Originally Posted by
ernestnywang
A segment is first booked before it can possibly be attached to a ticket, and only the ticket has a fare basis. Technology is evolving, and maybe there are things I don't know, but it doesn't make sense to me how such restriction can be put in place. You create the PNR first before pricing it as xONEx or something else. How can the computer know which fare you will price the PNR in advance at the availability display stage. There are also cases (though very rare I imagine) where people change an xONEx to a regular round-trip or one-way itinerary or vice versa.
I believe it's all just a combination of Married Segment Control (MSC), Point of Sale (PoS), and Point of Commencement (PoC).
Excellent questions, which unfortunately I don't have the knowledge to answer. When I've booked RTWs, the booking agent sets it up as an RTW. The AA RTW desk first puts in some basic information which identifies it as a RTW fare. JL agents take a lot of information down by hand first, then create the record. (I can't recall the process when QR or MH booked them.) It's possible that in some cases the airline has a front-end that establishes the type of fare first, and in others the segments would initially show confirmed but after type of fare is established they'd come back unconfirmed. I'd be very interested in knowing more about the process.