Gardyloo

You might want to look at this post, part of an over-the-top trip report, on Flyertalk. If you're in one of Virgin's older cabin configurations, expect a pretty uncomfortable time of it. https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/36160807-post21.html

Once you're ticketed, you'll get a record locator/PNR that you can use with the individual airline's website to pick seats, the same way you'd select seats with any other type of ticket. Note some carriers (BA, Iberia) will charge a fee for seat selection until 24h before the flight (yes, even in business class.) Note that there are two systems that issue the PNR locators. Some airlines (American, Alaska) use the Sabre system that will issue locators comprised of six letters, like ABCDEF, while others (BA et al) use the Amadeus system, which issues locators with mixed letters and numbers, like AB12CD. It's useful to have both locators on hand; contact any airline and they can give you both, otherwise you might run into a situation where Airline A can't see Airline B's PNR for your trip. Regarding the itinerary, a couple of notes. First, by having BA for your first flight (OSL-LHR) the Oneworld tool will default to having BA issue the ticket. That will expose you to very high BA fees and surcharges for the whole trip, which conceivably could add hundreds, maybe more than a thousand dollars to the final price. This is your trip, of course, but if it was me, I'd do the Prague/Budapest visits BEFORE starting the RTW in Norway. Look at it this way - with a $5K+ price tag, each of the 16 allowed flights is worth around $312. A one-way ticket (yes, in economy, but it's only an hour flight) between Prague or Budapest and Oslo costs $150 or less (even less than $100) so if you save those segments for higher-value flights later, you're money ahead. It would also have the added benefit of avoiding BA and their fees. Your first RTW segment would be on Iberia to Madrid; while Iberia and BA have the same ownership, Iberia's surcharges and fees tend to be a lot less than BA's, PLUS, if you chose the American Airlines flight from Madrid to DFW (which leaves a little earlier than the Iberia flight but which will be a much better experience - AA uses new Boeing 789s rather than Iberia's clapped out A330s) you'll be using AA planes for a transoceanic segment, thereby greasing the skids for AA to issue the ticket in the first place, a good thing. I hope that's not too confusing.

If you can get to the pricing screens using the Oneworld tool, go for it there first. If that doesn't work, then by all means phone the AA RTW desk. You shouldn't have any difficulty getting the ex-Japan price; if you get some rep that wants to charge the US price, say thank you, hang up and call again (HUCA is standard practice in such cases.) If you're using AA metal on the South America segments, that ought to be adequate incentive for AA to issue the ticket; you might also look for AA codeshares on other airlines' flights. AA codeshares on most/all JAL flights between the US mainland and Japan, including LAX-NRT/HND. If you want to post your route I can see if there are any hints or suggestions possible. Good luck!

Adding "refundable" to the equation creates a real mismatch with any attempt at keeping the budget bearable. Almost all the "normal" fares, which would be in the $4000 - $5000 range at present, will bounce up to nearly double that if you want the ticket to be fully refundable. The one exception I could think of (top of the head stuff) would still involve a cancellation penalty, but not a terribly big one; it might be worth contemplating. Both Oneworld and Star Alliance offer "Circle Pacific" fares in which you travel in one direction via the North Pacific (e.g. LAX to Tokyo or Hong Kong) and via the South Pacific in the other, e.g. Sydney - LAX. Within those broad rules, you can take up to 16 flights, using member airlines of whichever alliance product you choose. Both alliances sell Circle Pacific fares with different flown mileage maximums - 22,000 flown miles and 26,000. Obviously the higher mileage costs more, but one of the big features of these products is that they're priced very differently depending on the country from which the travel begins. For example, a Oneworld 22,000 miles Circle Pacific fare in business class with travel starting and ending in the USA has a base price of $9998. (Taxes and airline fees would be additional depending on which countries are visited and which airlines are used.) However, the same ticket costs $5967 if travel begins in Canada. So hop a $120 flight to Vancouver to save four grand? Okay by me. Now regarding cancellations and refunds. If you cancel before the first flight, there's a 5% penalty; that's it. So on a $6K ticket you'd be out $300, which I'd say is pretty tolerable. So imagine you book something like this: Vancouver - Seattle - Honolulu - Sydney - Hong Kong - Beijing - Tokyo - Los Angeles. Total 20,475 flown miles, all in the pointy end using Alaska, Qantas, Cathay Pacific, Japan and American Airlines. (You can end in LA even if you started in Canada - no penalty.) Obviously this would take more time than a simple round trip or open-jaw ticket, but it needn't be too punishing - a few extra hours in the air (in a flat bed) and a couple of nights in Sydney (or could be Auckland, Melbourne, Brisbane...) and you're good to go. Anyway, I thought I'd throw that out.

