Problems with AA's pricing on a DONE3 ticket
 

I am buying a DONE3 ticket that strarts and ends in Amman, Jordan. The base fare according to One World's website in JD is 4,400. I live in Canada and I will purchase this ticket in Canadian dollars. AA has quoted me a fare of USD 9,100, with taxes for this ticket. At the current exchange rate this ticket should be approximately US$6,300 plus taxes. I asked AA why I have been quoted in USD and not Canadian dollars, they said to call again in 24 hours. I am now quoted a fare of $9,700 Canadian dollars, on a base fare of JD 6,1??. I have asked them to look into this, since the base fare shown on OW.com is JD 4,400. They are telling me to check back in 24 hours.

Wondering, if this kind of confusion is normal when booking/pricing a rtw ticket? Is there anything I did wrong? (I did tell the agent I reside in Canada and I would like to purchase my ticket from Canada.) Or, is this just a bit of bad luck I need to deal with.

I am learning about booking/ticketing process for a rtw ticket.

Well, the manner in which you book and purchase your ticket can make a huge difference. I always book on the phone with the AA RTW desk, 800-247-3247 from the US. Tell them that the itinerary is starting in AMM, and that you want it fared in Jordanian currency converted to Candian dollars for pickup in Canada. You will have no problem.

This is a two step process. I.e., after you make the rezzy, they send the itinerary off to the faring people in Dublin. They fare the itinerary and set it up for ticketing. It's much easier to have it done the way you want it the first time than it is to have it fixed or changed later.

Thank you, DR HFH. I did call AA's rtw desk to make the reservation, and I had told them that I wanted to purchase my ticket in Canada, in Canadian dollars. I'll see what they come back with tomorrow.

Just wondering given this problem, how can I check if the taxes are being charged correctly? Is there a webiste I can refer to to check what the taxes are for each flight segment.

IIRC the OW tool should give you the taxes. Maybe they are giving you the price for purchasing in Canada.

I advise that all money conversations between you and the AA RTW desk be in regard to Jordanian currency.

At the point of actual purchase ---- when presumably there are no remaining disagreements/misunderstandings regarding the all-in JD total ---- should the all-in total of JD be converted into Canadian dollars.

Are you unable to price the itinerary (and all taxes) in JD on the OW Tool? ime, the only discrepancy should be the YQ (and AA will hopefully be charging significantly less YQ than BA or whatever other airline the tool assigns to price the online ticket....)

Sure, happy to help. I've never used the online tool, only the RTW desk. When you told them that you wanted to purchase in Canada with Canadian dollars, did you specifically ask them for the ex-Jordan price? If you didn't, you'll want to check that and get it re-priced before you buy. Don't know the details about the taxes, as I've never checked. Good luck.

Thanks for the additional comments


Yes, when I first made the reservation I told AA I'd like to purchase in CAD on the ex Jordan price. For whatever reasons AA quoted the fare to me in USD. WHen I asked them to quote in CAD, the JO price that they are using is just over JO 6100 plus taxes. When I asked AA how they got this airfare, they couldn't answer my question. On OW.com the fare for this ticket is JO 4400. They did say they'd look into this and will have some sort of answer by tomorrow.

I have spent the last hour on OW.com to try to book the itinerary and get a fare that includes taxes. Everytime I click book now, the screen just goes back to the itinerary planner page and I don't get any fare/tax information. :( This has happened to me five times. I even saved the itinerary on OW.com and then logged in again to see if I could get any fare information, the exact same thing happened. :mad:
I am getting no where with OW.com. The reason why I called AA to book in the first place is because I wanted to purchase the ticket with open segments.

Hoping this will be resolved tomorrow for once and for all.

An update, in case anybody is interested. Spoke to AA today, had the exact same conversation with them as yesterday. Told to check back again over the weekend. In short, no progress. Not happy about this. :(

Unfortunately the AA RTW desk has evidently had some staff turnover and some agents may not know all the ins and outs as well as people in the past.

Note that AA-ticketed RTWs are priced by the tariff people in Dublin, so don't expect the RTW desk people to be fluent on pricing in various countries. Not their job.

