[jimworcs]

Absolutely.. you are correct. It must have been a nightmare. It is too late probably now, but I do think for the benefit of others in this situation it is far better to get the agent involved, especially for RTW tickets. These tickets have special rules and many airline employees simply parrot the rules for normal, non refundable tickets without any understanding of the nature of RTW tickets. Flight Centre in the UK are specialists in RTW tickets, and I expect they are the same in Australia, so it may have been that they could sort something out for you. You were also unfortunate that this event occurred in the US. Sales of RTW tickets are far more common in the UK and Australia where the RTW, back-packer experience is prevalant and gap years are common. In the US, this is much less common and they are less experienced at dealing with these types of events.