I'm not really seeing better via at least AMEX Travel as an agent. I booked a relatively complicated European itinerary last Thursday and it took 20 hours to ticket. Multiple calls to AMEX did not resolve it; it just did on its own. Compared to instant ticketing on US, this feels like a step back in time.

What happens if you book, say, a last minute ticket for a flight two hours in the future in this case? I ask because I sometimes actually do that.