Originally Posted by Voyager0927
I had the opposite experience a year and a half ago when I tried to switch between a delayed UA flight and a US flight out of DEN. US couldn't get me on their flight until I had gotten my ticket released by UA, then brought the receipt with the ticket number and other pertinent data back to US. I thought that with the Star Alliance their computers would be linked but I guess I was wrong. I was very familiar with the underground train at DEN by the time that episode was over.
There was a posting on this subject over at airliners.net earlier. Apparently not all the airlines in the same alliance use the same ticketing systems (i.e. sabre vs amadeus for example) so they simply can not see the e-ticket. In which case a paper ticket is easier to deal with for the agent trying to make changes on a ticket issued by another carrier.