Is there some reason you don't want to use the online tool? Presumably it would give you a satisfactory price. FWIW, RTWs issued on RJ stock are actually priced by AA.

Otherwise, try calling back, have a copy of the rules in front of you and specify that you want the ticket issued ex-AMM and carrying the Jordan price, and also be able to cite the section in the rules where it mentions the "Canada exception."

Meant to add, the online tool can be exasperating, and a few days ago it was offline altogether IIRC. I also know that it sometimes doesn't seem to work well, or at all, with Firefox. If you're using IE, be sure to clear your cache and cookies before starting over.

Best of luck.

I'm in a similar situation, sort of. I am buying a LONE5 ticket originating in Ecuador. When I talked to AA RTW desk yesterday, the person I spoke with insisted that to get the Ecuador ticket price ($3900 vs. $5100 USD buying in the US) I had to physically purchase the ticket in Ecuador. I'm new to this, but that didn't seem right to me so I tried to ask in different ways of how I could do this over the phone. She was pretty insistent that I had to buy it at an AA ticket counter in Ecuador, and she wasn't interested in figuring out any other way to do it. She almost acted as if I was "cheating the system" by doing it this way, instead of paying the US price.

So... I agree that they might be quoting you the Canadian price. If it happens again, maybe tell them you want to purchase the ticket in Jordan!?

Regarding the online tool... when I first started using it (2-3 weeks ago), I also couldn't get anywhere with the "Book Now" button. But for some reason within the last week it's started working for me. I've changed my itinerary a bunch so maybe it has something to do with that.

At this point I could buy my ticket online with the OW tool. But I'm a little hesitant, because I want to see what price AA comes up with after taxes to compare it to the online tool results. Maybe it'll be the same price, but I really have no idea, and I'd like to go with whatever is cheaper. Also I'm pretty sure if I book online it will be with LAN, but it sounds like AA is easier to contact during the trip for making changes (although I'm starting to doubt their customer service in light of our current problems booking tickets).

Anyway, I'm not sure this helps you at all, just another data point.

The canada situation is different as there is a rule that allows for purchase in the country of origin or Canada. There is no similar rule for Ecuador so you have to either purchase your xonex using the online tool or in Ecuador as the agent told you. Purchasing in Ecuador would include you finding a friendly travel agent that will issue the ticket for you over the phone or by wire transferring funds. You may have some trouble in that regard.

oooh... I see. Well then I guess the AA rep wasn't rude, just telling the truth! Okay then, I'll have to decide if it's worth trouble to buy in Ecuador (or find a way over the phone) vs. using the tool. We'll see - if AA comes back with a much better price (>$100 lower) then I'll consider it.

startpacking - I just remembered! I think the problem I had with the OW "Book Now" was that my Firefox browser was blocking pop-ups. It wasn't obvious at first, but at some point I figured that out and that *might* be why it's working for me now. Good luck!

Wait a minute. The "Canada Excpetion" allows you to purchase your ticket in the country of origin of your first flight or Canada. If you purchase in Canada, you purchase it at the price of the country of origin converted to Canadian dollars, not at the Canadian price. I haven't seen any rule which excepts ex-Jordan tickets from the Canadian exception.

I expect the ticket will be cheaper if issued by LAN. AA only charges fuel surcharges on their on coded flights, but LAN doesn't charge any fuel surcharges at all (as far as I know).

AA will probably be easier to contact for changes, but for most changes you can just contact the operating airline anyway.

What a minute yourself. I never said anything about which price would be applied. I was just answering allona's question/concern about how the AA rtw desk told her/him the he/she couldn't buy her ex-Ecuador xonex over the phone or in the US. He/she can't, but the OP can purchase a rtw beginning in one country(Jordan) in another country(Canada) because of the exception. Where did I say anything about the price to be charged?

Can anyone add weight to this suggestion about LAN? It would be news (welcome news) to me!

In that case I wonder if they would hit you up with the local sales tax (19% in Peru).

Ha ha, don't worry, it's "she".

Looks like in my case the tickets will be cheaper with LAN using the online booking tool. Just got off the phone with AA and they quoted $5059 USD pp for the ex-Ecuador LONE5, whereas the online booking tool (which should ticket me with LAN) quoted me at $4750 USD pp.

