Originally Posted by
JacobP
Thanks for the reply John! Haven't found anyone having any success with the Jordanian travel agency route, though I'm looking into it. I do have a follow up question regarding this:
How exactly does this work? I thought the pricing was all based on segments/continents visited, so wouldn't changing that drastically run into similar problems? Or do you just mean once I have a ticket booked the oneworld people will let me add segments and reprice it with just the 125 change fee? Because if so, that does sound like a good deal. Thanks again!
Once you decide you want e.g. an AONE3 you can plan and book as simple a route as you wish. Then after you have flown at least one segment* your price is locked and you can change anything you want within the normal rules, and the cost will be $125 plus any additional taxes and fees that the added segments incur.
*I think "any" segment does the deed, but if it matters in your case, you should make sure (e.g. by asking here) that it's not the "first international/intercontinental segment".
The $125 is the handling fee for re-issuing a changed ticket, no matter how many changes. But if you make more changes another time, you'll pay it again. Changes that don't involve routing are always nominally free, although in the past some airlines have found ways to 'monetize' such events.
These days it seems that your changes will have to be made by the airline that issued your original ticket. I don't think that's a written rule, just general policy, and if your ticket is issued by AA, you'll be in good hands anyway.
[Aside, given the incredible service I got from AA's South African presence* a few months ago - highly professional, even priced the ticket in-house when they got tired of waiting for the rate desk, and certainly took a c/c over the phone - if no better alternative comes to hand I'd give them a call and see if they would do the ex-AMM. Downside is no email, 9-6 weekday hours.]
*they answer "American Airlines"; I don't know their formal relationship. When they issue a ticket it does show up on aa.com quickly.
You do want to make sure that your basic 'starter' route gets you out of AMM on RJ going the direction you intend to travel; my very uninformed guess is that if you haven't left the starting region (Europe/Middle East) you could actually change direction from east to west, but I suppose no one has actually tried that.
I also believe that you can add an additional continent later, for the difference in pricing between the two levels that was in effect when you bought the original ticket. That's also uninformed on my part, and probably seldom done. And once when I considered it, the AAgent's opinion was that I'd have to pay the current delta price, not the 'legacy' one.