For around US$100 you could rent a car in downtown Vancouver for the day and return it at the airport later. Get something with a trunk or covered storage (a tonneau cover in the back of an SUV, for example) for luggage safety, and visit some of the parts of the area that are more convenient with a vehicle. For example: - Drive up the Sea to Sky Hwy (BC 99) to Squamish - one of the most beautiful drives in North America. - Visit the Granville Island market - farmers market, umpteen cool shops, cafes, pubs etc. - Head out to Jericho Beach or the Spanish Banks for killer views of the city skyline with the mountains behind. Continue on to the University of British Columbia Museum of Anthropology on the UBC campus (due to reopen in June after modernizing and expanding.) - Head to the public gardens at Queen Elizabeth Park - stunning and free, and visit the (small fee) Bloedel Conservatory, full of tropical plants and free-flying tropical birds. - Drive around, walk or spend some time in Stanley Park, Vancouver's legendary playground and one of the world's premier city parks. The Vancouver Aquarium in the park is terrific. - Head to Steveston (on the way to the airport) for some time in Vancouver's funky fishing port, where, by the way, the TV series "Once Upon a Time" was filmed. (In fact, Vancouver is full of TV and movie filming locations due to the number of films and series shot in the city.) - Visit Lynn Canyon Park, a little north of the Capilano bridge. The suspension bridge in Lynn Canyon is free as opposed to $$$ for the touristy Capilano one. - Visit the Punjabi market on South Main - colorful shops and Indian restaurants to die for. ... I could go on.

Don't miss the (drive-by) ski shrine on the Douglas Hwy. And even (typically) misty days can still be photogenic and evocative.

Subscribe to a VOIP (voice over internet protocol) service like Skype and your calls to a landline or mobile in the US can run around 2p per minute. How Much Does Skype International Calls Cost? (softkeys.uk)

I'd definitely have a plan B in your pocket regarding the Skyline Loop. While across the Cascades this has been a below-average year for snowpack (in some areas dangerously so - fire problems later) there's currently still 10 feet of snow on the ground at Paradise and typically there's still 5 - 6 feet of snow on the ground on July 1. Parts of the Skyline Loop might be bare, others muddy or slushy, or others still covered by rotten snow and ice. Feel lucky? It's also a time of year that has as many cloudy/rainy days in the mountains as clear ones. I'd probably be inclined to look at lower elevation hikes just to be safe. One easy and rewarding hike is at Snoqualmie Falls, 40 min. east of the city off I-90. In June the falls are quite spectacular with all the melting snow runoff from the mountains, and the hike from the top of the falls to the bottom is easy and rewarding. Discovery Park is certainly possible, and sure, you can get to Bainbridge Island easily from anywhere in town. You might want to think about a couple of loop drives - either day drives or overnight, to two of the other major islands in the Puget Sound region, Whidbey Island to the north and Vashon Island to the south and west of Seattle. There are excellent hikes to be had at places like Deception Pass State Park or Fort Casey State Park on Whidbey, or at the cool Port Robinson State Park on Vashon, complete with its picturesque lighthouse and views of Mount Rainier, and also a very cool giant troll made from scrap wood in the forest behind the beach. Google the places on these maps. Widbey loop - https://maps.app.goo.gl/GJP3pNo5bJtVkgLAA Vashon loop - https://maps.app.goo.gl/GAF2pqRt2MYpTuZ97 The other thought I had, which would require investing at least 3 days (if you have the time) would be a loop over the Cascades and south to the Columbia River Gorge, just east of Portland. The many waterfalls along the Gorge walls are at their best in late June, you can ride the "Magic Mile" chairlift on the side of Mount Hood from iconic Timberline Lodge up to the permanent ice fields, enjoy the "fruit loop" through the beautiful Hood River Valley, or visit the eclectic Maryhill Museum on the clifftops overlooking the great river. This is one of the best short road trips in the west, really worth your time if you have enough. Map - https://maps.app.goo.gl/7L4N6Gk4ecEuDfs78

The Oneworld online tool is and always has been, a piece of you-know-what. I'd strongly recommend a subscription to Expert Flyer which will let you see seat availability by booking class (L for economy, D for business) for the chosen flights. https://www.expertflyer.com/

Flight date changes after ticketing are free, so what you do is book the unlisted flights with "dummy" dates that fall within the booking window, then change them to the actual dates when those become available.

What kind of budget and what month will this be? Places to look at: Salish Lodge, overlooking Snoqualmie Falls, 40 min. east of Seattle. Featured in the Twin Peaks TV series. - https://www.salishlodge.com/ Clearwater Casino Lodge, a Tribal casino resort located on the Kitsap Peninsula next to the bridge to Bainbridge Island, reached by 40 min. ferry from downtown Seattle. https://www.clearwatercasino.com/hotel/ Silver Cloud Mukilteo, located on pilings over the beach in Mukilteo,30 min. north of Seattle. It offers easy access to beautiful Whidbey Island as well as having Mukilteo's cute lighthouse and pleasant driftwood-covered beach within steps. https://www.silvercloud.com/mukilteo/ There are many more possibilities.

