Originally Posted by christep
Only if the ticket was actually issued -
That is the official rule. Some travel agents are quite adept at backdating transactions to circumvent this rule, but there is only a day or 2 leeway so time is of the essence. But of course you are absolutely correct, and I have no idea how some TAs manage to do the backdating but I've seen it done (and in this case would save 20% of the fare).