Originally Posted by
hillrider
My understanding is that Switzerland is not part of the ECAA but has a separate bilateral integration agreement with the EU (as do Norway and Iceland); for this purpose the distinction may not matter.
After reading your comment I read the ECAA agreement and, indeed, Switzerland is not part of it, to the contrary of what I assumed in the first place. Switzerland has a bilateral agreement that makes the country equivalent to an ECAA member, but from a legal point of view Switzerland is not a member of the ECAA.
Therefore I'll try to deal with AA UK directly and see whether they accept foreign credit cards on the phone. If they don't, do you know if AA Germany or Italy or France do? I could ask them to issue the ticket, given that the ECAA exception in this case should apply.