In my mind it comes down to the same suggestion I made in bringing up the RTW idea in the Singapore thread. Make a plan, maybe call it a "master plan," although I don't much like that term, covering your travel aspirations for a couple of years, maybe three. (Longer than that is fine but the chances of it going off the rails are correspondingly higher.) Not only would the plan include where you'd like to go and when, but also how you'd get there and how you would pay for it. Frequent flyer miles and points, whether gained through actual flying or through purchases with credit cards, etc., are simply a form of currency like dollars or Euros. Use miles to pay for travel, maybe in conjunction with cash, or maybe not. With almost all the airline frequent flyer (FF) programs, miles or points earned through flying also can contribute to "elite" status within that airline's FF program. With this status can come various perks - bigger baggage allowances, lounge access, fast track connections - and also bonus miles that can be redeemed on flights. A business class RTW can provide a rich harvest of points toward these things - free flights and status - so thinking about the miles or points and the "currency" they represent could and should go into your "master plan" thinking. When my late wife and I were doing a lot of travel utilizing RTW tickets, we set up a cycle where we'd use an RTW business class ticket in year one, then use the accumulated miles in year two, then a new RTW in year 3. Of course it wasn't always that clean; sometimes in year 2 we'd have to spend cash for some unplanned travel, but nevertheless the system worked pretty well. Our investment in the RTW not only gave us the flights included in the ticket, it also leveraged a number of "award" flights with the miles earned in the RTW. Over the course of two years it reduced the per-flight cost (in business or first class) to very low levels, when you averaged the cost out. $200 per flight seemed okay value for a one-way business class flight from Seattle to LA; it was downright golden for one way from London to Cape Town or New York to Hong Kong. Now this all requires some work on your part. Even though you may buy the RTW ticket through American Airlines doesn't mean you need to sign up for AA's AAdvantage mileage program. You can earn miles and possibly status with any Oneworld airline's program with the RTW. For example, if you sign up for British Airways' FF program, the BA Executive Club, you can typically easily achieve "Silver" status with one RTW ticket. With that status, you'll have access to business class lounges across the Oneworld system, even Admiral's Club lounges in the US that you wouldn't be able to access as an AAdvantage member. Or if you signed up for Alaska Airlines' Visa card, you'd get a big signup bonus but also receive an annual "companion certificate" which allows one person to fly on any Alaska Airlines itinerary for $99 if the other pays the going price. That can make for big savings, well in excess of the annual fee charged by Visa. But it all requires you to have a plan and do your homework. Might as well start now.

With a business class RTW ticket you will get lounge access for all flights EXCEPT AA flights within North America. So I suppose it would depend on your detailed itinerary; if you plan to bounce around North America on AA during that portion of the trip, then the card that includes an Admiral's Club membership might be the best option. If your internal flights in North America connect to an overseas flight, e.g. DFW-LAX-HKG, then you'd get access to the lounges at both DFW and LAX. If it's DFW-SEA with no onward overseas destination, then no access. Hope that's clear.

I can't speak authoritatively on the insurance question. Generally with my RTWs I started overseas and returned home for part of the ticket's validity, similar to the imaginary plan I laid out in my prior post. Thus there were two, sometimes 3 trips included within the ticket's validity. I'd imagine you could insure each portion separately. But I don't know the exact answer. Maybe talking to a human at the insurer of your choice is the right move. Regarding changes, the tickets are issued by one of the member airlines of the alliance. The alliance itself has no role to play in the actual travel; they just set the rules that the members agree to follow. So whichever airline issues the ticket is the one you go to for changes. With Oneworld, some airlines are easier do deal with then others when changes are necessary. In almost every scenario, American Airlines, which has a dedicated RTW desk, is by far the easiest and most knowledgeable airline to deal with for changes or issues. They also tend to be cheaper than other airlines in the alliance when it comes to adding fees and surcharges to the base price of the ticket. The quid pro quo of using AA is they usually want one of the transoceanic segments to be on AA flights - either on AA "metal" or a partner flight carrying an AA codeshare flight number. That's usually a small price to pay for the savings and convenience of using AA for ticket management services. Hope this helps.

If it's all on one ticket, the airline will need to meet the minimum connection time (MCT) requirements at YVR or else they won't sell you the ticket. The published MCT for YVR, Air Canada to Air Canada, domestic to USA, is 1h 10m. I wouldn't worry.