from home (aka too many days uninterrupted family time) vs. too few nights at each destination. Solution: cut number of destinations. This allows us to add more to the 2024 phase as well. So now we are looking at ditching SIN, which means all the flights out of DOH we might use are middle of the night, which means we will probably skip DOH completely and do OSL-xHEL-HND and Asia from there.

Just saw in another thread the idea of starting in KEF. That could work pretty well, since we're based in Boston.

Another question. Again, thank you for your patience.
Plan is to leave Europe directly after starting (OSL-xHEL-HND...) so we didn't use a stopover yet.
Then later JFK-TLV surface to AMM and back to Europe - did we use both stopovers with TLV and AMM even though it was a surface sector, or could we make one more stopover on the way back to OSL?
I guess the former since it doesn't specifically exclude surface stopovers from the count, but thought I'd check.

While the TLV-AMM surface sector counts as one of your 16 segments, IME it only counts as one stopover.

[MENTION=40760]aaupgrade[/MENTION] is correct
I once started a RTW in Europe/Middle East. Both of my stopovers in that continent were surface segments
(DME-LED and TXL-BUD)
Booked through the AA RTW desk FWIW

How do I contact the AA RTW desk and can AA waitlist D Class if it�s not immediately available please?

+1.800.247.3247 (Internal US Toll Free number, so free call on Skype)
Hours: Dallas, TX / US Central Time
M-F 0700-2230 CT
S&S 0700-2000 CT

I'm pretty sure they can Waitlist, but after it's ticketed. Best thing is to ask during the booking process. In my 20 years of flying xONEn tickets, there have only been two times I might have needed to be waitlisted. The most recent was when I rescheduled EU-NRT flight on a 3 years old AONE3 due to Covid delays, and I was booked into D instead of A and they said once it was ticketed I could call back and have it waitlisted for A class. Since this was the last flight of my AONE3 and due to strict Covid rules, I didn't plan on flying this final segment so actually never waitlisted the A class. The other time was a LHR-MLA flight that was dropped, and had to rebook to a LGW-MLA flight and there was no D class, so I just flew L in an exit row seat so didn't even bother with checking about being waitlisted.

We are reconsidering our options once more, mainly to slow the pace.

Is this a valid route please? The Oneworld tool is painfully slow and it keeps changing more than one city whenever I try to set the order I want.

DONE3 originating BUD
Summer 2023: BUD-DOH-CMB-BKK-HKG-NRT-BOS -- both DOH and HKG for less than 24h
Winter 2023/4: BOS-x???-YVR-x???-BOS -- where ??? would be transit in ORD, DFW etc.
Summer 2024: BOS-MAD-TLV, AMM-x???-BUD -- where ??? could be transit in LHR or MAD

I count 15 segments including the surface segment TLV to AMM, 2 stops in continent of origin (MAD and TLV/AMM), 3 stops in Asia. So we could even add another Asia stop if we wanted.

Am I getting the hang of it?

Thanks

Your itinerary is valid (caveat: I have not checked that there are direct flights for each of your segments)
And yes, you are getting the hang of this

Your 16th segment could be an extra flight segment in Asia, where you are currently using only 3 of your allowed 4 flight segments
or an extra flight segment in Nth America, where you are currently using only 4 of your allowed 6 flight segments
It cannot be used as an extra flight segment in Europe/Middle East because you are already using your allowed 4 flight segments
It can be used as a surface segment anywhere

Excellent, thank you. Yes there are direct flights for all of those segments*, and I have found some D availability for each of them using ExpertFlyer. Not fixed all the dates yet but we should be able to make it work.
*edit: actually not AMM-HEL. Can do LHR or MAD though. Edited the post above as well.

We are looking at an additional stop in Asia, preferably adding SIN between CMB and BKK (not least because CMB-BKK is in the middle of the night). So far only seeing D0 (and B0) for SIN-BKK for all of early August so we may need to edit things a bit more.

Called the AA RTW desk and am in the process of booking this DONE3:
BUD-DOH-CMB-BKK-HKG-NRT-BOS-ORD-YVR-ORD-BOS-MAD-TLV,AMM-LHR-BUD
(ORD both quick transit, DOH and LHR under 24h transit, TLV-AMM surface)


They said that they have to bill in the currency of the credit card's issuing country, so hopefully that means they'll convert the ex-BUD pricing to USD rather than quote me ex-USA pricing.

Thanks to everyone who helped!