The online tool definitely shows Ecuador sales tax, 12%, but I have no idea what AA is charging because they won't give me a breakdown of the taxes/fees.

startpacking - sorry to hijack your thread! Any updates?

Has anyone got an ex-S America ticket priced up for purchase in Canada? Since Canada is the point of sale I don't see how it could be liable to the sales tax in the S American country so presumably this would save quite a bit of money in many cases.

(The same would apply for the "luxury tax" on non-economy tickets ex-India if that still exists.)

Easy, there, Jerry. What you said was:

Doesn't the Canada Exception allow pax to purchase the ticket in Ecuador or Canada (at the ex-Ecuador price concerted to CAD)? Use of the Canada Exception does not require the online tool, -- I have purchased tix for rezzies made with the AA RTW desk this way.

Thanks for the additional comments. I haven't tried the online tool again. I will try the tool to see if I can get a price online for my itinerary.

I did speak to AA again today. They have now adjusted the base price to JO 4400, but now I'm being charged a little more (CAD~$150) in taxes. Not sure why. I'd be interested to know what the online quote for taxes are. I will tackle the online tool later today, and report back, in case some of you are interested.

alonna, no need to apoligize. I do hope you are able to get your ticket worked out. Why don't you ask AA what the base fare is? From that you can determine the price/cost of the taxes and fees. If you don't get a helpful agent call back and ask again. The agent I spoke to today was terrible, he couldn't answer alot of my questions and told me to call back on Monday.

There is a staffing problem at the rtw desk, a few agents are fantastic and know the rules/ins and outs of the product. Sadly, some of the agents aren't familiar with the product. I do wonder if the agent gets some commission to ticket a rtw ticket. The last two agents I have spoken to have been too eager to issue the ticket but niether could answer my questions properly.

The RTW desk aagents are regular AA employees, and not commissioned. However, aagents who don't know all the rules can only help you. If they make a mistake which works against you, just quote them the section and exact wording of the rule (which you can find here) which allows you to do what you're trying to do. If they make a mistake which helps you, then just keep quiet and hope that Dublin doesn't catch the mistake. It happens more often than you'd think.

When the on-line tool first became available, I played around with it. One thing I tried was xONEx's starting in AKL - with either QF or LA as the first carrier (first segment being either AKL-SCL or AKL-SYD).

With LA as the first carrier, there was NO YQ (whereas with QF there was lots and lots of YQ!).

I never went as far as ticketing, since I was only playing with the new toy:)

IIRC, the Indian luxury is applied to all tickets that originate in India, no matter where purchased.

Maybe it's the same rule in Ecuador?

I'd said earlier I'd post back once I have a chance to check the fare on ow.com. I did check the fare, but the website is quoting me in USD. The price AA is quoting me is in CAD. It is impossible to know which quote is better, since there are quoted in two different currencies. When I check exchange rates on www.xe.com I get the a difference of ~$40 (CAD), so there isn't a significant difference between the two prices.

.....

My understanding is that these ticket taxes eg Peru,Argentina,Colombia and Ecuador are levied regardless of where the ticket is issued. The tax is on any ticket that originates from these countries. Chile and Brasil do not levy a ticket tax and have the same pricing as the other South American countries.

so the OW tool is giving you almost the same price as AA? strange given the price difference ex-AMM, even with YQs (unless you're travelling a lot on longhauls with BA, RJ, QF, IB, MX).

[QUOTE=startpacking;13099898] I did check the fare, but the website is quoting me in USD. QUOTE]

The online tool provides a detailed listing of every tax, airport charge, fuel surcharge (YQ), etc.. For some tickets It's worth studying this breakdown closely, because excessive YQ can be moderated, depending on which airline issues the ticket. However, if you like the all-in price that the online tool is showing, I can't fathom a reason to not purchase the ticket there.....

[QUOTE=jbalmuth;13101792]Aren't I better off buying the ticket from AA only because I will be paying in CAD. If I buy the ticket online it will be priced in USD, and every time I have used AA.com to buy tickets in USD AA has changed the currency and billed my cc in CAD. Would OW.com also do the same thing and bill me in CAD? Or, is there some way to change the currency to CAD on OW.com?