<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by FewMiles:
(potentially stupid question) For those travelling on crazy 30+ segment OWEs, can you just issue, say the first 15 segments, and leave the last as "open", and then after the first 8 are flown, you can book the next 8, such that you keep under the "system maximum" of 16 coupons at all times?
FewMiles.. </font>
To solve matters such as they ones you post... I normally do a 6 cont ticket touching only the very basics of each continent. As long as the ticket is under 24 segments SABRE agencies can issue the ticket (but not AA themselves). More often than not (me included) the routing will change later on... so might as well pay the change fee and get a longer ticket later on.
The main problems these days regarding agents who issue tix by hand are that they are way too lazy to put in all the taxes on EVERY book of ticket making up the entire itinerary. This rampant problem has been compared with the various CX, BA, QF and LH (as in Star tickets)ticket agencies around the world when they are given a ticket by a passenger (hand written) and they have no idea what taxes have been paid or what.
With security surcharges counted as tax these days, the fare calculation boxes are getting tighter and tighter and soon check-in agents and ticketing agents need magnifying glasses to see what has been paid and what has to be collected.
E-ticket cannot take over. Paper tickets are here to stay and there should some sort of technology that should embed some sort of smart chip on a ticket that shows all the taxes!
Saves the comment.."Are you sure I didn't pay for it? I paid for it already!"