The folks in the US Airways CTO in JAX downtown at Jacksonville Landing used to help me take segment runs... a whiz at fare rules and building itineraries. Why fly JAX-PHL when you can fly JAX-CLT-RDU-DCA-PHL?

Or planning a complicated family vacation using mix of paid and mileage tickets for different people with different origins... A half hour at the CTO and you could get accomplished what would take hours (at the time, and even if possible) on the website. Elite desk phone agents are great but when the agent is across from you and turns the screen to show you or ask to double check dates/times/etc, you just can't beat that.

Some airlines such as Spirit actually have CTOs operating in Central America (I'm pretty sure AA does too). This is due to the significant amount of tickets paid with cash. I know Spirit has one in Managua. It's either that one or a country nearby where the address actually references the desk is in the AA CTO.

I used to collect them. Whenever I flew in the 2000s I'd pick one up and add it to my collection. It was a casualty of one of my moves or another. Back when I relied on things like boarding passes, printed itineraries and the occasional voucher it was a nice thing to have. Now it's just nostalgia.

https://photos.smugmug.com/Travel/Fl...I%20Roll-L.jpg

Here's a pic I found of one of my old ones in action back in 2006.