Originally Posted by checkerboard
There is an older trick to force the machine to print long itineraries, though IIRC, it was only possible with BA/QF/AY/IB (the Amadeus based carriers):
First they'd issue the first half (or 15-segments) of the itinerery, then an open-return to origin. The taxes would calculate only for the 16-segments included on the ticket.
Then, they'd exchange the last coupon (coupon 16) for the remaining five flights (or twelve, as was my case before the 20-segment limit was introduced). The additional taxes would be listed as an ADD/COLLECT.
It's a slight pain the ... to calcualte all the taxes twice, but it's a lot less trouble than writing coupons by hand.
Not sure if this will work with Sabre though.
Neat. The GSA did talk about trying to issue it as two tickets. Hmm. I very much doubt that they'll go for it though unless someone from AA walks them through it - i.e. approves it. They have essentially no authority locally.
I guess the steps would be to ask the AA rtw desk if this might work and be considered OK. If so then the GSA here would probably need to bounce a message through describing the process and seeking approval.
I'm tempted if only to see if it works, but time may be too tight to try this.
Originally Posted by checkerboard
Why don't you ticket the thing through AA or CX in Pakistan? Maybe its a bit more expensive on the tax-front, but it will certainly be a lot less trouble.
Good luck,
I initially tried to ticket through CX but they insisted that the Sept 1st fare rise (over $500) came in from Aug 1st (this was last week) and I was having routing approval oddities. I then went to BA who initially quoted the correct fare but were then (a) pathologically unable to actually quote me at all with the thing bouncing between London and Pakistan and (b) insisted that hkg-nyc-sfo was two transcons and (c) wanted to charge me the post 1st Sept price anyway as I'm [maybe
] leaving Sept 4th.
Currently the AA rtw desk seem to be happy, as is the GSA, to have ticketed what is lodged in the system which is c. 15% cheaper than I'd get from CX. Oddly Dublin AA quoted a base fare half way between the old and new fare as I understood it. Go figure. Basically weird things happen in far flung places.
Now that it's heading into another day later I think I'm probably going to have to re-align on the new prices. So I may very well try and ticket with CX at the airport if they can issue more smoothly.
The bizzare idea I'm going to try now is to ask the AA rtw desk if they can just pull four segments (which will leave a valid 16 segment itin) without a reprice (given that the new itin is a subset). That would then be ticketable by the GSA. Shot in the dark but interested in seeing if it flies to just overpay taxes (knowing you'll use the buffer when you reissue).