Personally I always keep the reservations and ticketing as separate as possible. Only the first segment is ever linked to the ticketing and I get that reserved by whoever is going to issue the ticket, which is otherwise issued "OPEN". All the other reservations (and seat reservations) I just make separately (generally over multiple records) through a friendly travel agent.

I never see any value in tying the reservations and the tickets together.

Of course, for this to work you need a friendly travel agent, or a login to one of the online booking systems (I am more or less at this stage now - I can just get my friend to check the bookings I make myself from home).

Of course with the new rules this may be a bit trickier to do in Economy, but it's never been a problem for me in business or first.

[This message has been edited by christep (edited 09-03-2003).]