DONE advice needed...
 

Posted this in the long thread, but figured I should probably actually start one...

I'm trying to book a DONE ticket for a July 22nd departure from BOS to LHR on BA. I'm booking this through a travel agent locally as I didn't feel like dealing with the hassle. As some of you have noted, the BA desk seems to be pretty slow, and they still haven't gotten back to my agent about pricing, etc, so I can actually pay for it. Should I..

1) Keep waiting?

2) call the desk myself?

3) Go with AA? (I'd rather not fly AA...)

My concern is that the flying date is approaching, and I'm running out of time just waiting for some sort of answer.

You don't need (and don't want) BA to get back to you. It is much better to deal with the AA RTW desk but actually fly BA to LHR. This way you will also save about $1000 in taxes. As long as you have some other AA flights in there AA will issue the ticket.

So tell your TA to ticket through AA and not BA.

It is not the carrier of the first flight who has to issue the ticket.

If you are planning to finish the RTW trip in BOS, you undoubtedly have at least one AA flight in the itinerary. Have your agency ticket it on AA....I expect that you'll end up with a considerable savings.

Hmm, so the TA is mistaken. Good to know, thanks!

Mistaken in regards to what? The TA can ticket on BA and if they do you have to wait for BA to get back to you. You will need to tell your TA that you want the ticket issued on another carrier's (=AA) stock.

Called the AA desk to ask about it. They said they will not issue a ticket if I'm not flying "over the water" with AA METAL (codeshare not good enough -- so the CX flight doesn't count). So if I fly BA to LHR and then CX back to JFK, AA won't issue said ticket.

I'll have to fly AA to LHR. Not a big deal, but interesting to know. I specifically mentioned I will be flying on AA code and also domestically on AA to get to BOS from HKG, but they said that isn't good enough and the desk won't issue the ticket that way.

If you ticket with a TA they will still issue a ticket without a AA ocean segment anyway. Has happened to me in the past quite frequently.